PPL Wants Your Input
By David Falchek, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
Jun. 13–New electric transmission lines, like the power they carry, usually take the path of least resistance.
PPL Corp. is seeking public input as it considers three possible routes for a new transmission line between the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Salem Township, Luzerne County, and New Jersey. For the next two weeks, the power company will be holding eight open houses throughout the region to get out the word on its Susquehanna-Roseland power line project and to get feedback on the proposed routes.
The sessions will help company officials learn things about the region they may have missed during their helicopter fly-overs. The information could prompt the company to tweak the proposed path, said PPL spokesman Paul Wirth.
The first four sessions, all from 5 to 8 p.m., will be Monday at the PPL East Mountain Business Center in Wilkes-Barre; Tuesday at the Hilton Scranton & Conference Center; Wednesday at Wallenpaupack Area High School in Hawley; and Thursday at Fernwood Resort & Conference Center in Bushkill.
“This is a way to minimize the effect,” he said. “You never know, we may find that route goes through a Civil War battlefield or something like that.”
Rather than old battlefields, the company is more likely to encounter new battles — property owners and local officials who view the 500-kilovolt power line as a NIMBY project — “not in my backyard.”
On the front lines will be Mary Mann, who was shocked to learn that one of the possible routes, dubbed Route A by PPL, would slice through her 140 acres outside Milford, Pike County, just 710 feet from the home she and her husband built. Currently living in Moorestown, N.J., the librarian and her husband, an oncologist, hoped to retire there. They gave a conservation easement to the Natural Land Trust to ensure the land would never be subdivided or exploited.
Now she is questioning her decision.
“How could we walk in the woods with something like that overhead?” Ms. Mann asked. “My daughter is ready to chain herself to a tree. We love this place.”
To minimize resistance, PPL selected routes that mostly run along existing power lines. About 95 percent of another proposed route, called Route B, that runs through Pike, Wayne, Lackawanna, Luzerne and Susquehanna counties, for example, runs along the company’s existing rights-of-way, which already host power lines. Similarly, most of another route is also along existing power lines.
About 55 percent of the third proposed path, called Route C, would run along existing power lines and another portion along unused rights-of-way purchased by PPL 20 years ago.
The company and its consultants, the Berger Group, will use the information to select a final route and submit an application to the state Public Utility Commission, which will vote up or down on the route.
PPL sent letters to the 2,500 property owners within 1,000 feet of the three proposed routes. New sections of the routes would require PPL to acquire rights to some properties. About 250 property owners were informed that PPL may have to purchase rights-of-way from them. The 55 municipalities touched by new portions of the three routes were also notified, Mr. Wirth said, although they have no regulatory authority over the siting of transmission lines.
The new transmission line was recommended by PJM Interconnection, the group that manages the multistate electric grid. PPL says the new line will help meet the region’s growing electricity demand and prevent power failures or brownouts.
PPL expects to select a route and make an application to the PUC in early August with construction estimated to start in 2009 and end in 2012. The power line is the largest investment PPL has made in a generation, at an estimated cost of $300 million to $500 million.
For more information on the project, visit www.pplreliablepower.com or call 800-291-5403.
Contact the writer: dfalchek@timesshamrock.com
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