A Pocahontas County property owner is suing Citynet, alleging the company illegally ran fiber-optic cable across the family's 800-acre farm as part of a state-funded project that expanded high-speed Internet at Snowshoe Mountain Resort.
Citynet workers damaged plants on the farm, and company executives broke promises to re-route the fiber line after the property owner, Darlene "Mickey" Deike, complained, according to the lawsuit filed in Pocahontas County Circuit Court.
Citynet CEO Jim Martin said he couldn't respond to the specifics in Deike's lawsuit because he hadn't received a copy of the complaint. He said Citynet isn't using the fiber that was installed on Deike's property. The company has since built an alternate line that connects to Snowshoe, Martin said. It likely wouldn't be a problem to remove the "pencil-thin" fiber cable that crosses Deike's land, he said.
"We feel this is a misunderstanding and will probably be resolved in an expeditious manner," Martin said.
Last year, the state Broadband Deployment Council - now defunct - awarded a $713,00 grant to Citynet to expand Internet at the ski resort. Resort officials, homeowners and guests had complained for years about poor Internet service.
To connect its facilities to the top of the mountain, Citynet initially planned to lease existing fiber from Frontier Communications. Frontier wanted to charge $2 million a year, so Citynet installed its own fiber along a railroad track at Cass Scenic Railroad State Park, company officials have said. Citynet used a Cass rail car to string the cable.
The railroad track runs through Deike's property - known as Shalimar Farm, according to the lawsuit.
Last October, Martin visited Deike's house and asked whether the company could install fiber across the farm. Deike's husband, who was the only one at home at the time, did not give Martin permission to do so, but Citynet workers went ahead anyway, digging trenches and installing the fiber cable, the lawsuit alleges.
The Deikes sent an email to Citynet on Oct. 23, demanding the company find another route and remove the cable.
Four days later, Martin responded that Citynet would pull out the fiber, but the company never did so, according to the lawsuit.
In a Jan. 21 email, Martin reiterated that Citynet would remove the cable "when the weather is more reasonable." Months passed, and the fiber remains at the farm, the lawsuit says.
Deike alleges that Citynet trespassed on her property and never secured an easement or right of way to install the fiber-optic cable across the farm.
In 2009, Deike donated a conservation easement across Shalimar Farm to the Nature Conservancy and West Virginia Agriculture Land Protection Authority. The easement can't be leased for public utility and telecommunication projects, according to the agreement, which was excerpted in Deike's lawsuit
Citynet hasn't filed a response to the lawsuit. Deike's lawyer, David Hammer, could not be reached for comment.
Citynet activated its Snowshoe Internet service in November. About 1,500 customers have signed up.
Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazette.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.