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

DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992                   TAG: 9203090205
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

POWER WON'T GO TO AREA, BUT THROUGH

BILL TANGER says the power line is a NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) issue (news story, Feb. 12). Incredible, isn't it, how easily a p.r. person can dispose of the opposition with a snappy acronym? Actually, I'm mystified at anyone who won't fight to keep a power tower out of his back yard.

Tanger likens this line to a local landfill or sewage treatment plant. Not true. This line will move electricity through, not to, our area. By every standard, Appalachian Power Co. has ample transmission lines to serve the current and growth needs of their Southwest Virginia service area.

This line is to increase sales to other utilities. Already, American Electric Power (Apco's parent) wholesales hundreds of megawatts to Virginia Power and Carolina utilities, produced at its Rockport, Ind., plant, fueled entirely with coal from Wyoming.

Is this good for Virginia's coal industry? The line will cost $250 million. Whose electric bills will pay for this, plus AEP's 12 percent profit? Wyoming's? Indiana's? Guess again.

The real irony is Tanger's silence on energy conservation. His employer, Apco-AEP, has one of the nation's poorest records on conservation promotion. They claim a constant barrage of heat-pump advertisements promotes energy efficiency when they're really just after a larger piece of the heating-market pie. Their vaunted energy-audit program made 126 audits between 1981 and 1989 - from 800,000 customers. Their 20-year forecast (1989) called for no specific energy or load reduction due to demand-side management. AEP is acid rain. GROVER MITCHELL NEW CASTLE

by CNB