youtube power battle
tommyThe Tampa Electric Company (TECO) needs a new transmission line out in Seffner.
YouTube user JoyIng1 posted a video with concerns for the environment:
Tampa Electric Company plans to clearcut wetlands with bald eagle nest for high voltage transmission corridor in Hillsborough County, Florida.
None of this is a big deal - people post videos and write blogs about a million different things. But this time, TECO responded with their own video.
Wlongstr says he is a manager, and lists his website as tecoenergy.com. Two days after JoyIng1 put her vdieo on the YouTube, wlongstr posted his own video:
Tampa Electric’s Willow Oak-Davis transmission line is one of the company’s major projects needed to support reliability in Florida. With growth in the area, it has become impossible to locate a power line in a way that makes everyone happy. Here, one of TECO’s environmental engineers explains how Tampa Electric uses feedback from the public and other criteria to decide where lines should go.
Pretty interesting to see corporations reaching out to address individual criticisms.
Loading ...
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:46 pm
I can’t say I’m a major fan of TECO as an entity, but I know a couple of pretty cool people who work there. You make a good point that it’s interesting to see corporations addressing individual criticisms. To me, it’s a testament the power of YouTube. Joy Ingram did a great piece of activist community journalism and commentary in her YouTube piece. She called TECO out in a very intelligent and compelling way. She was very careful to acknowledge our need for electricity. She’s not trying to block a new power line, just reroute it in a more responsible, less destructive direction. (On Rob Lorei’s show today and she said she didn’t want to sound like a tree-hugger.)
I thought it was interesting that David Somebody (Lukcic?) aka wlongstar, a manager in TECO’s environmental division, did not address Joy’s specific questions and suggestion to reroute the powerline along a major traffic corridor instead of an environmentally sensitive eagle nesting area. He did explain, with just the teensiest edge of condescending ire, that they take into account three things: impact on housing, environmental sensitivity and cost–and that they totally listen to and care what people have to say in public hearings. His statement had all the earmarks of a media release “public statement” on the issue. On Rob’s show today, Joy and her partner in this push, Susan Watson, implied the public hearings were disingenuous in their professed intent at best and that TECO obviously had never seriously considered alternative routes. While TECO may be following the letter of the law, they do seem to be taking the path of least resistance and expense in this case. David wlonstar was patting us on the head and telling us they care what we think, but they’ve already decided that this is the cheapest alternative that will piss off the fewest people. The only thing that will make them reconsider is public opposition in hard numbers. Last I looked, Joy’s video had logged over 1,000 views, and TECO’s press release had logged around 600. The more times her Youtube thing gets viewed, the more seriously TECO is forced to take her ideas.