PERRY COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) \u2014 When Don Halke rattles the feed bucket on his Perry County farm, the sheep come running. But lately, he senses a wolf with a voracious appetite for power.<\/p>\n
Two electrical towers stand just over the hill in front of his property. They\u2019re out of sight, out of mind. But then he got a letter from PPL Electric Utilities saying it\u2019s adding a 500,000-volt line that he estimates will come down the hill.<\/p>\n
Close<\/a><\/p>\n Thanks for signing up!<\/p>\n Watch for us in your inbox.<\/p>\n Subscribe Now<\/p>\n \u201cThis will be terrible,\u201d Halke said.<\/p>\n In a statement, PPL said it\u2019s \u201cexpecting its peak electric demand to double over the next five to six years \u2014 growth that took over a century to reach.\u201d<\/p>\n A PPL employee who emailed Halke said \u201cour primary goal is to reach a voluntary agreement through transparency and fair compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n But Halke said he can\u2019t put a price on his health. He\u2019s asking questions, like how will living near a high-power transmission line affect his double pacemaker? He said he\u2019s been told it\u2019ll generally be OK.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you go down that rabbit hole on the World Wide Web, generally means a lot of different things,\u201d he said. \u201cAll of them not good.\u201d<\/p>\n Halk said he\u2019s not getting a straight answer on when construction will begin for the line. He\u2019s heard a year and a half. He\u2019s heard a couple of years.<\/p>\n