NEW APCO LINE ROUTE AVOIDS AREA OF STUDY

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

DATE: SATURDAY, February 13, 1993                   TAG: 9302130211
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
NEW APCO LINE ROUTE AVOIDS AREA OF STUDY
A new alternate route to avoid passing through a New River scenic river study area is part of Appalachian Power Co.'s new application for West Virginia regulatory approval of a proposed high-voltage power line.
Apco filed an application with the West Virginia Public Service Commission late Thursday for a license to build a 115-mile line from Cloverdale to Wyoming Station, near Oceana, W.Va. About two-thirds of the line would be in West Virginia.
Apco's application said its preferred corridor is unchanged from its June 1992 application. That was later withdrawn to give the West Virginia regulatory staff time to prepare for an evaluation of the project within the 400 days required by state law.
An alternate route, swinging northward toward Hinton, was added by a university planning team to bypass a 17-mile section of New River under study for possible inclusion in the national Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
Opponents of the planned line were quick to attack the alternate route, as they have the preferred corridor.
"This new proposed route is even more absurd than the last proposal," said West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall, whose district would be crossed by the line. Rahall sponsored legislation for the study of the New River from a point south of Hinton 17 miles upstream to the U.S. 460 bridge at Glen Lyn.
Bob Zacher, coordinator of Common Ground, a Monroe County, W.Va., group of opponents to the power line, said the alternate route is "really offensive." The new alternate, "a huge industrial corridor, desecrates the region. [It] traipses across the center of tourism in southern West Virginia in Summers, Monroe and Mercer counties and the New River Valley."
A power line along either the preferred or the alternate route "will be visible for many miles," Zacher said.
With Apco's filing of the application, the West Virginia Public Service Commission is reviewing contractors' bids to study the environmental impact on West Virginia and the need for the line.
The State Corporation Commission in Virginia contracted a study of the need but not of the environmental impact. An SCC examiner has not made a recommendation on a Virginia license for the line.
Apco officials have said any route other than its preferred corridor would have more of an adverse environmental impact.
A university study team said the alternate corridor provides the best opportunity for crossing the New River outside the scenic river study area. But, the team said, a crossing in the alternate corridor "would have had substantial potential adverse impact on the recreational and visual resources of the community."
The new alternate is near Bluestone State Park and other recreational areas.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB