Petition to our elected representatives serving in Pennington County and Pierre, SD.

We, the residents and property owners of Ponderosa Ridge in Pennington County, SD have not been adequately consulted on the costs that Black Hills Power (BHP) expects us to bear for their proposed Tekla-Osage-Rapid City Transmission Line which crosses our neighborhood.

BHP has failed to solicit and adequately consider our input on the location of the transmission line as it affects our health, our community and our property.

BHP represents that they have satisfied the letter of the law regarding notifications, yet some property owners have not received notification and required Pennington County Government input was not presented at the PUC permit hearing. Further, notification of the final proposed alignment was performed in a way that avoided open public involvement: the new alignment was only available upon detailed examination of PUC/BHP correspondence four weeks prior to the PUC permit hearing and approved. This alignment is not even presented in the Final Environmental Impact Statement published after the PUC permit issuance.

The location of the transmission line bisects the community on Ponderosa Ridge, needlessly traverses a public right of way (Sun Ridge Road), and crosses the front yards of small residential parcels adjacent to the National Forest. The result is fragmented and undevelopable, or at best marginally developable, lots.

Without consent or approval, we are unfairly expected to bear the costs of:

· the devaluation of rural residential land and residences due to the proposed presence of the transmission line in the midst of residential development.

· loss of rural access to the National Forest by the construction of the industrial corridor and its documented health endangering electric fields at the nearest BHNF access point near Rapid City.

· devaluation of neighboring land not directly crossed by the transmission line by the loss in value of land that is crossed that will be used for comparables in property valuation.

BHP has been unresponsive to our desires. They have not responded to calls. They have not responded to repeated engineering proposals that have been submitted recommending a suitable alternative alignment.

We the undersigned residents of Ponderosa Ridge in Pennington County therefore implore our elected representatives; that you bring our represented power to bear to

1.Declare that the alignment identified as 10/3/2014 Final Route (page 2/15) results in undue interference to orderly development in the Ponderosa Ridge project area without having obtained any input from Pennington County on this interference,

2. Compel BHP to justify why bisecting our community and passing the power line across front yards is preferred to an nearby alternate alignment that is

a)hundreds of feet from existing development or line of sight of public thoroughfare

b)barely visible to existing and proposed residential development, and

c)avoids encumbering and detracting from the nearest Rapid City portal to the BHNF,

3. Require proper valuation of costs for loss of aesthetic value, decrease in property value, impairment to recreational enjoyment and potential health endangerment; and provide fair compensation to all the impacted parties, and

4. Compel BHP to demonstrate why the proposed alternative is justified based on properly assessed and defined public costs.