Back in the day, when electric cooperatives first started to bring power to rural communities, they would often dig a series of holes along the road one day and return the next to set poles in them.
But on a number of unfortunate occasions, the co-op linemen would return in the morning to find poles and lines already installed in the holes they had just dug.
These “spite lines,” as they came to be known, had been placed in the middle of the night by a crew from an investor-owned utility.
Incredibly, the practice wasn’t illegal in those early years, though you could hardly call it ethical. Co-ops would go through the hard work of obtaining commitments from local citizens who still didn’t have electricity. They would invest in the planning, clearing and surveying work necessary to bring power to them. And then, at the very last minute, the for-profit utilities would usurp them under the cover of darkness.
Even more despicable was that investor-owned utilities had, for decades, rejected the pleas of these same hometowns for electricity. These for-profit providers only became interested in serving rural areas once they faced a little competition—when people in these communities exercised self-help and started their own electric cooperative. Profit-motivated utility executives saw the cooperative movement as a threat to their bottom line, even though it was focused solely on improving the quality of life in rural communities.
The farming community I grew up in, Bethel in York County, was one such community. Prior to the creation of York Electric Cooperative, Bethel was a rural island of peach and dairy farms in between slightly larger towns like Clover, York, Gastonia and Rock Hill. Naturally, Bethel was left behind in the early days of electrification, despite its residents’ repeated pleas to the local investor-owned utility.
“Not dense enough,” some neighbors were told. “You can’t afford it,” others heard.
Left unsaid was that the investor-owned utility simply didn’t see enough profit in those rural areas to bother stringing power lines out to people who desperately needed electricity.
Of course, we know the rest of that story. The people of Bethel and other rural enclaves helped form York Electric Cooperative. They brought power, economic development and even a little of that much-valued population density to the region.
Fortunately, investor-owned electric utilities don’t act that way anymore, but more than 70 years later, the saga is playing out all over again. Rural communities like Sharon and Hickory Grove are again left waiting for an essential service that others already have—high-speed internet.
Even after decades of growth, they are still deemed “not dense enough” for some internet providers to invest in stringing fiber optic cable to their homes.
And so, York Electric has partnered with a local phone provider to change that. From Bullocks Creek to Smyrna, they are ensuring that students can access online instruction, parents and young professionals can work from home and everyone can stream videos and other media without lags.
And yet again, cooperatives like York Electric are facing resistance. This time around, instead of “spite lines,” larger for-profit internet providers are using lobbying and litigation to slow down cooperatives that are working on broadband expansion. Within the last month, we’ve heard troubling reports that a major for-profit entity may be lobbying Congress to exclude electric cooperatives from receiving federal grant money that is earmarked for broadband expansion. Fortunately, the cooperatives have persisted in expanding internet access to people who need it.
Cooperatives have learned over the years that if you try to do the right thing, not everybody is going to like it. In trying to help the people you serve, you might step on the toes of for-profit companies with different motives.
As long as there are electric cooperatives, there will be hometown people trying to solve hometown problems. They might meet resistance, but South Carolina’s electric cooperatives have shown time and time again that they are willing to fight on behalf of their members.
Mike Couick is the president and CEO of The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, Inc., the statewide association of not-for-profit electric cooperatives.