Several individuals approaching the podium at last week’s Swain County Commission meeting addressed the Duke Energy planned transmission line route and Almond substation along Needmore Road, which, as the most invasive choice, will affect the properties of between 40-45 families.
Impacted residents have largely felt blindsided by the project. Many recount no notice of a September 2025 Duke Energy meeting informing the community of its intentions. Commissioners were similarly briefed in June 2025, but in the weeks and months following, communication was absent from either side.
Furthermore, the route itself depends on a 2001 supplemental right of way for a transmission line easement crossing the Needmore game lands buried in the register of deeds archives. According to Needmore Neighbors, the group formed to advocate for resident interests, the power company has not upheld its word to provide alternate route environmental studies or analysis.
But despite commenters’ impassioned arguments, Duke Energy’s case appeared strong because utilities providers — able to plan out projects for years without a word to affected property owners — are prioritized by the judicial system in North Carolina.
For example, the supplemental document tacked on an east-to-west transmission easement, which one resident described as “invalid” — and as the source of a formal complaint to the North Carolina Utilities Commission.
However, the document was signed by both parties. So, unless Duke Energy knowingly misled Crescent Resources as to the scope of the easement — highly improbable given its presence on maps attached to the document — it would likely be supported by the law.
That Duke Energy filed its supplemental right of way for the transmission line easement crossing the Needmore game lands in 2001 was a point of contention for several speakers.
A clause called abandonment was referenced in connection to the idea that if an easement is not constructed within 20 years of its procurement, the utility company is subject to re-approval. But easements do not expire in North Carolina unless such a clause was specified within the right-of-way document.
County commissioners were then urged to enact a moratorium, which is not unprecedented in such an instance. When Duke was considering building a substation next to the Cherokee mother town of Kituwah in 2010, commissioners issued a 90-day pause on construction, and the company eventually went with another location. But that situation called for relocating a substation, not an easement, involved Duke’s encroachment on sacred cultural territory and generated the opposition of three sovereign nations. High-level political support through inter-tribal coalition-building across state lines drove the ensuing moratorium.
“Just because [the chosen route] costs [Duke] less money does not mean they should have the right through eminent domain to come and take people’s property,” said Needmore Neighbors co-organizer Rena Coleman.
Most would likely agree with her, especially as Duke Energy made nearly $5 billion in profit in 2025 and CEO Harry Sideris’ total compensation came out at almost $13.6 million. But easement law isn’t about an individual, moral or ethical code of right and wrong.
According to North Carolina Litigation Attorney Ryal W. Tayloe, “Easement disputes are highly fact-dependent and are primarily governed by the language of the easement agreement and the rights and limitations that it provides.”So, attorneys encourage property owners to consult counsel by way of maximizing compensation and defining easement scope and limitations.
“The solution is going to be litigation,” said County Manager Tommy Dills before meeting adjournment. Though what is defined as a solution — what litigation could achieve — remains the ultimate question.