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

DATE: THURSDAY, June 10, 1993                   TAG: 9306100023
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STUDY OF POWER LINE DELAYED

A study of how Appalachian Power Co.'s proposed 765,000-volt power line will affect the environment will take a year and a half longer than expected, a spokesman for the Jefferson National Forest announced Wednesday.

Special Projects Coordinator Frank Bergmann said a study of the 115-mile power line that would stretch from Oceana, W.Va., to Cloverdale won't be ready for public review until Sept. 1, 1994. When the project was announced in November 1991, officials predicted the study would be completed by last February.

Bergmann said he now expects a final draft of the study to be ready by Feb. 1, 1995.

"When we first established the time frame, we didn't really have a sense of what all the issues we were facing," he said.

They should have, said Jim Loesel, a Roanoke conservationist opposed to the power line.

"In which universe were they residing before, I wonder," he said.

Since 1991, public outcry over the proposed line, which will cross federal lands, has raised concern in 11 different areas, Bergmann said.

Concerns range from whether blasting for the new line will damage natural springs, caves and historic structures to whether the high voltage will create health hazards by exposing people to electromagnetic fields and increased herbicides.

Bergmann said his agency and the National Park Service and U.S. Army Corp of Engineers would have to decide "whether it was appropriate for the line to cross federal land and if so, under what conditions."

Loesel questioned the federal agency's ability to turn a draft of the study into a final report in just five months. That process normally includes a three-month public comment period and should take up to a year to make suggested changes, he said.

"Five months is simply laughable," he said, predicting the agency would not meet its February deadline.

Apco's high-voltage line, initially set for completion by 1998, ran into further delays recently when the West Virginia Public Service Commission rejected its application because it lacked sufficient information about natural, cultural and political features of the project.

The company has said it is working to assemble that information.

by CNB