Move your homes, peasants. Not because they pose a problem, but because we've found that you are in violation of a technicality of our regulatory regime.
This has GOT to stop. And it WILL NOT stop until we MAKE it stop.
Missouri residents upset by regulatory order to move lake homesCAMDENTON, Mo. (AP) — Nearly every year, Patsy Riley has gotten unsolicited offers for her house on Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks with its spectacular views of tree-lined bluffs and its ample shoreline, but she never wanted to leave. Now, she and hundreds of her neighbors wonder what will become of their homes after a federal agency declared that many structures built close to the lake may have to go.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, citing restrictions on private developments around dams, says thousands of residences, decks, patios and boathouses appear to encroach on land belonging to the hydroelectric project in violation of federal regulations.
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The dispute pits the government's rules for hydroelectric projects against the potential vagaries of land records and
private transactions that go back more than 80 years. Riley and other property owners say they have legal deeds to their land that permitted construction. The agency says it has regulations protecting the lake's recreation, scenery and environment against development.<snip>
The problem with the lakefront property arose when Ameren Missouri, the power company that owns the project, applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a new 40-year license to operate the dam.
A required shoreline plan noted that some structures had been built over time on some of the utility's property for the dam, in many cases when Union Electric Co., an earlier form of Ameren, was the owner. How the property was sold was not clear. But the utility had no problem with many of the structures.FERC objected, however.
"In the majority of cases, the existing non-conforming structure/encroachment should be removed in a timely manner and the site restored to its pre-existing conditions," the agency's ruling last summer said. For hardship cases, regulators said Ameren could propose allowing some homes to remain temporarily or could seek an adjustment in the property's boundaries.
Homeowners say the ruling leaves their property worthless.
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The utility has proposed shifting the project's property boundaries to get many of the residences out of danger.
"It is difficult to understand how this collective drain on socioeconomics resources in this region — financial and otherwise — is justifiable, especially given current economic and housing market conditions," Ameren officials said in a brief filed recently with the federal agency.
A FERC spokeswoman declined to comment to The Associated Press. Previously, the agency told The Kansas City Star in a written statement that "FERC's role is to ensure that the licensee is following the terms of the license, and approve shoreline management plans. It is the responsibility of the licensee to carry out the terms and conditions of the license, including shoreline management plan."
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"We're basically sitting on an investment that you can't sell. It doesn't have any value," Hulett said.
"It's an awful lot of uncertainty."
