Capon Valley Coalition

Dear friends and the iPetitions Campaign Team,

I am the vice-abbot of the Bhavana Society Buddhist Monastery and Meditation Center located on Back Creek Road. I wholly support the great efforts you and your group are doing to get the message out about this ‘land grab’ by the Power company and to fight against it.

It seems the route of the new TrAIL Co. power line is being moved east of the existing power line, the Capon Woods Resort houses and the La Follette junkyard.

I quote a section of the letter in the LRE p. 71:

“The routing team determined that the new route should continue to the east for an additional 500 feet and then turn more gradually to the southeast. This allows the route to diverge away from the existing line in this area and pass to the east of the auto junkyard on Back Creek Road and the numerous residences on Capon Resort Road.”

By looking at that route map, this proposed change would go over the eastern part of our monastery property which is adjacent to the junkyard. This change in the route will seriously impact at least five cottages used by our residents and guests. Apart from healths risks due to the close proximity to electromagnetic radiation,
this will seriously infringe on the sanctity and space of our religious/contemplative order.

It will also adversely affect our livelihood and way of living. Hundreds of people come here every year from all parts of the country as well as from abroad to spend time in prayer and meditation in the peaceful setting of the forest, on organized retreats as well as individual self-retreats. Local people in the area may not know about this.

I know that probably nobody wants to be closely affected by this additional mega power line. I guess ultimately it may have to go somewhere. But we are curious and would like to know why the power line cannot go through the middle of the junkyard. Is a junkyard more valuable than a place of spiritual worship and refuge?

I don’t know if local people know that a place of spiritual worship may be sacrificed over a junkyard. People may be interested to know this.

You may know more about this particular aspect of this controversial issue than I do. Any insights and thoughts about this particular issue would be greatly appreciated. And if you deem it worthy of notice, to bring this issue regarding the serious compromise of our monastery to your website readers. It may also help galvanize additional support for the total stopping of the use of ‘eminent domain’ and the additional power line altogether, which some people deem redundant and which is primarily helping corporate interests.

I am also going to write a ‘letter of protest’ to the Governor and other State Officials. After consideration, we may perhaps put this issue up on our Bhavana Society website to inform Buddhists worldwide of this serious encroachment of a place of worship over a junkyard. So any additional clear facts related to this issue are greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Bhante Yogavacara Rahula
Vice-abbot
Bhavana Forest Monastery
Rt.1, Box 218-3, Back Creek Road
Hampshire County, WV.

WV customers help to pay for power line

Emily Corio reported yesterday on West Virginia Public Broadcasting:

Allegheny Power has updated its application to build a high voltage power line through North-Central West Virginia. For one, the price tag has increased, and now West Virginia customers will have to pick up some of the cost. Emily Corio reports.

Emily Corio (EC): Initially, Allegheny Power didn’t think the project would increase electric bills for its West Virginia customers. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled that all customers in the region would have to share some of the cost. Alan Staggers is Allegheny Energy’s spokesman.

Alan Staggers (AS): “The FERC decision changed that cost allocation, and although that really won’t be finalized until sometime probably in 2008, our best estimate right now is that it would cost an average of about 90 cents a month.”

EC: The entire cost for the project has also increased from 820 million to almost 880 million. That’s because a section of line in Virginia has gotten longer. Staggers says Dominion Virginia Power decided to change the course of its proposed power line, adding 40 miles.

AS: “They elected to parallel an existing 500 K-V line that runs through a portion of their service territory, and so the extra length of the line added costs to the original estimate.”

EC: Meanwhile, the Consumer Advocate Division of West Virginia’s Public Service Commission, wants Allegheny Power to look changing a section of its line in West Virginia so that it would parallel an existing power line. Alan Staggers says the company looked into this a couple of weeks ago, flying over portions of Monongalia County.

AS: “It looks like if we would try to adopt that route as proposed it would require the removal of 15 residences and 12 other structures. Right now the route that we have proposed does not require the removal of any residences, and across the 114 miles of the line in West Virginia, only 12 residences will be within 250 feet of the line.”

EC: Consumer Advocate Division Director, Billy Jack Gregg, says the power line could generally follow an existing right-of-way.

Billy Jack Gregg (BJG): “And in fact, in the section of the line that they are proposing to parallel from Mount Storm to Meadow Brook, they make numerous deviations to avoid houses and other structures that have been constructed next to the existing 500 K-V line. Any rational approach for paralleling in the section south of Morgantown would do the same thing.”

EC: Gregg says the current power line debate in north central West Virginia is similar to the one that took place in the southern part of the state. Appalachian Power first proposed building a transmission line through several southern counties in 1990. The line was completed last year.

Gregg says the company submitted three different proposals, and the commission finally approved a route that the Consumer Advocate Division had suggested.

BJG: “This is not something that anybody really wants to happen, but if it is going to happen we should do it in a way that is as acceptable as possible to the population.”

EC: For West Virginia Public Broadcasting, I’m Emily Corio in Morgantown.

CVC Cochairman Bill Golemon reports:

Consumer Advocate Division of the West Virginia Public Service Commission (Billy Jack Gregg) has filed with the WV Public Service Commission proposing a route change for the power line in northwestern WV BEFORE it gets to Mt. Storm.

The reason cited for this is the overwhelming response in protest from that area.

Apparently we in the Capon Valley area are not doing as good a job as they are.

We have collected 800-plus petitions against Allegheny Power’s TrAIL power transmission line proposal. WE NEED TO TURN THESE INTO PROTEST LETTERS.

It’s not enough to just sign the petition. You have to write letters to the WV PSC and send copies to Gov. Joe Manchin. (Manchin is not hearing from people in Hampshire and Hardy Counties, so he thinks we don’t care!)

A lot of people from our part of the state all the way over to the Pennsylvania border working hard to defeat Allegheny Power’s TrAIL power transmission line.

Edie Jett compiled this status report and call to action:

Your IMMEDIATE ACTION is needed to prevent the federal government from taking private lands for corporate profit!

Friends…
I am writing out of concern for all US citizens and request that you share this email with anyone you know who might be interested in preserving our land, our health, our environment, and our way of life. I have tried to put this issue in a nutshell, with LOTS of links so that you can do your own research. The larger links are those that provide a way for you to TAKE ACTION TODAY. This issue must be acted upon immediately if we are to have any effect.

OVERVIEW

On April 26, 2007, the DOE proposed two draft NIETC (National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor) designations:

* One in the Southwest
* One in the Mid-Atlantic

The Department of Energy maintains that the corridor designations are necessary to prevent future brown-outs and black-outs on the National Electric Grid. They are acting upon biased proposals made to them by private utilities and PJM Interconnection L.L.C. If necessary, they will use federal eminent domain to ensure construction of these lines

The Department of Energy is trying to keep the proposal low key with only 60 days to comment and originally, only three hearing sites (Arlington, VA; San Diego, CA, and NYC).

Nonetheless, folks in VA and PA are galvanized in their opposition to the Mid-Atlantic Corridor.

(Please check out the VA YouTube submissions listed at the very end of this email. They are “enlightening.”)

The PA group graciously invited our WV contingency to join them on a 10-hour bus trip to attend the May 15th Arlington, VA, public hearing regarding the Mid-Atlantic Corridor. (On May 17 there was a meeting in San Diego, CA.)

From what I gathered at the Arlington meeting, these corridors and associated transmission lines are DEFINITELY NOT NEEDED. Fred Banner testified (in his allotted TWO MINUTES) that he currently works with large corporations and businesses to put electricity back INTO the “grid!” He stated that the DOE had not adequately looked at alternatives.

Someone else commented that we were trying to solve 21st Century problems with 20th Century technology. There are better ways to solve our need and greed for electricity without contributing to global warming.

(An excellent synopsis of the Arlington testimony can be found here.)

Unfortunately, here in WV, we have prostituted ourselves for coal, timber, and now electrical transmission corridors. In fact, not only did our governor write the sole WV letter to the DOE in October of 2006 in support of the “congestion study and the corridor designations,” but he also changed our “Wild Wonderful West Virginia” slogan to “WV - Open for Business.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

#1
One way for all of us to fight these “corridors”” is to repeal Section 1221 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

This act allows corporations to condemn our lands through eminent domain to ensure substantial corporate profits. It does not reward this large “for-profit” industry to optimize efficiency.

Contact your representatives in the house to support bipartisan H.R. 809 (Hinchey-Wolf) and encourage your Senators to support a Senate version of the bill. There are related bills also pending.

Use these links to find contact information for your representatives in the House and the Senate. (Hampshire and Hardy County folks can find contact information on the Capon Valley Coalition “Take Action” page.)

#2
We have only until July 6, 2007 to make our feelings known to the DOE! Comment today.

This issue affects more than those people in CA, AZ, NV, NJ, NY, DE, MD, PA, OH, DC, VA and WV. (Affected counties are listed toward the end of this email.) We need to pull the entire nation together to fight this organized rape of our lands and private property for corporate greed by the designation of these electrical corridors.

PLEASE comment to the DOE immediately regarding the Corridors here.

And make sure your elected representatives know where you stand!

#3
Share this with as many people as you can. Send it to family, friends and colleagues.

#4
And for those of you with a special place in your heart for West Virginia (and VA and PA), please study the AP TrAIL application recently submitted to the Public Service Commission. Visit local Web sites to keep current. (See the list in our Blogroll at the right.)

These lines will carve our area and leave scars which will devastate our tourism value forever.

Protest letters are being accepted now at:

Sandra Squire, Exec. Sec’y
Public Service Commission
201 Brooks Street
PO Box 812
Charleston, WV 25323
Mention case number 07-0508-E-CN

And while you are at it, copy your letter to the governor and encourage him to reverse his position on the Mid-Atlantic Corridor.

The Honorable Joe Manchin III
Governor-State of West Virginia
1900 Kanawha Boulevard East
Charleston, WV 25305

You can email Manchin at Governor@WVGov.org
Or use this email form on his Web site.

The PSC does not accept protests electronically, but you may sign the Stop The Towers online petition to oppose the current proposal. You need not be a West Virginian to oppose this line. We accept any and all support.

#5
Attend one of the additional DOE sponsored corridor hearings that are now being planned for Phoenix, Arizona; Las Vegas, Nevada; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Rochester, New York.

The future transmission lines are taller than the Statue of Liberty and threaten our health, our environment, our property values and our way of life. TheTrAIL proposed for PA, WV and VA is just the tip of the iceberg. Once they condemn our lands for this one, others could soon follow. Here is another proposal in the works. )

Thanks for your urgent consideration!

Please contact me if you need additional information.

Sincerely,

Edie Jett (West Virginian by Choice)

Bobbie L. Carpenter reported today in the Cumberland Times-News:

ROMNEY - Hampshire County Compliance Officer Charles Baker suggested to commissioners Tuesday that a blanket building permit be established for the construction of all power lines and towers in the county.

The decision was reached after Power Engineers, an Idaho-based power company, contacted Baker to inquire about the process of distribution of permits in the county.

“Instead of issuing 200 permits for each tower, one permit will cover the entire length of the power lines,” said Baker about the upcoming construction of electric transmission lines in the eastern part of the county. “It will save a lot of paperwork for our office.”

Baker said even though a pathway for the lines has been narrowed down, the county doesn’t exactly know which properties will be affected by the building of towers and power lines.

“I’ve requested this information but they haven’t gotten back to me yet,” he said.

Appraisers are getting ready to speak to property owners about the construction of the 500-volt line, which will stretch approximately 230 miles from southwestern Pennsylvania through Maryland and parts of West Virginia to eastern Virginia, hitting substations in southwest Pennsylvania, Mount Storm, Meadow Brook, Va., and Loudon County, Va.

The size of the steel poles for the towers are 150 feet.

Commissioner Steve Slonaker is concerned the construction will devalue the land of many county residents.

“I’m not opposed to the blanket concept,” said Slonaker. “I do support a fee. I think the line company should pay compensation to these land owners.”

Slonaker said the county will not see any of the benefits of the project, which will relay electricity to Virginia.

“The power companies ought to pay a royalty or some kind of fee over and beyond as the years go by because they will be continuing to transmit power through the state of West Virginia from years and years to come,” he said. “I recognize the need for power but I hate to see local citizens being compromised for someone else’s benefit if they are not being compensated.”

Slonaker hopes to receive a formula that maps out the number of towers to be constructed, the size of the tower footprints, the number of residents affected and how it’s going to impact the county.

Bobbie L. Carpenter can be reached at bcarpenter@times-news.com.

We found the original on the Cumberland Times-News Web site.