Corn planters are closing in on the finish line in Southeast Nebraska.

Builders of a $175 million electrical transmission line from Columbus to Lincoln are not.

That means Seward area farmer A.J. Herrold is still having to navigate around uninstalled construction materials as he switches from corn to soybeans. And it means Herrold and plenty of his peers could still be dodging construction work during fall harvest along an 80-mile route laid out in 2007 by the Nebraska Public Power District.

For Ed Wagner, NPPD's vice president of customer service in Columbus, the larger point is to finish one of the power provider's most ambitious projects in the past 15 years.

"This will really solidify our high-voltage network for this part of Nebraska," Wagner said.

The new transmission line will provide much better protection against widespread power outages, such as those that came with a major ice storm across much of the state in late 2006.

But Wagner acknowledged late delivery of hundreds of steel poles - some of them as tall as 175 feet - has gotten wrapped up in a second seasonal problem in which NPPD doesn't want intermittent power shutoffs during the heart of irrigation and air-conditioning season.

The project ran into fairly heavy opposition earlier in eastern Seward County, as the proposed route went from a fairly linear path into more of a stair-stepping pattern that cut across farming and acreage property and even through a cattle feedlot.

Herrold is trying to adjust to what he sees as the inevitable.

"It's a done deal," he said Monday. "There's nothing I can do about it."

Others, including Pat Reed, aren't ready to give up.

Reed, who owns an acreage in the Twin Lakes area near Pleasant Dale, is the plaintiff in a lawsuit scheduled for oral argument before the Nebraska Supreme Court on May 28.

Reed is suing both NPPD and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Among his claims is that the state agency should have been more vigilant in protecting the Twin Lakes State Wildlife Management Area.

In remarks filed in April, Reed said "large steel poles that will hover over the Twin Lakes landscape cannot be deemed consistent with the primary purpose of a wildlife management area."

Reed, whose residence is within 300 feet of a pole site, also raised concerns about the power line intruding on the habitat of a threatened species, the western prairie fringed orchid.

On Wednesday, he also filed a federal lawsuit in Lincoln. Among his contentions in the federal filing is that NPPD failed to conduct an environmental impact study.

Mark Becker, a spokesman for NPPD in Columbus, said NPPD is on solid legal ground. Becker noted that the transmission line will follow the same path as a smaller power line already in place.

"We have had easements for that land prior to Twin Lakes being developed, I guess you say."

He also disputed Reed's prairie orchid point. He said the route had been surveyed twice, "and we did not find any reported sightings of the western prairie orchid."

Reach Art Hovey at 473-7223 or ahovey@journalstar.com.