ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 5, 1997 TAG: 9702050102
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
THE SCC SHOULD STUDY power-industry competition and deregulation in considering changing guidelines for transmission-line applications, opponents of the proposed line say.
Opponents of American Electric Power Co.'s proposed 765,000-volt transmission line have asked the State Corporation Commission to change the rules governing applications to build power lines.
Power-line opponents in Giles, Craig and Roanoke counties asked Monday for public hearings on revising the application guidelines. Issues arising out of AEP's case, including the restructuring of the U.S. power industry and the introduction of competition, justify the request, they said.
Opponents want the SCC to consider rule changes in a legal proceeding separate from AEP's 5-year-old power-line application. The commission is yet to rule on a request by opponents in December to dismiss AEP's application. Opponents argued the application is out of date.
AEP officials in Roanoke have labeled the opposition's latest request for hearings on rule changes a delaying tactic, the same charge they levied against last month's motion to dismiss the company's application.
The SCC, opponents said, should study three issues:
* Whether the need for a line should be redefined in the light of power-industry deregulation. Opponents say AEP wants the line not to serve its own customers, but to ship power to the East Coast from its plants in the Midwest.
* How much reserve generating capacity a utility should maintain. Opponents say a proposal by AEP to reduce its reserve is more evidence of the company's intention to sell power outside its service area.
* Whether more information should be required about alternatives when the commission considers a new power line. Opponents say alternatives to building a new line were not adequately considered in the past.
Cliff Shaffer, a line opponent from Giles County, said these deeper issues underlie the immediate issue of AEP's application.
Opponents hope the SCC will not rule on AEP's application until the company provides more information about the alternatives, Shaffer said. AEP is asking the SCC and everyone else to ignore the company's other plans for entering the competitive power market and building new generating plants, he said.
Ron Poff, the AEP executive in charge of building the line, said the state and its consultants looked at a full range of alternatives to the new power line. Building a new generating plant is not a solution because a new power plant, particularly one built in Western Virginia or Southern West Virginia, still would require a new power line, he said.
What the opponents are asking for, Poff added, appears to be a duplication of studies of power-industry deregulation and restructuring that the General Assembly and SCC have under way.
In a related matter, a recently uncovered letter to the U.S. Forest Service from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicates that the EPA supports last June's preliminary decision by Bill Damon, supervisor of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, not to allow the power line to cross the Jefferson and other federally protected resources.
In a Oct. 7 letter that was among hundreds of comments received in response to the Forest Service's environmental study of the power line, an EPA official in Philadelphia wrote that Damon's decision is "the only alternative" that would completely avoid harm to federal resources that couldn't in some way be softened.
In response to Damon's preliminary ruling, AEP reconvened a study team from Virginia Tech and West Virginia University to find a new route for the power line. Poff said that AEP should be ready to file a proposal for a new route by early summer.
AEP has said the power line is needed to prevent brownouts and blackouts in its Western Virginia and Southern West Virginia service territory. The line as originally proposed would have run 115 miles from an AEP station in Wyoming County, W.Va., to a station at Cloverdale in Botetourt County.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB