Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 7, 1994 TAG: 9407070108
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Meanwhile, Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said Wednesday he will meet with Forest Service officials and raise the issue of allowing people in Bland, Giles, Pulaski and Montgomery counties the same chance to comment on alternative routes for the power line as was enjoyed by people in locales traversed by the primary route.
Jefferson National Forest Supervisor Joy Berg told two citizens' groups in a letter Tuesday that work on an environmental impact statement has gone too far forward to return to the initial "scoping" procedure that ended more than two years ago.
In a letter last week, the groups had asked Berg to delay the statement for three to six months. It is scheduled to be released in February.
The Forest Service used the scoping procedure to determine the major issues it would study in an environmental impact statement, which is required for many major developments. Berg said issues raised back then - such as the power line's impact on the Appalachian Trail - led to the development of some of the alternatives now under consideration.
The citizens' groups contend the Forest Service is racing to meet an artificial deadline for an Appalachian Power Co. project for which the state hasn't established a need.
"They're in too much of a hurry to meet their deadline to give us the same due process they've given the other counties," said David Brady of the Newport-based Citizens Organized for Protection of the Environment.
The Blacksburg-based group ICAN - the informed citizens' action network - has banded together with Brady's group to raise awareness about the alternative power-line routes in the Newport and Blacksburg areas. ICAN is holding a meeting at 7:30 tonight at Slusser's Chapel on Mount Tabor Road.
The Forest Service is holding four meetings next week to explain the alternative routes to residents in West Virginia and the New River Valley. Berg told the groups the Forest Service chose Narrows High School for one of the meetings at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday because it is centrally located. ICAN and COPE want a series of meetings in Bland, Giles, Pulaski and Montgomery counties.
"While it is not possible to repeat the scoping process, we do want to give your group, and others in the area, an opportunity to be involved in our process," Berg wrote.
In preparing the environmental impact statement, the Forest Service was required by law to come up with a power-line route that doesn't pass through the National Forest, along with alternatives to the primary corridor, which passes through Craig County en route to Cloverdale.
Brady said Boucher's comments at a community meeting Tuesday night in Newport were encouraging.
The veteran representative, spending the week in the 9th District during Congress' Fourth of July recess, said he would meet with Berg later this week to talk over the power-line concerns and other National Forest issues.
"The people along these proposed routes ought to have the same opportunity [to comment] as the other communities," Boucher said in a Wednesday telephone interview. "The planning and scoping for the study should accommodate those equal opportunities."
by CNB