ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120026
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PEARISBURG
SOURCE: CLAYTON BRADDOCK STAFF WRITER
About 90 people crammed into Giles County's Circuit Courtroom Monday night to rally against the 765,000-volt line American Electric Power Co. wants to build through the county.
They looked at maps, photos and documents as evidence of what a 765-kilovolt power line can mean.
No AEP representative attended.
The crowd included three members of the Giles County Board of Supervisors and residents from all parts of the county plus some people from Montgomery County and West Virginia.
The event was led by the Citizens Organized to Protect the Environment, a group opposed to the power line.
The group, known as COPE, has spent $300,000 raised by residents and other sources from a 10-county region, officials said. Buddy Mitchell, a Craig County farmer, told the crowd that Craig residents had raised more than $100,000 to oppose the line.
The crowd seemed to like a proposed new slogan for the activist organization: NOPE - Not On Planet Earth.
The power line is not aimed at providing electricity for the region, said Cliff Shaffer, spokesman for COPE. It's just "the best way AEP can make money," Shaffer said.
AEP's consistent response has been that the company wants the line - from West Virginia, through Giles and Craig counties to Cloverdale near Roanoke - to provide power for the future, including prevention of brownouts and other loss of power.
Shaffer said West Virginia has frustrated AEP by not approving the application for the power line.
Shaffer and the crowd voiced hopes that the U.S. Forest Service will favor their position in its decision, expected later this month, on whether to endorse AEP's latest corridor for the line.
"If they don't endorse it, the power line is dead," Shaffer said. "AEP can't stand another corridor switch."
In addition to the political and informational aspects of the meeting, COPE raised money from the crowd, sold raffle tickets, promoted future fund-raisers, and sold anti-AEP power signs.
LENGTH: Short : 48 linesby CNB