Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 24, 1993 TAG: 9312240186
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Apco says the news will have no impact, and Virginia Power - which would have relayed the Pennsylvania wattage - says there should be no change in its own proposed transmission line.
Opponents of the Virginia Power project asked a hearing examiner of the State Corporation Commission this week to throw out the company's proposal to build a new high-power line in Central Virginia. Examiner Howard Anderson Jr. could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Charles Montange, attorney for Virginia Power opponents in Louisa, Goochland and Buckingham counties, said Thursday that cancellation of a Duquesne Light Co. power line that would have run 268 miles across Pennsylvania means far less power coming into Virginia than Virginia power had promised.
Apco line opponents said the cancellation heightens the debate on how new sources of power will be plugged into Virginia. The Apco and Virginia plans - and the abandoned Pennsylvania plan - are part of an East Coat power grid.
If Virginia Power were to cancel its line because of the Pennsylvania developments, then Apco opponents would press the SCC again for an Apco route that Apco opposition leader Jeff Janosko says would feed power more directly to Southwest Virginia.
A Virginia Power transmission expert testified in an SCC hearing last year that the Duquesne line was crucial to construction of the proposed Virginia Power line. That also was the conclusion of a 1991 study by American Electric Power, parent company of Apco.
Virginia Power disagreed Thursday. "It doesn't diminish our need for the line," said spokesman Charles Taylor. It's still needed, he said, to give the utility access to power generated by nonutility sources in Southwest Virginia.
Apco spokesman Don Johnson said of his company's proposed line: "We still feel that is the best route for the line. Our request for the line will stand, regardless of whatever Virginia Power does."
Apco wants to build a 115-mile, 765,000-volt line between Oceana, W.Va., and Cloverdale. About one-third of the line would pass through Craig, Botetourt and Roanoke counties.
by CNB