State OKs power line

The State Corporation Commission on Tuesday endorsed the construction of two portions of a controversial 500-kilovolt power transmission line through northern Virginia, including Culpeper County, saying that the line will ensure reliable power for the region.

Proposed jointly by the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line Co. and Dominion Virginia Power, the line would cross from Pennsylvania to West Virginia.

However, the SCC said work on the $243 million Virginia portion cannot begin until all three states give it the green light.

West Virginia regulators have already approved that state’s portion of the line, but Pennsylvania has yet to act.

The $1.3 billion Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line would run some 240 miles from the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, 65 miles through northern Virginia and through six counties in West Virginia.

In Culpeper, the line would run along U.S. 211 and affect some residents in the South Wales area. Over the past two years, the proposal has generated stiff opposition from area landowners and conservation groups.

“I’m not happy,” Culpeper County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Chase said of Tuesday’s ruling. “And I feel sympathy for the people in Jeffersonton who fought it so much.”
Although Chase acknowledged that infrastructure improvements are needed, he questioned the routing of the line, saying there were better alternatives.

Regulators said they considered alternatives such as new power plants and conservation and found that the transmission line is the best alternative. But opponents maintained that Dominion hasn’t done enough to meet Virginia’s energy needs by upgrading equipment, through conservation and other initiatives.

Robert Lazaro, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council, has been an outspoken critic of Dominion’s plans.

“We believe that Virginians need to take care of Virginia’s problems,” he said. “This is about shipping electricity from coal-fired plants to New Jersey.”

In its unanimous ruling, the SCC concluded the proposed power line meets standards set by Virginia law and must be approved.

Proponents have argued the Mid-Atlantic region is facing the breaking point because of surging power demands, and Virginia regulators agreed that those anticipated reliability problems “must be fixed.”

“The SCC agreed with its hearing examiner that the need for the line had been proven, specifically to cure the reliability problems that will occur on an existing high-voltage line by 2011,” the commission said in a statement announcing the decision.

In a statement, Dominion called the transmission line “the best and only answer to keep the lights on in an important section of our country and our state beginning in the summer of 2011.”