POWER LINE LEGISLATION WEAKENED

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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 18, 1993                   TAG: 9302180311
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
POWER LINE LEGISLATION WEAKENED
The General Assembly has passed a watered-down version of legislation originally designed to require a study of the effects of high-voltage power lines on human health.
A Senate joint resolution had called for a delay in State Corporation Commission approval of Virginia Power's planned 500,000-volt line through Central Virginia until the study was completed.
But that resolution was amended to ask state agencies to continue monitoring research on the health effects of high-voltage lines.
The original resolution asked for a joint study by the State Corporation Commission and the Health Department on the health risks of Virginia Power's proposed line from Lynchburg to north of Richmond.
State Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, said he tried unsuccessfully to include Appalachian Power Co.'s proposed 765,000-volt line from West Virginia in the original resolution offered by Sen. Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania. But the measure was amended before he could act.
The resolution approved by the Senate and House "doesn't go as far as I would like for it to go," Trumbo said.
Houck's original resolution said a growing body of scientific evidence, especially two new Swedish studies, suggests the risks of leukemia in children and other malignancies rise with exposure to electromagnetic fields from high-voltage power lines.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB