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

DATE: SATURDAY, February 19, 1994                   TAG: 9402190114
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

W.VA. FOES SAY REPORT CROSSES LINE

West Virginia power line foes say Howard Anderson, a Virginia official, had no business talking about their state in his recommendation to approve Appalachian Power Co.'s huge transmission line.

And they want him to apologize.

They filed a petition this week with the Virginia State Corporation Commission to strike all findings pertaining to West Virginia from Anderson's report. Anderson is the SCC hearing examiner who gathered information on Apco's proposal and made his recommendation to the three-person panel in December.

"I think it casts a lot of doubt on his decision," said Bob Zacher, who spearheads the opposition in West Virginia to Apco's 765,000-volt power line. "His job is to make findings of fact."

But Anderson had no jurisdiction or authority to include information in his report about the location of the proposed line through West Virginia, the petitioners say.

"No, he's not going to comment on that," SCC spokesman Ken Schrad said of Anderson.

The four-page petition concluded with 39 signatures, including that of Mary Pearl Compton, a West Virginia legislator whose district would be affected by the line.

According to one passage in the four-page petition, Virginia long ago relinquished such control over its neighbor:

"The petitioners observe that although they have only the greatest respect and admiration for the Commonwealth of Virginia and its people, it must be noted that it has been some 130 years since that distinguished Commonwealth has exercised jurisdiction over certain of its former western counties which since that time have constituted the sovereign State of West Virginia."

Apco says it wants to build the 115-mile line, one-third of it in Virginia, by 1998 to fortify its system and provide reliable service into the next century.

Opposition is fiercest in West Virginia, where the Public Service Commission has twice rejected Apco's application for lack of environmental data. Apco has said it would likely refile an application in that state later this year.

Whether Anderson overreached his bounds in referring to West Virginia is a legal point for the SCC to determine, Schrad said. The SCC has the final say over Apco's application in Virginia but has no deadline by which to make a ruling.

by CNB