Capon Valley Coalition

Many of us working on the Capon Valley Coalition campaign have found ourselves inundated with work from our “day jobs” and that thing we call a “personal life”.

Ralph W., who owns property with his wife on River Ridge, is riding to our rescue.

Ralph will begin updating the site more regularly — while I work through the backlog of email from July.

Our thanks to Ralph and all the CVC volunteers.

This fight ain’t over!

Our friend Lew sent this along, tipping us off to the WV PSC’s first round of questions for Allegheny Power over the power line it’s trying to ram down our throats.

I emphasized a few things in bold that you might want to pay attention to.

Thanks again to Lew. Here is his entire note:

The PSC’s first set of interrogatories were published Friday. They are at:

http://www.psc.state.wv.us/imaged_files/Docket/2007_06/dck20070622161326.pdf

It appears to me the PSC staff has asked questions that we (Laurel Run Community Watershed Association) would have asked and then some. The response, due in 20 days, will likely be voluminous. Some of the questions posed indicate AE’s filing logic left something to be desired.

Over this way, we view the order compelling AE to study the alternate route proposed by Billy Jack Gregg as a positive note for moving the line out of the watershed. Paralleling the current Ft. Martin - Pruntytown - Mt. Storm should reduce the amount of green space that would have otherwise have been disturbed.

Although there is a groundswell of protest against the corridor concept, one that I suspect will grow as other counties become aware they are in the route plan, I doubt the Feds are going to change their minds. None the less, we will keep trying. It is alarming that PJM, in discussing the John Amos and NJ lines, notes that branches off Trail may be considered. No other specifics on that were given in the announcement.

You may be interested in a letter to the editor I sent to the Morgantown Dominion Post last week.

Allegheny Energy in defending the TrAIL project says the line is necessary to prevent blackouts and brownouts. Growth, they say, has outstripped capacity. What they don’t say is that many of the woes of today’s power grid are due to the failure of electricity providers to update their technology.

Switches remain mechanical. Systems connected to the grid cannot talk to each other, let alone react to problems in another system miles away, and there is no way to efficiently manage the overall grid. Estimates are that over half of outages in recent years could have been prevented or resolved more quickly were modern technology in use.

Industry efforts to modernize have been questionable. The Electric Power Research Institute reports the utility industry spends 0.2% of total revenues on research and development – less than the dog food industry. Really. The Department of Energy, which is on the verge of establishing “energy corridors” where power lines could be strung virtually anywhere on land people do not want to give up, has allocated one half of one percent of its budget to grid research.

Building power lines is how power delivery was addressed in the 20th century. The 21st century offers tools that can reduce blackouts and brownouts. PJM, the grid manager, has indicated it will push for a “smart grid”, that much like the Internet can react to congestion and take appropriate steps rapidly. Much work will have to be done, at rate payers’ expense, work that should have been done before the horse left the barn. Growth will surely continue in areas where it is under way now and other areas, like Morgantown, are developing rapidly. Add in the possibility that electric vehicles that are plugged in over night to recharge and similar notions are on the horizon and it seems inevitable that more power will be needed.

Are more power lines needed? Maybe at some point. But might it not be better to first develop a “smart grid” that can react more readily before disrupting thousands of lives and miles of land for rights of way?

TrAIL and the imminent line from John Amos to New Jersey will require over 7000 acres of West Virginian’s property, roughly the area of Morgantown. Viewed another way, an acre of trees scrubs from the air the CO2 a car generates in traveling 26,000 miles. Were all those 7000 acres forested, clearing them for the two power lines would remove the power to absorb the CO2 created by vehicles traveling 182,000,000 miles. About the national annual number of miles traveled by 15,200 vehicles. All for power lines that currently use outmoded, inadequate technology.

Simply stringing more power lines without installing modern technology first means more miles of lines that cannot be managed any better than the existing lines. Rather than solving the problems we supposedly have now, the potential for more problems will increase. Adopting new technology first would allow more continuous service with existing lines and reduce the need to spoil states with massive towers.

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)

CVC Cochairman Bill Golemon reports:

Gov. Joe Manchin

Governor Manchin came to Romney on Monday afternoon, May 14, to make some scholarship awards and meet with some citizens’ groups. Grady Bradfield, Jim Matheson, Steve Slonaker and I spoke with him and detailed our opposition to the proposed power lines and the NIETC designation by DOE, and of the great amount of opposition to it, including our petitions and the letters of protest and filings with the PSC.

I made the point that there is now proposed legislation in Congress to repeal the NIETC designation provisions of the National Energy Policy Act and asked him to reconsider his position and withdraw his support of NIETC expressed in his letter of last year. His response was noncommittal, and I don’t think he’s interested in our cause. He did ask his aide to make a note to suggest that Billy Jack Gregg at the WVPSC get in touch with us and perhaps meet with our group.

U.S. Department of Energy

I did attend the DOE hearing in Arlington on Tuesday, May 15, and spoke for our group for my allotted two minutes, along with many dozens of other people. I didn’t see anything about it in the Washington Post the next day. I called them and asked why but didn’t get an answer, other than that they couldn’t report everything.

PEC (Piedmont Environmental Council, an ally) had several speakers and did a very good job. They have a good report of it on their Web site.

Virginia Congressmen Wolf and Davis spoke, and Congressman Hinchey of New York made a great speech, ignoring the moderator’s efforts to limit his time. Their testimony is available on PEC’s Web site, along with Wolf’s letter, supported by over forty other congressmen, asking DOE to extend the hearing time-period and increase the locations.

(I made the point that there were no meetings in WV, which of course they already know).

WV PSC

I spoke on the phone with Caryn Short, the lead PSC attorney on the case. They have not had an acceptable proposal from a consulting firm to do an Environmental Impact Study, and may have to do it themselves with the help of the appropriate WV state agencies.

The ending date to intervene hasn’t been determined yet. I will continue to try to find an attorney, and I do realize the clock is ticking.