Manitoba Hydro says it may have no choice but to expropriate some rural land to make way for it's Bipole III transmission line.

When the route for the controversial high-voltage line running along the west side of the province was announced in July, Hydro president and CEO Bob Brennan said no land would be expropriated. Instead, the utility would offer fair market value to, in effect, "lease" land for the massive power line.

However, the utility has been encountering people who refuse to allow the power towers to be erected on their land, which means expropriation may be the only option, Hydro spokesman Glenn Schneider said on Monday.

"If it's deemed to be in the public interest and the landowner refuses to discuss or allow the project to take place, then the last resort is expropriation," he said.

'If it's deemed to be in the public interest and the landowner refuses to discuss or allow the project to take place, then the last resort is expropriation.'—Hydro spokesman Glenn Schneider

"You can't not have that option or we would never have a project — we'd never build another road, we'd never have another power line."

The proposed line, which still requires regulatory approval, would begin just northeast of the town of Gillam, at Keewatinoow Converter Station, and run southwest past Thompson before turning directly south at The Pas.

It will continue down the west side of the province, near the Saskatchewan border.

Just north of Duck Mountain Provincial Park, the line will angle southeast towards Portage la Prairie. It loops south of that city before turning east and completing the route just east of Winnipeg at the Riel Converter Station in the Rural Municipality of Springfield.

The line will run 1,400 kilometres and will cost $2 billion to build.

Both the Keewatinoow and Riel converter stations are proposed new facilities that will be built if the Bipole III route is approved.

Angry farmers

Blaine Pedersen the Progressive Conservative Party MLA for the Carman riding, has heard from 80 farmers angry about the potential intrustion on their land.

He has spoken with Hydro officials but said they are taking a hard line on the issue.

'They will have a big, big fight on their hands.'—Pam Pugh

"When I said, 'my landowners are not interested in the compensation, they don't want the line, what's the alternative?' The stock answer [from Hydro] is expropriation,'" Pedersen said.

Pam Pugh, a seed farmer near Portage, expects 10 Hydro towers to be erected on her land. She's basing that number on what she has heard from other landowners who have been consulted.

If that happens, she will lose land she uses to plant potatoes. As well, crop dusting planes won't be able to spray her land because the towers will be in the way.

If Hydro tries to expropriate her land, "they will have a big, big fight on their hands," Pugh said.

A meeting with Hydro representatives and farmers in the Carmen area is set for November.