Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 6, 1994 TAG: 9409060070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The alarm clock chirps to life at 6:30 a.m.; the built-in compact disc player cranks up some music. Mom turns on the light and makes her way to the kitchen. She grinds some coffee beans, starts the coffee maker and puts breakfast in the microwave.
Dad turns up the air conditioner on his way to the bathroom. He shaves with an electric razor and blow-dries his hair while catching the morning news on the radio.
Son and daughter wake up, turn on the TV and the computer, then start in on Nintendo games.
Already, this average family in the Roanoke Valley has used a considerable amount of energy.
Their electric company, Appalachian Power Co., predicts the family will use even more energy next year, and the next - increasing 1.2 percent each year.
By the year 2014, this household will use about one-fifth more electricity than it does now, Apco says.
Not only that, but son and daughter will have moved into their own homes, complete with power-hungry refrigerators, water heaters, heating and air conditioning systems, lights, all the other electronic gadgetry of modern life - and perhaps some gadgets not yet invented.
To meet this future demand, Apco says it must build a $250-million, 115-mile transmission line from West Virginia to Botetourt County that would carry 765,000 volts - the largest-size power line known to man.
Without it, Apco executives warn, this Roanoke family may one day, perhaps as soon as 1998, wake up in darkness and silence.
Hogwash, Apco's opponents say. That's a scare tactic.
Such a huge power line - one that would destroy miles of natural and rural beauty, pose a cancer threat to nearby residents and devalue property - is simply not needed, they say.
The company has inflated its projections, opponents claim. By law, Apco cannot condemn private property for a money-making venture; the opponents say Apco has dreamed up the demand in order to continue selling power to other utilities at a profit, benefiting its stockholders.
Even if that Roanoke family and other Apco customers continue to use more electricity, there are other ways the utility can provide that service without building another 765-kv line, they say.
"We'd like to see the analysis that says they can't do with less. We've never seen it. The state's never seen it," says David Brady, a Giles County resident and system analyst who has studied every report, every comment made by Apco and its parent company, American Electric Power, looking for what he believes to be contradictions and lapses of logic.
He says he has found plenty.
It has been a four-year battle between Apco and its critics. And it's bound to drag on for several more years.
Both sides have waged extensive public relations campaigns, and both believe that, to some extent, their words have fallen on deaf ears.
"We've had a problem since we made the announcement in 1990 in telling the public about the need," says Carl Persing, Apco's project coordinator.
Earlier this year, Apco produced an easy-to-read, 32-page report with graphs, tables and simple language outlining the need for the line. The company has not widely distributed the report, but it has used some of the information in West Virginia newspaper ads, at meetings with news media, and at chambers of commerce.
The opponents are scattered throughout a dozen counties in two states and are loosely organized under Arcs Inc., an umbrella coalition for the many locally based groups. For now, opponents are concentrating on the Jefferson National Forest, which is embroiled in a controversy over an environmental impact statement on the power line and its route over federal land. In coming up with alternative routes, the Jefferson aroused a new group of angered citizens, who are now suing the U.S. Forest Service.
The forest's involvement offers the opponents another avenue to delay - and perhaps defeat - the power line. And while they criticize the project for what they say are its threats to the environment and public health, their fundamental argument remains: The line isn't needed.
Two years ago, Apco and Arcs made their cases before the Virginia State Corporation Commission. The SCC still has not ruled, although both its consultant and hearing examiner have recommended approval of the line.
That leaves the West Virginia Public Service Commission. Perhaps the only thing on which the two sides agree is that the fate of the 765-kv power line rests here.
Apco will likely submit, for the third time, its application to the commission early next year. The PSC will have about 13 months to rule on the request.
Emotions run hotter than a live wire. One side argues that people's health, homes and farms, even their heritage, are at stake. So is their future, the other side responds, as well as their children's need for reliable energy at home and on the job. Environmental concerns are profound - with issues such as air quality, water quality, wildlife habitat, recreation and aesthetics to be considered. Once the line goes up, it's not coming down.
As for the technical aspects, one almost has to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. Every fact is disputed.
The chart to the right gives the highlights of the two arguments, which often raise more questions than they answer.
by CNB