Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 13, 1993 TAG: 9309130033
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FLOYD LENGTH: Long
Back in 1820, somebody chose a nice spot to build a house - next to a couple of grand old oaks in a valley ringed by blue mountains in Floyd County.
The Slushers - Lois and J. Edward - live here now. They moved to the farm about 30 years ago to escape the bustle of the town of Floyd.
The valley has changed some. One of the oaks is gone, a victim of lightning. But there's a much more dramatic change in the landscape.
A single file of four-legged towers marches like steel giants down from the western ridge, across the Slushers' field and out of sight. Arms stretched wide, the towers hold one of the world's biggest power lines high above the valley.
Electricity hums as it zips along the 765,000-volt line. In rain, fog and snow, the hum heats up to a sizzle.
Almost no one in Floyd County wanted the power line, least of all the people whose property it crosses. They fought it for 10 years, in federal court and in the press, but finally lost out to Appalachian Power Co., which erected the line in 1985.
After eight years of living with the line, they say they have no choice but to get used to it.
Most people have. It can be hard sometimes, though, when the static electricity collects in their parked trucks and zaps them with tiny shocks and they have to wear gloves to turn the ignition. Or when the noise wakes them up at night and drowns out conversations.
"It's roaring in your head all the time, if you're out working you constantly hear it humming, fizzing, popping and crackling," J. Edward Slusher says.
It's hard to ignore the line when it's the first thing they see out their front door, when they make a point to not let their grandchildren play near it, or when the stray electricity tickles their legs.
Or when they think it's killing their cattle.
"I'll be dead and gone, but someday, it'll be proven that it does have an effect on breeding animals," says Dallas Hubbard, who owns a cattle farm in the heart of Floyd County. His herd sometimes grazes under the power line that cuts through his 70-acre field.
Hubbard says his cattle have not been reproducing up to par for the past few years. About one-third of his cows are not conceiving or abort their fetuses. Three calves have been born with deformities.
Hubbard and his wife, Margaret, suspect the line is to blame. They contacted Apco, and the company agreed to pay Virginia Tech veterinarians to study the herd's health. They found nothing wrong with the animals' diet or treatment, Hubbard says.
But Apco didn't ask the university to investigate a possible link between the reproduction problems and the electromagnetic fields emanating from the power line.
The debate over health effects from exposure to electromagnetic fields - which emanate from household electronics as well as high-voltage power lines - is wide The debate over health effects from exposure to electromagnetic fields - which emanate from household electronics as well as high-voltage power lines - is wide open. open. Studies from all over the world continue to come out, each one seeming to contradict the one before.
The power company maintains there is no conclusive evidence of adverse health affects. Hubbard says Apco has even told him that he'd have a landmark case if he could document a cause-and-effect relationship.
"In our hearts and minds, we know [the link] is there because we weren't having any problems before the power line," Margaret Hubbard says. "It's the unknown factor that we're dealing with."
A decade after the line was completed, uncertainty still hovers. Concern over potential health effects is partly what's driving a new generation of Apco foes to battle the company's latest proposal - a 765,000-volt line that would run 115 miles from West Virginia to Cloverdale.
People in Craig, Botetourt and Roanoke counties, joined by supporters in several West Virginia counties, have formed a group called Arcs Inc.
They hold bake sales and raffles and sponsor musical concerts to raise money. The bulk of their funds is spent on their Richmond lawyer and technical consultants.
They sell fluorescent light bulbs, at a loss, to encourage energy conservation. They hold rallies and demonstrations. On Tuesday, they will travel to Richmond for a hearing on health issues before the State Corporation Commission, which eventually will approve or turn down the power line.
Some of the activists have accumulated boxloads of documents, studies, clippings and testimony. After two years of intense research born of gut-felt opposition, they have become self-styled experts in the complex world of power utilities.
To some in Floyd County, the latest news reports about the Arcs vs. Apco fight come like flashes of deja vu.
"We started it all," says Betty Yopp, who lives in the Willis section of Floyd County. "We started the trouble."
She helped form the now-defunct Citizens for the Preservation of Floyd County, and stuck with it to the end.
In 1974, a notice appeared in the Floyd Press that Apco had asked the state for permission to build a 765-kv line that would run 73 miles through five Southwest Virginia counties - including Floyd. The line would provide power for the Martinsville-Danville area.
A few people who saw the notice called a meeting of friends and neighbors, and a citizens group was born. They started organizing, which meant knocking on doors along the proposed route to alert residents. People were upset, especially because no one knew if the line would come right through their house, their barn, or would pass over the hill, away from them. They wouldn't find out for years, and because of that, the citizens group drew 500 or 600 members at first.
Although the line runs through Wythe, Carroll, Franklin and Henry counties, opposition was strongest in Floyd County, which would get the longest segment - 26 miles. The movement was in part spurred by the counterculture that had migrated to Floyd to escape things like this.
But folks born and bred here, steeped in frontier values of individual rights and private property, also resented what they saw as an invasion of their way of life.
People like Lou Ona Bond, who lived in Indian Valley for 35 years. She had always planned to add a sun porch on the back of her home "to see my nice view over there. Of course, that was out of the question."
Bond watched tower after tower being built closer to her home. The night before work crews were to come on her property, Bond says, she reminisced about the old days, when people, her grandmother, perhaps, would have met the strangers with a smile and a shotgun.
"Those days are gone," she says. She has since moved across her farm, away from the power line.
A few months after Apco filed its application, the State Corporation Commission approved the need for the line, and OK'd a wide corridor for the route.
The citizens group collected 1,000 signatures on a petition to their Board of Supervisors. The board went on record against the power line.
In 1975, the SCC ruled that 765-kv lines were safe. The citizens baked more cakes, raised more money, and dug in for the fight:
January 1978: The SCC gave preliminary approval to a 200-foot right of way. The citizens appealed the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court.
The court upheld the SCC's decision.
December 1978: Citizens asked the SCC to reopen hearings based on new evidence. Denied. They asked again in March 1979. Denied.
October 1979: The SCC gave final approval to the route.
The citizens turned to the federal government. The National Park Service, under the Carter administration, conducted an environmental impact study of the line, which would cross the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Under the Reagan administration, the agency later granted the utility a right-of-way permit.
1981: Citizens sued the Park Service and then-Secretary of Interior James Watt.
June 1982: A federal judge upheld the agency's decision. Apco began right-of-way acquisition.
"They came with their little maps and all their propaganda to the Floyd County courthouse," Yopp says. "And they told us how safe it was and not to worry . . . "
1984: The General Assembly held hearings on the safety of 765-kv lines and recommended that the SCC not approve applications for such lines before taking testimony on health and safety issues.
1985: As Apco was building the last of its steel towers in the county, the citizens filed their third petition with SCC to reopen hearings. Denied.
Originally slated to be on line in 1977 at a cost of $43 million, the project was finally energized in 1985. Total cost: $68 million.
"We went through all the procedures . . . and of course, we lost it all," says Yopp, who eventually became president of the citizens group. For 11 years, she and others poured money, effort and time into the cause.
The power line came through anyway, crossing her 92-acre farm. "We're forced to live with it now," Yopp says. One good thing that came of those years of grass-roots campaigning against the power company was a lasting friendship with people she hadn't known before. "We've even talked about having a reunion."
Early on, Arcs members contacted their predecessors in Floyd County for pointers on how to fight the big power company.
"It's not just standing up and saying, `I don't want this on my property,' " Yopp says. Activist groups need boards of directors, legal advice, and money. Lots of money.
They also need determination, says Wayne Bradburn, a coordinator for the Floyd group, because they're struggling against the odds.
Bradburn says he discovered toward the end that the group's lawyer probably had previous ties with Apco's parent company, American Electric Power, before representing the citizens. "So now I have sympathy with Arcs because I know what it takes."
Aside from offering strategic advice, the old group pushed through state legislation that should help Arcs, Bradburn says. Utilities now are required to delineate routes and notify local officials directly before applying to the state for approval. This opens a crack in the system, he says, allowing citizens more participation.
This time around, Apco announced its plans 1 1/2 years before filing an application with the state. In the interim, the company held public meetings and waged a media campaign to explain its project.
Given that the opposition stalled the Floyd County line for eight years, why has Apco given itself only eight years to complete its current project?
"We did a lot of work to do this one right," so there wouldn't be a long delay, spokesman Don Johnson says. Apco contracted with a team of professors from universities in Virginia and West Virginia and gave them authority to determine the least damaging route, with no outside influence.
The citizens of Floyd County, despite their defeat, urge their present-day counterparts to keep fighting.
"It's every citizen's right," says Lois Slusher, who also served on the group's board. "Keep going. Stay with it as long as you can."
by CNB