THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 5, 1995 TAG: 9512050325
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
North Carolina has long said it holds a golden bullet in its fight against the Lake Gaston pipeline.
On Monday, Gov. James B. Hunt loaded the gun.
In a memo addressed to Jonathan Howes, the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Health and Natural Resources, Hunt called for the state to hire the ``nation's foremost water, engineering and environmental experts,'' to examine the impact of the pipeline.
He said he wants to use that expertise to challenge the project during the relicensing of the hydroelectric plant at Lake Gaston.
In 1951, the Roanoke River was dammed to create Lake Gaston as a source of electric energy. Virginia Power, which holds a 50-year license to operate the power plant, must get a new license by 2001 to continue to run the plant.
But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will not issue the new license without North Carolina's approval, according to FERC spokesperson Celeste Miller, and Hunt's memo suggests North Carolina will not give that approval easily.
``The governor told us to pull out all the stops and devote our full resources to this issue, and we certainly intend to,'' Debbie Crane, spokesperson for the department of natural resources, said Monday. ``We think we have a very good case that northeastern North Carolina's interests are not served by the pipeline. We think that any scientific expert looking at the case would come up with the same decision.''
Virginia Beach officials said Monday that they think North Carolina's magic bullet will be a blank.
Virginia Beach is in the process of giving seven construction companies the go-ahead to begin ordering parts and clearing land for the pipeline. Once it's built, North Carolina won't have the power to turn off the pipeline's spigot, according to Scott Hart, Virginia Beach's outside legal counsel on the Gaston case.
``We do not believe that FERC or the courts are going to have the (Virginia Power) project or our project held hostage to an unreasonable or unnecessary license condition that North Carolina tries to impose,'' Hart said.
``We are not impressed, we are not intimidated,'' Virginia Beach's Deputy City Attorney William M. Macali added. ``The very idea that the governor needs to have experts make up his mind whether to approve or disapprove the pipeline is a joke in light of their unending opposition to the pipeline, which has been approved by every federal agency that has looked at it.''
Kenneth E. Baker, senior staff engineer with Virginia Power, said he's not sure how the inter-state battle will affect his company's power plant at Lake Gaston.
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON WATER SUPPLY PLAN TIDEWATER by CNB