NY residents vent over plan to ease power line construction

[Kilgour Farms]

By David B.Caruso
Associated Press Writer

May 23, 2007 6:43 PM EST

NEW YORK -- Disgruntled citizens and state utility regulators urged the U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday to halt a plan to make it easier for companies to build long-distance power lines through communities that don't want them.

Their ire, vented at a public hearing in Manhattan, was aimed the Energy Department's announcement that it intended to designate two large sections of the Northeast and Southwest as "National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors."

That designation would give the federal government the authority to approve high-voltage power lines that state officials had rejected, or failed to approve quickly. It would also let energy companies seize private property to make way for such projects.

The goal of the program is to spur construction of power lines that grid operators say are desperately needed to quench a record thirst for electricity in places like New York City _ which consumes as much electricity on a hot summer day as the entire nation of Chile.

But the plan has enraged people like Eve Ann Shwartz, whose 1,200-acre cattle farm in Earlville, N.Y., stands in the path of the proposed transmission line.

"This thing would be 250 yards from my home. It would be devastating," she said of the buzzing cables and their massive support towers.

Energy regulators from two states said at the hearing that decisions over where power lines can be built are better left in state hands.

Patricia Acampora, the chairwoman of the New York State Public Service Commission, called federal intervention "unwarranted."

Samuel Wolfe, chief counsel of New Jersey's Board of Public Utilities, asked that states be given more time to explore other means of relieving electricity congestion, before being forced to accept cables that may further the region's reliance on power transported over long distances.

"It is taking a giant step toward a risky energy future," Wolfe said.

Tuesday's meeting took place a few blocks from the blazing electric wonder of Times Square, in a city that knows, all too well, the perils of an aging power grid.

In 2003, New York sweltered through a blackout caused by a failure of transmission systems across the Northeast. That time, the city got off easy; power was restored within a day and there was no repeat of the horrific rioting that destroyed sections of the city during the blackout of 1977.

But experts said the episode was a sign that the grid needs work fast.

Energy Department senior policy adviser David Meyer opened Wednesday's meeting with a warning that capacity has only been stretched even thinner in the past four years.

"There is a real risk of blackout here, in these systems, that cannot be ignored, that cannot be wished away," he said.

The two energy corridors proposed by the government cover large swaths of land: One would run from upstate New York to Virginia; the other would run from Arizona to California.

James Owen, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, an association of energy companies, said fierce community opposition to transmission lines has held up much-needed projects for a decade or more.

He noted that it took American Electric Power 16 years to win state and federal approval for a 90-mile transmission cable between Wyoming County, W.Va., and Jacksons Ferry, Va.

Some industry officials have suggested that many state officials are simply unwilling to risk their political careers by supporting power-line projects, and that the federal government needs to step in.

William May, a project manager for New York Regional Interconnect Inc., said opponents had already begun to "derail the fair evaluation" of the company's plan to build a transmission line across the state.

"The purpose of the national corridors is to make sure that the interests of the country prevail over the narrow interests of those who simply don't want transmission facilities in their area," he said.

As he concluded his remarks, he was met with a barrage of boos and curses.


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