Capon Valley Coalition

From the Nov. 25 edition of The State Journal.

It comes after an article published in the Wall Street Journal.

FAIRMONT — The Sierra Club and other organizations have spent a lot of time fighting Allegheny Power and the Public Service Commission about the TrAIL. Now an article in the Wall Street Journal has prompted the Sierra Club to ask the PSC to take another look at the issue.

The Wall Street Journal article says electricity consumption is dropping nationwide. That’s good for the environment, but not so good for utility companies. Locally, Allegheny Energy has also experienced a drop. Allen Staggers, Manager of Corporate Communications for the company says he can explain the drop.

“It appears that most of the difference is due to milder weather this past summer,” he said.

Don Corwin is the president of the Halleck Community Association, a group that has fought TrAIL since the beginning. Corwin says that the article validates a point it’s been making since the beginning. “The line wasn’t needed. It’s certainly not needed in West Virginia, and it may not be needed in other states,” Corwin says.

Corwin says that regardless of the cause of the electricity downturn, the PSC should review the TrAIL. The Halleck area won its battle with Allegheny. The power lines for TrAIL will not go through the community. Corwin is happy with the change, but says that doesn’t fix the problem.

“That’s good for us in the Halleck community, but it’s bad for the people who it affects.”

Staggers says that if TrAIL isn’t completed, the area won’t be ready for the surge when the economy rebounds.

“We can’t wait until there’s a problem to construct a transmission line. That’s too late.”

Another report of the Pennsylvania decision from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Nov. 14:

The state Public Utility Commission yesterday approved a 1.2-mile segment of a high-voltage power line that would begin in Greene County and provide power to the mid-Atlantic region.

By a 4-1 vote, commissioners approved a plan by Allegheny Energy to construct a 500-kilovolt power line from a new substation to be built in Dunkard, Greene County, to West Virginia and ending in Virginia.

The decision by the Pennsylvania commission was the last approval needed for the controversial $1 billion, 240-mile project.

In his dissent, commission Vice Chairman Tyrone J. Christy said the power line would do little to benefit local consumers.

“It is clear that customers in Western Pennsylvania will receive little in return for the siting of these lines in their back yards except upward pressure on the price they will pay for generation and transmission,” he said. “I cannot support a project that imposes all of the costs and none of the benefits on one segment of the public.”

The decision bucks a recommendation in September from two PUC administrative law judges that advised against it, calling the project a profit-driven attempt to ship “cheaper coal-fired generation” along an “energy superhighway” to the east.

The commission was apparently swayed by an agreement reached in late September by Greene County commissioners and the Greensburg-based utility. It called for the company to abandon its plans for another power station and a 36-mile power line extending from Greene County to North Strabane in Washington County.

Part of that agreement required the utility company to pay Greene County $750,000 and return easements purchased over the last 30 years from local property owners, many of whom challenged the validity of the easements in court.

In a related 3-2 vote, the commission voted to approve a request by Allegheny Power to delay a decision about the 36-mile line into Washington County. Utility company officials say they wanted a stay so they could work on an alternative proposal.

The company has said the new power lines were needed in Washington County to address growing local demand, though the two PUC judges said they saw no drastic need for new power transmission in the area.

From the Nov. 14 edition of The Washington Post comes word we did not want to hear:

Pennsylvania regulators yesterday approved the construction of a controversial high-voltage power line through part of the state, giving Dominion Virginia Power the final authorization necessary to begin construction on a 65-mile stretch through rural Northern Virginia.

Dominion officials praised the decision and said construction will probably begin before January. The earliest work will take place in the Prince William County section, where the utility has sufficient right of way to start building. Once completed, the line also will cut through Culpeper, Rappahannock, Fauquier, Frederick and Warren counties before ending at a substation in Loudoun County.

“We welcome this news, especially for our customers, businesses and schools in Northern Virginia, because this means that they will get the reliable electricity they expect,” Dominion spokeswoman Le-Ha Anderson said.

The 65-mile stretch in Virginia is part of a three-state line proposed jointly by Dominion and Allegheny Power. Virginia and West Virginia have signed off on their sections of the $1.3 billion, 250-mile line; the decision yesterday by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission removes the last regulatory obstacle. (Emphasis added.)

Dominion says the 500-kilovolt transmission line is necessary to bring electricity to power-hungry Northern Virginia, where demand has risen by more than 8 percent in the past decade. Without it, officials say, the region could experience blackouts beginning in 2011.

But the project has sparked intense opposition among environmental activists and property owners, who say that Dominion has exaggerated the need and that the project will damage the landscape and contribute to global warming.

The lead opponent has been the anti-sprawl Piedmont Environmental Council, which raised more than $3 million to challenge the project and asked the Virginia Supreme Court to overturn the state’s approval of it. That group and others say the region’s power problems should be solved by other means, such as conservation and the construction of small power plants close to the consumers of the electricity.

Robert W. Lazaro Jr., a spokesman for the organization, said he is disappointed but not surprised by the Pennsylvania decision.

“We’re in a regulatory environment that has no interest in pursuing 21st-century solutions,” Lazaro said. “They’re still doing what they did in the early 1900s, which is put up these huge towers and hope that they won’t blow down in the wind.”

Lazaro said the Piedmont Environmental Council expects the Supreme Court case to be heard next spring or summer. However, Dominion officials plan to move quickly to build the line so it can be up and running by summer 2011.

Dominion has begun negotiating with landowners in places where the company needs to acquire land or right of way. If the landowners refuse, however, the company may take the land through eminent domain.

“As a last resort, we have the right to do that,” Anderson said. “But it is our preference to work something out with the landowner.”

Note that this report suggests Hampshire and Hardy Counties may be in the way of another power line!

WHAG in Hagerstown, MD, reported on Oct. 17:

NBC25 NEWS - Allegheny Energy’s route for a proposed high-voltage power line project now avoids Martinsburg but still connects in Frederick County.

Allegheny Energy announced late Friday afternoon that it wouldn’t be able to use the Bedington substation near Martinsburg to connect the high-voltage lines to a site in Frederick County. It is now looking at sites for a substation in Grant, Hampshire or Hardy County, West Virginia. (Emphasis added.)

“We are eliminating the connection with Bedington substation and the twin-circuit 500-kV lines from Bedington to Kemptown, including many previously evaluated routes in Washington County, Md., and Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson Counties, W. Va,” the company said. “We still need to identify the mid-point substation location and new alternatives between there and Kemptown.”

Demonstrators protested the project to West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin Friday morning in Shepherdstown. He told them he plans to meet with Allegheny Energy next week.

Here is the media release:

Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline, LLC, a joint venture of American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) and Allegheny Energy (NYSE: AYE), said today that PJM Interconnection announced a reconfiguration of PATH, a proposed high-voltage transmission line project.

PJM, the organization responsible for the transmission grid covering 13 states and the District of Columbia, directed the construction of PATH to ensure the reliability of the region’s transmission grid. The original project configuration included a 765-kilovolt (kV) transmission line from the Amos substation near St. Albans, W.Va., to the Bedington substation near Martinsburg, W.Va., and twin-circuit 500-kV lines from Bedington to the proposed Kemptown substation southeast of Frederick, Md.

The reconfiguration is a result of constraints identified as a result of comprehensive siting studies; interaction with government agencies; public input; and a desire to identify a solution that reduces line mileage and minimizes the impact on communities and the environment. The new configuration will:

o Consist of a single 765-kV line from Amos to Kemptown,
o Eliminate the connection with the Bedington substation and the twin-circuit 500-kV lines from Bedington to Kemptown, including many previously evaluated routes in that area, and
o Include a new mid-point substation in the vicinity of eastern Grant County, northern Hardy County, or southern Hampshire County, near existing PATH alternative routes. The substation site has not been determined.

Based on the re-configured project, the PATH team is developing new route alternatives between the mid-point substation area and Kemptown. PATH continues to work toward identifying the complete line route and expects to file applications for approval by state regulatory commissions during the first quarter 2009.

Additional open houses will be scheduled in areas where the new alternatives are identified.

PJM recently confirmed that the reconfigured project addresses its reliability concerns.

From The Post yesterday. Not what we wanted to read.

State regulators approved Dominion Virginia Power’s proposal yesterday to build a 65-mile transmission line through rural Northern Virginia, saying that the project is critical to delivering electricity to the power-hungry region and avoiding widespread blackouts.

The three-judge Virginia State Corporation Commission, whose members are selected by the General Assembly to oversee utilities and other public industries, agreed unanimously to Dominion’s plan. The decision gives the power company permission to string the 500-kilovolt line along 15-story towers through farms, forests and suburban areas in six counties, including Fauquier, Loudoun and Prince William.

Yesterday, critics of the project, citing environmental concerns, said they were not done fighting and would appeal the ruling to the Virginia Supreme Court.

But commission members said that although they were “sympathetic to the opponents’ position that planning for transmission, generation and conservation should be done in an integrated and holistic process,” Dominion had demonstrated that there was a dire need and that state law required them to approve it.

Officials at Dominion, which has 2.3 million customers and is the state’s largest energy provider, said construction must begin as soon as possible to eliminate the threat of rolling blackouts beginning in 2011. Demand for electricity has risen by more than 8 percent in the past decade as the region has developed, officials have said, creating instability in the electrical grid.

But the company has one more hurdle before it can start building. The line is part of a larger, 250-mile project that Dominion is proposing jointly with Pennsylvania-based Allegheny Energy. That $1.3 billion line would begin in Pennsylvania, cross part of West Virginia and enter Virginia in Frederick County.

West Virginia officials have agreed to their portion, but Pennsylvania has not made a decision on the mile within its borders. A decision is expected any day, and a denial could derail the Virginia section. Opposition to the line has been fierce in Pennsylvania, but Allegheny is negotiating with officials and the four landowners to gain support.

Two other large power lines have been proposed for the Washington area. One would start in West Virginia and end close to the Montgomery County border. The other would begin in Prince William, extend through Southern Maryland and then cross the Chesapeake Bay to the Eastern Shore.

The power companies say the lines are necessary to keep up with the mid-Atlantic’s voracious demand for electricity.

Opposition to the 65 miles in Virginia has been consistent among environmentalists, landowners and others who have said the towers would scar a landscape fiercely protected over the years because of its natural beauty and historical significance.

Early on, Dominion bowed to pressure by changing its proposed route to bypass Civil War battlefields and environmentally sensitive areas to generally follow existing rights of way. But opposition has not diminished, especially among environmental groups, which say the new line will encourage the construction of polluting coal plants that contribute to global warming. They have advocated such alternatives as conservation and upgrades to existing lines.

Among the strongest opponents is the Piedmont Environmental Council, a group that has helped shape outlying parts of Northern Virginia with its anti-sprawl efforts. The group says the corporation commission has relied too heavily on an analysis prepared by PJM Interconnection, a cooperative of power companies that coordinates transmission lines in 13 states.

“I think I join with thousands of Virginians in being slightly outraged today,” said Chris Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council. “Obviously, the law is broken if you get this kind of result, and we certainly are going to be raising some issues on appeal.”

A well-funded group with such high-profile supporters as actor Robert Duvall, the council has raised more than $3 million to fight the proposal. But the council was up against one of the most dominant forces in Richmond: Dominion has more than a dozen registered lobbyists, and its political action committee contributes thousands of dollars to state and local candidates.

The decision comes as Americans grapple with rising energy costs. Allegheny and Dominion officials said the cost of building the line will be distributed among the utilities that belong to PJM, which will probably pass it on to their customers. However, a Dominion spokeswoman said its customers might not face an increase in their bills because of the savings involved with owning a transmission line.

“Once this is built, we would have other utilities, other generation, that we can tap in order to bring electricity to Northern Virginia,” Le-Ha Anderson said.

Demand for electricity has risen steadily over the years, fueled in part by the area’s rapid growth and an increased use of electricity-guzzling appliances and electronics, Anderson said. She said the redevelopment of Tysons Corner from a suburb into an urban hub served by Metrorail will further increase demand.

In addition, she said, Northern Virginia is home to dozens of data centers, which use enormous amounts of electricity to store information for the government and private companies.

But the decision also comes among heightened environmental awareness, especially about global warming. Opponents of the line have proposed a combination of demand-response programs, which help consumers monitor and reduce their electricity use, and small-scale cleaner power plants to alleviate the need for the line. They also have accused Dominion of exaggerating the need and seeking to profit by selling excess energy to New York and New Jersey.