Loudoun County supervisors are fighting a power company’s plan to build a new transmission line that would stretch from Maryland to West Virginia.
Allegheny Power has asked the county to give up land the company says is needed for the “PATH” line.
But the Board of Supervisors is demanding that the company win approval from the Virginia State Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities, as well as finish an environmental impact statement before it will consider giving up the land.
“I’m 100 percent [in] support of this,” said Stevens Miller, D-Dulles. “The arrogance that these organizations show is breathtaking.”
The supervisors also want Allegheny to explore building the power lines underground and want the company to hold a public hearing in the county.
“Clearly, the citizens are not being consulted — their voices are not being heard,” said Vice Chairman Susan Klimek Buckley, D-Sugarland Run. “It’s just wrong, and it’s frustrating, and the citizens need to know that this board stands with them.”
Mark Nitowski, a spokesman for Allegheny, said the company has already held public meetings throughout the areas that would be affected, including the Lovettsville region — about 15 miles from Leesburg.
“If we can’t get through these easements, then we’ve got to come up with alternatives,” he said.
Michael Hosier, the company’s general manager of transmission projects, wrote a letter to the supervisors on March 13 saying that
Allegheny has investigated alternative paths that would not infringe on county conservation easements. But it was difficult to find such a location, particularly in the River’s Edge area in Lovettsville, because of surrounding residences, he wrote.
Nitowski said the company has not set a date when it will file with the State Corporation Commission, but said that such a move was “probably several weeks away.”
