Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 24, 1993 TAG: 9303240224
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4N EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
STUDY TO COVER ENTIRE LINE
The Jefferson National Forest on Tuesday said an environmental impact statement on Appalachian Power Co.'s planned power line will analyze its effects on the entire 115-mile corridor.That decision settled a longstanding question - whether the environmental study will cover just the 12 miles in the forest or the full length of the proposed 765,000-volt line from Wyoming Station in West Virginia to Cloverdale.
The forest management chose the entire corridor because, as lead federal agency with the National Park Service and the Army Corps of Engineers, "we need to understand the total impact of the line," said Frank Bergmann of the forest staff. "We can't turn a blind eye to the effects on private land."
In a report on its environmental study, the forest said federal agencies "will rely heavily" in their evaluation on state regulators' assessments of the need for the line. Those assessments have not yet been made.
The forest is scheduling another round of public meetings next month for open discussion of significant issues and details of the study area. A meeting will be at the New Castle Senior Citizen Center on April 5; in Lindside, W.Va., April 6; and Concord College, Athens, W.Va., April 7. All sessions will be from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.
A consultants' study of the whole corridor, to be paid for by Apco, will take more time in a schedule already stretched. Apco says the line will be needed to reinforce its transmission system by 1998.
Charles Simmons, an Apco vice president, said the study of the entire corridor is appropriate, but the pace of the controversial case "bothers me."
Opponents are seeking delays in the complex two-state process of regulatory approval whenever they can.
But if the line is approved in Virginia and West Virginia by early in 1994, "we could do it now," he said. After the engineering design and acquisition of land, construction might start in early 1995 "and we could make it," Simmons said.
Another State Corporation Commission hearing is expected before a hearing examiner makes a recommendation to three commissioners who will decide on approving the line in Virginia. An application for West Virginia Public Service Commission approval awaits the entire hearing process.
Opponents are pleased that the forest's environmental study will cover the 115-mile corridor, but they said it won't go far enough. They're disappointed that the forest consultants will not study Virginia Power's related plan to build a 500,000-volt line from Lynchburg to near Richmond, a companion project.
Bob Zacher, coordinator of Common Ground, a group of Monroe County, W.Va., opponents of the line, said he's "mad enough to bite a nail in half" because the forest "ignored all of the significant issues" in its announcement of the impact study. For the forest to cut off the Virginia Power area "is wrong," he said.
Simmons said it would be "totally improper" for the forest to study the impact on Virginia Power's planned line. Virginia Power isn't asking for a federal permit, he said, and "people choose to ignore that our line would be needed with or without Virginia Power's line."
Mike Dawson, an Appalachian Trail spokesman, said a forest study of the entire line corridor was the only approach that makes sense.
The trail staff and members have worked with Apco on ways to reduce the impact of the power line's crossing, Dawson said. That subject will be on the agenda for an SCC hearing this spring.
Dawson said the question of need for the line is "still open. . . . We don't feel comfortable" with the company's statements of its needs.