Capon Valley Coalition

Posted today at wvmetronews.com:

The state Public Service Commission says it will hold four public hearings later this month on Allegheny Energy’s plans for a transmission line to cross five northern counties.

The PSC will hold hearings in Morgantown (10-23), Grafton (10-24), Canaan Valley (10-29) and Moorefield (10-30). The agency will take testimony beginning at 1:30 and again at 6:30 on those dates.

The rest of the PSC’s schedule on the project includes a status conference and public comments at PSC offices in Charleston on Nov. 28 and 29. The evidentiary hearing in the case will take place in two phases scheduled for January and February.

The Morgantown public hearing will will take place at the WVU Erickson Alumni Center, the Taylor County Senior Center will host the Grafton hearing. The PSC will be at Canaan Valley Resort for the Tucker County hearing and at the South Branch Inn for the Moorefield hearing.

From the Oct. 3 edition:

After sweating through another summer without a major blackout, the Bush administration moved Tuesday to ensure nonstop electricity by designating large swaths of the Southwest and mid-Atlantic regions as critical to the nation’s energy grid.

The government announced two so-called “national interest electric transmission corridors,” which encompass all or part of Pennsylvania and nine other states where officials say aging high-voltage lines are not capable of handling growing power demand.

The decision immediately drew criticism from Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and other politicians, some of whom have opposed power line projects such as Allegheny Energy Inc.’s $1.3 billion proposal to build the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line, stretching from Southwestern Pennsylvania through West Virginia before ending in Loudoun County, Va., outside Washington, and linking with Dominion Virginia Power.

Rendell called the decision to designate 52 of the state’s 67 counties an infringement upon the state’s rights. He noted that the designation could lead to what he called “the construction of unnecessary high-voltage power lines in Pennsylvania.”

In Pennsylvania, Allegheny Energy would construct a 37-mile, 500,000-volt line from a new substation in Dunkard in Greene County, to a new substation in North Strabane in Washington County. Three smaller, 138,000-volt lines totaling 15 miles in length would be constructed to connect with existing lines. The project is slated for completion by 2011.

“I’m disappointed that the Department of Energy chose to adopt this designation despite the considerable opposition from the public and state officials,” Rendell said. “From day one, we argued that any determination should reflect a specific need for additional transmission capacity, and we challenged the federal government to show us an instance where the Public Utility Commission refused a proposed transmission project.”

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said the plan would turn three-quarters of the counties in his state “into a superhighway of power lines and transmission towers.”

Allegheny Energy spokesman Allen Staggers said: “We’ve said all along that we intend to work with the state regulators in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. We think (the) announcement is perhaps an acknowledgement by the federal government on just how important it is to have an upgraded transmission system. The system needs to be upgraded for all Americans.”

Yesterday’s decision was the first use of a new federal power to approve construction of electric lines in some places where state officials have stymied them. Some lawmakers and community groups argue the government corridors wrongly expand the potential use of eminent domain power.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a written statement that the corridors should prompt regional authorities to “identify solutions and take prompt action” to keep energy flowing.

The mid-Atlantic power corridor runs from Virginia and Washington, north to include most of Maryland, all of New Jersey and Delaware and large sections of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The Southwest corridor is composed of seven counties in southern California and three in Arizona. The agency had originally sought to include Las Vegas in that corridor, but said it decided the needs in that county weren’t as pressing.

The corridors were designed to be wide enough to accommodate several possible paths for power lines. One such proposed line in New York would be around 100 feet tall, with a footprint about a quarter-mile wide, though dimensions would vary with the terrain.

Under a 2005 law, the federal government can approve new power transmission towers within the corridors if states and regional groups fail to build such lines. The law was passed partly in response to the 2003 blackout that rippled from Ohio to Canada and New York City.

The corridor designations may increase pressure on state regulators to grant permits to private industry to build new lines. Utilities have complained that state authorities are reluctant to approve new lines, often because of local opposition.

If state authorities do not approve any construction after a year, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, may intervene and approve a grid project if the new line is deemed necessary to satisfy national power needs. Such approvals could, in theory, include the use of eminent domain law to compel private owners to sell their property.

The FERC has had such authority for years in considering applications for gas lines, but this is the first time it will also be available for electricity transmission, officials said. The new law does not give the FERC eminent domain power over state or federal lands.

From the Oct. 3 edition:

If a solution is not reached by 2011, then the existing transmission system will overload, said Allen Staggers, Allegheny Power spokesman.

While Allegheny believes the best solution would be to install a new system that cuts through West Virginia and two other states, many residents of Monongalia County are up in arms over the issue.

“It’s such a broad and dynamic issue,” said John Balasko, vice president of the Halleck Community Association, an organization against the construction of the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Lines (TrAIL).

Balasko said he and other activists have put up signs, visited West Virginia’s senators in Washington, D.C., met with Senator Alan Mollahan’s aide and Gov. Joe Manchin and attended meetings across the state to prevent the construction of the TrAIL.

Balasko said the key players in the issue are the Department of Energy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Pennsylvania-Jersey-Maryland regional power grid operator. He said generation and transmission companies, along with their subsidiaries, have lobbied the DOE over the past few years for legislation to set policies for new transmission infrastructure.

Staggers said the route of TrAIL will begin at two substations in southwest Pennsylvania, run through West Virginia then east into northern Virginia. Balasko said the West Virginia counties that will be affected are Monongalia, Preston, Tucker, Grant, Hampshire and Hardy counties.

However, Balasko said that while it is difficult to argue against the fact that the new infrastructure would increase reliability of electricity, there are other ways to ensure dependability.

“Conservation is another way to decrease the demand for electricity,” Balasko said. “And those efforts have not been looked at.”

He said if generation stations were built closer to one another or if people conserve more energy, then one can increase reliability of electricity. Balasko also said that if customers want to be charged less during electrical “off-peak hours,” then electrical meters should be put in.

Staggers said that while Allegheny Power does do things to keep the existing system from overloading, and there are alternatives to putting in a new line, a new system is the best solution. He said because Allegheny customers expect electricity to be provided to them, other alternatives would not work as well as putting in a new system.

The DOE announced Tuesday the designation of two National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETC), one of them being a Mid-Atlantic corridor.

According to an article on newsblaze.com, the corridors are located in the “most populous regions with growing electricity congestion problems.” The DOE determined these locations from data collected from periodic national electric transmission congestion studies.

“Designation of National Corridors confirms that we must tackle our nation’s energy issues on multiple fronts, with multiple pathways,” said Kevin M. Kolevar, DOE assistant secretary in the article.

The Mid-Atlantic Area National Corridor includes areas in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Virginia, all of New Jersey, Delaware and Washington, D.C.

Balasko said the designation of these corridors allow the DOE to overrule states even if the states want to delay the approving of installation of a transmission line for one year.

He said he thought the organizations looked at West Virginia as an “easy target” for the line. He said with the installation of the line, there will be more pollution in the state because of the coal-burning plants.

“I don’t like the corporations raping out state of our natural resources. It’s time the citizens of our state stood up to the federal government and the state government,” Balasko said. “We’re becoming the utility room of the East Coast.”