Capon Valley Coalition

From the Charleston Gazette April 24:

PSC sets hearing on power line settlement

The state Public Service Commission has scheduled a hearing for late May to discuss a major settlement of part of the case over the $1.3 billion Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line, or TrAIL.

Commissioners set the hearing for 9:30 a.m. May 27 at PSC headquarters in downtown Charleston.

The PSC will hear testimony and allow questioning concerning the settlement between power line developers Allegheny Energy and the commission staff and consumer advocate.

In a Thursday order, the PSC also formally delayed its deadline for making a decision on the transmission line until Aug. 2 to consider the settlement.

MAJOR NEWS! Spread the word.

And ask yourself, what happens after seven years? (Maryland had rate increases deferred for a number of years, and last year, consumers got clobbered!)

The Charleston Gazette reported today:

The state Public Service Commission wants to delay its decision on a $1.3 billion power line across northern West Virginia until early August.

Commissioners want more time to review a settlement that resolved opposition from the PSC’s staff and consumer advocate division.

The PSC wants to allow other parties to comment on the deal, and time to hold a hearing for testimony and arguments over the settlement’s impact on the case.

Originally, the PSC was required by state law to give Allegheny a decision by May 2.

Last week, Allegheny lawyers said that the power company would voluntarily give up the right to a decision by then. Company lawyers proposed that the PSC study the settlement for 30 days, and issue a ruling by June 2.

The PSC responded that “it is apparent” that the 30 days would not be enough time for other parties to comment on the deal or for the commission to consider it.

Allegheny is seeking PSC approval to build its proposed Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line, or TrAIL. The 500-kilovolt line would carry electricity from southwestern Pennsylvania through West Virginia and into northern Virginia.

Power company officials say that the line is needed to provide cheap and reliable power to big Eastern cities and their growing suburbs. But the project has drawn intense opposition from hundreds of West Virginians, who fear it will mar scenic views, lower their properly values and continue what they say is an environmentally damaging reliance on coal-fired power.

As originally proposed, the West Virginia portion of the transmission line would run about 114 miles through six counties. It would enter the state north of Morgantown, and run south and east through Monongalia, Preston and Tucker counties to a substation near Mount Storm in Grant County. Then, it would extend for 47 miles through Grant and Hardy counties and into Hampshire County, before entering Virginia near Capon Springs.

Under last week’s deal, Allegheny agreed to use an alternate route proposed by the consumer advocate. Instead of cutting across southern Monongalia and Preston counties - where opposition has been the most organized - the line would go more directly south, before cutting east and following existing transmission lines from Pruntytown to Mount Storm.

Allegheny also promised to move a transmission operations center to West Virginia and save state customers more than $40 million in industry rate reductions, low-income assistance and conservation plans, and deferments of rate hikes to fund transmission line construction.

The announced settlement prompted a letter to the PSC renewing the West Virginia Coal Association’s support for the power line.

“Additional transmission lines will add hundreds of construction jobs, hundreds of permanent jobs, preserve the long-term viability of WV coal-fired power plants and add the transmission capacity needed to potentially construct new coal plants right here in West Virginia,” wrote association President Bill Raney.

“Projects such as TrAIL are important to the future of West Virginia coal and to our state as we secure a place for coal-fired electric generation in the national energy market.”

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported today that Allegheny Power will build a new operations center near Morgantown as part of an effort to win approval for the TrAIL power line in West Virginia.

The story follows:

Allegheny Energy Inc. within three years will build a $50 million operations center in the Morgantown, W.Va., area for its power transmission business and staff it with up to 150 engineers, planners, siting experts and administrators.

An undetermined number of the staff will come from the company’s operations in Greensburg, Westmoreland County, a spokesman said.

Agreeing to build the center is a major piece of a settlement pact between the Greensburg-based energy company, the Consumer Advocate Division of the West Virginia Public Service Commission and a group of large West Virginia electricity users known as the West Virginia Energy Users Group.

The pact is part of Allegheny Energy’s efforts to gain a go-ahead for its proposed $1.2 billion, 500-kilovolt, 240-mile power line called the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line, or TrAIL, between Washington County and Loudoun County, Va. Most of it would pass through West Virginia.

“The agreement would bring additional jobs to West Virginia, shield our West Virginia customers from project-related costs for seven years, provide funding for conservation and low-income energy assistance programs, and address many issues raised by the commission’s staff,” David Flitman, president of Allegheny Energy’s transmission and distribution unit, Allegheny Power, said in a statement.

Building a facility consolidating transmission-related personnel now located in Greensburg and throughout Allegheny Energy’s service territory isn’t new, said spokesman Doug Colafella. It’s part of the company’s long-range plan. It’s not known how many Greensburg personnel would be relocated. Allegheny Energy has about 1,000 employees in Greensburg.

While a specific site for the operations center hasn’t been selected, Colafella said more than likely property near Morgantown would be chosen, saying the area already contains a number of Allegheny Energy transmission lines.

“Our long-term plan was to build an operations center near where most of our transmission lines are, and where TrAIL and PATH will run, and that’s West Virginia,” Colafella said.

PATH, the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline, is a $1.8 billion joint venture between Allegheny Energy and American Electric Power of Columbus, Ohio. It will span about 290 miles beginning at American Electric’s John Amos coal-fired power plant near St. Albans, W.Va., and run northeast through West Virginia carrying 765 kilovolts, the highest-voltage power line in use, before changing to twin 500-kilovolt lines for the path through rural central Maryland to a substation to be built near Frederick, Md.

The West Virginia Public Service Commission is expected to make a decision by June 2, with Allegheny Energy also needing approvals from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and the Virginia State Corporation Commission to construct the entire Trans-Allegheny transmission line.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Saturday on hearings about Allegheny Power’s TrAIL plan that will start on Monday:

Forces that have debated the merits for nearly two years of Allegheny Energy Inc.’s 240-mile, $1.2 billion power transmission line proposed for Southwestern Pennsylvania and two other states are set for three weeks of high-voltage testimony.

On Monday, the state Public Utility Commission is scheduled to begin all-day, evidentiary hearings on the proposal at the state office building, 300 Liberty Ave., Downtown.

Administrative Law Judges Michael A. Nemec and Mark Hoyer have been assigned to hear detailed, in many cases highly technical, testimony for and against the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line, known by the acronym TrAIL.

“This evidentiary hearing will give us the opportunity to demonstrate the careful evaluation undertaken to address reliability issues in Southwestern Pennsylvania,” said David E. Flitman, president of Allegheny Power, the power transmission-distribution unit of Greensburg-based Allegheny Power Inc.

The Trans-Allegheny project includes one primary 500-kilovolt line stretching from near Eighty Four, Washington County, into West Virginia, then east to Loudoun County, Va., about 35 miles west of Washington, D.C.

In addition, three smaller 138-kilovolt lines are in the Pennsylvania portion of the project.

Allegheny Energy’s share of the total bill is about $850 million.

“We believe the reliability issues that Allegheny Energy says are the reasons for building the project are not supported in the data,” said Willard Burns, an attorney in the Pittsburgh office of Pepper Hamilton LLP, which represents the Energy Conservation Council of Pennsylvania in fighting the project.

Allegheny Energy contends that except for a 1.2-mile section of the line from the so-called 502 Junction power substation to the West Virginia border, the project within Pennsylvania addresses local electricity reliability needs.

Not everyone agrees with the company’s appraisal.

“We believe that the 500-kilovolt line through Washington and Greene counties isn’t necessary,” said Irwin “Sonny” Popowsky, the state’s consumer advocate. “Our expert witness believes that construction of smaller transmission lines on existing company rights-of-way would be less costly and cause less environmental impact.”

Public Utility Commission Office of Trial Staff analyst Gary Yocca previously testified he doesn’t believe Allegheny Energy has satisfied all applicable statutes and regulations regarding the new transmission line.

Attorney Burns said the PUC’s administrative law judges will make their recommendations on the project to the full commission sometime in June, with PUC decision to come later this year.

The Trans-Allegheny hearings come days after the U.S. Department Energy announced it wouldn’t hold additional hearings concerning its National Electric Transmission Corridor report and order.

The corridors are areas of the country the Energy Department determined as experiencing power transmission congestion, and which offer a wide variety of potential sources of electric generation.

The order forming the corridors was announced last year and immediately was criticized by a variety of politicians, including Gov. Ed Rendell, landowners and environmentalists as overly broad, including huge geographic areas in the Northeast and Southwest.

The Northeast corridor, for example, includes 52 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, with Allegheny Energy’s proposed Trans-Allegheny project included within the corridor’s boundaries.

Rick Stouffer can be reached at rstouffer@tribweb.com or 412-320-7853.

From today’s editions of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Law allows agency to dictate placement of power lines

Opponents of a high-voltage power line project in Washington and Greene counties have received encouraging news.

Last week, the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said it would hold hearings to review how the U.S. Department of Energy is implementing its controversial transmission corridor program.

The program allows the federal government to overrule state decisions about placement of electric transmission lines. It allows property to be taken for the lines using eminent domain, and has faced harsh criticism in recent months.

Also new on the power line front, the state Public Utility Commission will begin evidentiary hearings March 24 on the application of Greensburg-based Allegheny Power to build the Pennsylvania portion of a proposed 240-mile, 500-kilovolt transmission line. The line would extend from Washington and Greene counties in Pennsylvania to existing substations in West Virginia and end in northern Virginia.

Allegheny’s 210-mile portion of the line would cost $820 million to build, with the total project estimated at more than $1 billion. The smaller portion of the line would be constructed and paid for by Dominion Virginia Power, which serves customers in Virginia.

Allegheny Power, calling the project the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line Project, or TrAIL, has already provided the PUC with testimony from 19 witnesses, while a local opposition group, the Energy Conservation Council of Pennsylvania, has responded with three experts.

The company is facing challenges from more than just local groups, though.

Company testimony regarding the need for the power line so far has been rebutted by two witnesses for the Pennsylvania Office of Consumer Advocate, and from a supervisor from the PUC Office of Trial Staff, who called the application “premature at best.”

PUC Supervisor Gary Yocca questioned Allegheny Power’s application after analysis, testifying that the company had not yet done enough to merit approval of the application.

Mr. Yocca said that while the company says the new power line is needed to address anticipated local system failures and brownouts within the next several years, he questioned whether there could be less costly and intrusive methods.

He said the company failed to follow through on an assessment of the environmental impact of the project and apparently no federal or state agency examined the project. Mr. Yocca said there are questions about the effects on farmland, forest land, plants and wildlife, and the significance for historic and archaeological sites.
Other consequences loom

And, while he took note of local residents’ objections to the scenic dilemma presented by high-voltage transmission towers, Mr. Yocca warned of far more serious consequences.

In his testimony, Mr. Yocca reminded PUC board members of the longwall coal mining operations peppering Washington and Greene counties and of the susceptible limestone ground structure.

He said the 125-foot to 150-foot transmission towers could be affected by future mining operations or mine subsidence.

“If subsidence occurs under a [high voltage transmission line] tower, the results could be catastrophic,” he said.

Allegheny Energy spokesman David Neurohr said the company will address rebuttal testimony from the PUC and other sources during the evidentiary hearings.

“That will be the process,” he said. “That is what they are for.”

Will Burns, a lawyer with the Energy Conservation Council of Pennsylvania, said his group is gearing up for the fight against the power company and said he appreciates the work by Pennsylvania’s state and national legislative delegations.

He said the decision by the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to hold hearings “was indicative of how important Pennsylvania legislators think this is.”

A team of 38 Democratic state legislators, led by state House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, recently urged the Senate committee to investigate the implementation of a provision in the Energy Act of 2005 that gives the federal government jurisdiction over what has traditionally been state land-use decisions.

Mr. DeWeese’s letter to the committee came on the heels of one sent by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey earlier last month.

Energy law at issue

Pennsylvania, along with a number of states, has objected to the Department of Energy designating a large swath of the Northeast and parts of the Southwest as a national interest electric transmission corridor — or NIETC.

The Mid-Atlantic designation in the Northeast, which encompasses eight states, the District of Columbia, and 50 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, means the federal government will have the right to overrule state decisions involving the location of electric transmission lines and to take private property through eminent domain for such projects.

If a state denies a construction permit to a power company, makes no decision within a year, or places too many restrictions on the company, it would have the right to seek a permit from the federal government if the project is within a NIETC.

Already, Southern California Edison has asked federal regulators to approve the siting of a 500-kilovolt electric transmission line through Arizona after that state denied approval last year, saying it didn’t want to be an “extension cord for California.”

Late last month, a vice president for Dominion Virginia Power testified that the company would not rule out seeking federal intervention if state approval is denied.

Mr. Casey has become the national voice against the large regional corridors, which critics say defy the intent of the law — to address electric reliability and congestion after the 2003 blackout in the northeast U.S.

Senators, governors and others have proposed that the corridors be of reasonable size and include critically congested areas in need of transmission and new generation. Local groups have expressed concern that Western Pennsylvania’s relatively cheap coal-fired electricity will be shipped to the power-starved East Coast.

Senate to air concerns

Mr. Casey and other legislators have tried obstructing and amending the law to no avail. Mr. Casey even threatened to delay the renomination of Joseph Kelliher, Federal Energy Regulatory Committee chairman, to block implementation of the NIETC.

The most serious concerns raised by officials include the failure by the DOE to consult with states before the final NIETC designation and to assess transmission needs and alternatives.

Another major concern was the lack of alterations to the draft NIETC proposals last year. After more than 2,000 comments from the public, along with state and local officials, the DOE published the final designation with only token changes.

Last month, Mr. Casey sent a letter signed by 14 other senators to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, urging Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico, ranking member Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, to delve further into how the transmission corridor program is being administered.

Last week, Leon Lowery, a member of the professional staff for the committee, said there would be a hearing on the NIETC issues.

“There will be a number of hearings on electricity issues,” he said. “Among those things are the corridor issues.”

Mr. Lowery said there has been no schedule set yet for the hearings, but that the transmission corridors would likely not receive a separate hearing.

Janice Crompton can be reached at jcrompton@post-gazette.com or 724-223-0156.
First published on March 9, 2008 at 12:00 am