MORGANTOWN – Consecutive meetings about the impact of a planned power line through the region drew a small but angry crowd Tuesday night to Morgantown Community Church.

East Kentucky Power Cooperative plans to build a new 161-kilovolt power line through Barren, Butler, Ohio and Warren counties, connecting Warren Rural Electric Cooperative Corp.’s 56,000 customers with EKP’s power plant. About 50 miles of the 97.55-mile line overlaps existing rights of way.

About two dozen people showed up for the first of two meetings Tuesday, with maybe 10 staying for the second.

Butler County landowners Doris and Carroll Tichenor said the planned route will pass very close to several historic and archaeological sites on and around their land.

They and attorney Robert Griffin argued hearings on the archaeological impact should have been held at the beginning of the site selection process, not when a preferred route was already chosen.

&#8220East Kentucky Power wants to manage the public, but not listen to what it has to say,” Griffin said.

Nick Comer, spokesman for EKP, said seven open houses along all 97 miles of the proposed route were held in the spring, and that property owners – some of whom attended those meetings – then had an opportunity to notify EKP of such sites.

The least costly route, in economic, land-use and cultural impact effect, was carefully plotted to affect the fewest landowners, said Joe Settles, natural resources supervisor for EKP.

&#8220I’m very sorry that no one here agrees with the methodology, but there are a thousand people along the (U.S.) 231 corridor who think it worked very well,” he said.

Emily Perkins Sharp of northwestern Warren County said the proposed line would come down the driveway of the house her family has occupied for 160 years, leaving a &#8220150-foot-wide, approximately mile-long scar” past historic Keystone Quarry and immediately past her house, and take almost all of their Russellville Road frontage.

&#8220I think an adjustment has been made on their property to move it away from some of the dwellings on their property, so some mitigation steps have already been taken there,” Comer said this morning.

The line will be built in stages, starting this spring with some of the existing right of way, he said. It should be complete in early 2008.

Warren RECC announced last year it intended to end its decades of power purchases from the Tennessee Valley Authority in 2008, and switch to a 33-year contract with East Kentucky Power. It asked to use TVA’s lines to carry East Kentucky Power’s electricity, but TVA refused, so in July East Kentucky Power applied to build a new line, affecting about 400 landowners along its route.

Owners of the land along two sections of the planned line – the Wilson-Aberdeen section through about 25 miles of Ohio and Butler counties, and Memphis Junction-Aberdeen through 27.5 miles of Butler and Warren counties – were asked for information on archaeological and cultural sites along the way.

Written comments on archaeological and cultural sites along the planned route are still being taken, and should be submitted as soon as possible to: Joe Settles, natural resources supervisor, East Kentucky Power Cooperative, 4775 Winchester Road, Winchester, KY 40391; or e-mailed to joe.settles@ekpc.coop.