
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 8, 1994                   TAG: 9407120023
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

POWER-LINE OPPONENTS PLAN CAMPAIGN

Power-line opponents plan to pressure local governments across the New River Valley to urge the U.S. Forest Service to hold more public meetings on alternative routes for a high-voltage, West Virginia to Cloverdale link.

Forty people gathered Thursday night near Blacksburg to discuss strategies for convincing Jefferson National Forest officials that New River Valley communities should be given the same chance to comment on the routes as residents of Craig, Botetourt and Roanoke counties had two years ago on the original path.

The opponents say the four public meetings scheduled next week are insufficient. The closest one to much of the New River Valley is 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Narrows High School. The first is Tuesday in New Castle.

The Forest Service this week released maps of the alternative routes around and through the Jefferson National Forest, which it was required by law to prepare.

David Brady of the Citizens Organized for the Protection of the Environment, said a Forest Service official's promise Thursday to conduct private meetings with concerned residents in the Dismal Creek area of Giles County and the Mount Tabor area of Montgomery County was not enough.

The Forest Service, in a letter to two citizens' groups this week, declined to delay preparation of a draft environmental impact statement to allow more meetings and a formal comment period.

Members of ICAN, the informed citizens' action network of Montgomery, and Brady's group plan to pack the Narrows meeting. ICAN organized earlier this year in response to plans for building Interstate 73.

The groups also plan to put pressure on the boards of supervisors in the four counties, starting Monday in Christiansburg.

M/ntNomery County Board of Supervisors member Jim Moore, who represents the Mount Tabor area, told the groups that he felt his board should say something about the due-process issue. However, he said, county officials may not have gathered sufficient information to take a s tand by Monday.

COPE made a presentation to the Giles supervisors earlier this week. Similar presentations are planned in Pulaski and Bland, where other alternative routes pass.

Memo: ***CORRECTION***

by CNB