Capon Valley Coalition

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)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 7:08 am and is filed under Progress, Take Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.