Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (1)
PATH asks West Virginia for seven-month delay
American Electric Power and Allegheny Energy, partners in the proposed 280-mile 765,000-volt electric transmission line from Putnam County, W.Va., to a new substation in Maryland, have asked the West Virginia Public Service Commission to put the application on hold for 217 days.
PATH – the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline – indicated it will be asking for a similar delay in Virginia.
The staffs of both the Virginia and West Virginia regulatory commissions have asked their commissioners to dismiss the PATH application outright. Since no application is on file in Virginia, the staffs said, the line has no known destination and thus cannot be evaluated. PATH attorneys rebutted that argument, writing in both Virginia and West Virginia filings that the line is going where it has always been planned to go – a new substation, named Kemptown, just south of New Market, Md.
PATH filed applications in West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland last June. But on Sept. 9, the Maryland regulators dismissed the applicant outright on grounds the applicant is not an electric company as defined in Maryland law. PATH has not yet filed an acceptable application in Maryland and the schedule for hearings and approvals in the three states has been thrown out of sync.
The PATH press release announcing the request for a delay noted that the delay, “combined with a decision in the near future to seek approval for the Maryland segments of PATH would effectively align the proceedings in the three states.” It would also, the release continued, allow the project to be completed by mid-2014.
Critics of the line charge that its true purpose is to move coal-fired electricity from West Virginia, across Virginia and Maryland, to better-paying markets in New York and New Jersey. Recent drops in demand for power, the opponents charge, call into question the rationale for building the line at all.
More than 200 miles of the PATH project are in West Virginia, and about 30 in Virginia. The line would cross a little more than 10 miles of Loudoun County, from Between the Hills to the Potomac River east of Lovettsville.
The power companies argue that if the line is not in use by mid-2014, the entire region will be at risk for brownouts and blackouts.
Without the delay, West Virginia is required by federal law to act on the application by June 22, 2010. The request filed Nov. 4 asked that date be moved back by 217 days, to Jan. 25, 2011, if the West Virginia Commissioners accept PATH’s terms. One of those terms is that the West Virginia staff and the intervenors – the citizens who oppose the project – would be kept to the existing schedule for direct testimony and PATH's rebuttal testimony “on all issues other than electrical need …”
The PATH proposal as currently structured has a construction start date of mid-2010. PATH is a “badly needed, long lead-time construction project,” the West Virginia application states, and the applicants “do not take lightly” the decision to delay the application.
PATH SCC PUBLIC meeting is scheduled for Thursday, November 19th @ 7 pm at the Lovettsville Community Center.
The SCC HAS NOT dismissed this case even though MD has refused PATH's application and PATH has no ending point!
Do not confuse PATH with TRAIL -- these are 2 different powerlines.
Posted by NoToPATH
Report Offensive Content
You must be logged in to post a comment.