APCO USING FEAR TO SELL ITS MONSTER

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 3, 1993                   TAG: 9303030396
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
APCO USING FEAR TO SELL ITS MONSTER
APPALACHIAN Power Co. and its father, American Electric Power Co., have sunk to a new low in their attempt to sell the merits of their monster power line. The oldest game in economic and political combat is fear mongering.
Now, all of a sudden, "blackouts could occur." Does Apco say the "blackouts" will be from Richmond to New York City? No, Apco says the "blackouts" will occur right here in the coalfields, specifically southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and western Virginia.
Never before has Apco said that the power line is being built to service this area. All of the contracts they have signed with Virginia Electric Power and the testimony at Virginia's State Corporation Commission last summer revealed that the line is proposed to bring power from the Midwest to the Richmond, Maryland and New Jersey areas. So, if there would be "blackouts," it would be there and not here. How stupid does Apco and American Electric think we are?
Our Virginia and West Virginia power plants can't sell the power we are already generating. We don't need even more shipped in from Rockport, Ind., generated with strip-mined coal from the Indian reservations of the Great Plains. JACK FRAZIER PETERSTOWN, W. VA.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB