ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 13, 1996 TAG: 9603130070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
A new proposed route for American Electric Power Co.'s high-voltage power line, which was filed Tuesday with the State Corporation Commission, might lessen the line's impact on Craig County's Sinking Creek Valley.
However, it would require the line to pass through neighboring Giles County, which AEP's original route avoids, and through nearly 23 more miles of Virginia in all.
AEP, which developed the alternative route at the request of the SCC, continues to prefer its original route because it causes the least environmental impact, AEP engineer Charles Simmons said.
The SCC ruled in December that Western Virginia will need more electricity by century's end and that AEP's proposed power line might be the best way to meet that need.
But before giving final approval to the 765,000-volt line, which would run 115 miles from Wyoming, W.Va., to an AEP substation at Cloverdale, the commission asked AEP for three more studies.
It wanted to know if alternative routes might reduce the impact on Craig County's Sinking Creek Valley and Roanoke's Carvins Cove reservoir. It also wanted AEP to say how the line would interact with others in the East Coast power grid and how it would be used in the future, when utilities are expected to compete for both wholesale and retail customers outside their traditional service areas.
Tuesday was the deadline for the studies of the alternative routes. The deadline for the third study has been delayed until April 15 at the request of Virginia opponents to the power line, who plan to present their own information on that issue to the commission.
Opponents will show that the line is more than is needed to serve AEP's Virginia customers and that its purpose is to ship power from AEP's power plants in the Midwest to the East Coast, said Cliff Shaffer, chairman of Citizens Organized for the Protection of the Environment in Giles County.
Simmons has disputed that argument in the past and said the line is needed to provide AEP's Virginia customers reliable service.
Shaffer said power-line opponents have known what the alternative route would be for about a month now. Giles County's Board of Supervisors recently passed a resolution opposing the line, saying the need for it hasn't been proven, and asking for new SCC hearings before a route through Giles is picked, Shaffer said.
He said opponents have reason to believe the federal government will block the proposed crossing of the New River and the Appalachian Trail in AEP's original route and that the Giles route will soon become the company's preferred path.
A U.S. Forest Service analysis of the line's environmental impact on the Jefferson National Forest, the Appalachian Trail and a section of the New River that has been proposed for federal protection is due in mid-June.
AEP and its study team from Virginia Tech and West Virginia University decided to use an alternative corridor for the line that was already under study by the Forest Service.
The alternative route prepared for the SCC would cross into Virginia near Glyn Lyn in Giles County and follow the right-of-way of an existing 138,000-volt line that roughly parallels U.S. 460 into Montgomery County.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Map by staff: Transmission line corridors. color.by CNB