Tim,
I can't help much with the pond, but I do have an interesting story to tell about my dealings with the power company.
About a year and a half ago I built a house on 42 acres, much like your 103 acres it was totally undeveloped. I was dealing with AEP which is not a co-op. It took them about 10 weeks to get me a firm price for running electricity underground about 700 ft to where I was going to build my house. While waiting on them someone told me that I should call the local Electric co-op. I did so and they told me that since I was over 300 feet from AEP's closest pole that the could supply electricity to me and they sent someone out right away who was able to give me a price right on the spot of $3200. The very next day AEP calls me and tells me that my cost from them would be $9600 and wanted to know when I wanted them to start. I then told him what the co-op had quoted me and he asked if I could give him 24 hours before I made a commitment to the co-op and I agreed to.
He called me back the next day and told me that because they "valued my business" that they would supply everything and run the power to my site for no charge, which is exactly what they did. They later told me that they were able to do it because of the size of the house that I was building and my future energy consumption.
I do not know if this will be any help to you but I would sure look into it. I do not know what the policy is with the other power companies, but at least AEP has the ability to negotiate and I'll bet that most of the others do as well.
Good Luck
