Allegheny Power Update: You WILL Pay for TrAIL
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.