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End of the TrAIL in Greene County
WAYNESBURG - Greene County commissioners have accepted a deal with Allegheny Energy to halt the high-voltage power line proposed for Southwestern Pennsylvania.
The agreement, finalized over the weekend and announced Monday morning, forbids the power company from constructing the 500-kilovolt line through Greene County and would return the rights-of-way to property owners along the proposed path in Greene and Washington counties.
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"This has not been an easy fight," Greene County Commissioner Pam Snyder said. "Our staff and many property owners have been diligent in this effort. They have put hours and hours and hours of time and exhausted many resources in this matter. This is a great day for Southwestern Pennsylvania."
Snyder said Allegheny Energy contacted county officials last month soon after two administrative law judges with the state Public Utility Commission recommended against building the power line. She described the negotiations as "pretty intense" before completing the deal Sunday.
The agreement acknowledges that the project has been "controversial and contentious" ever since Allegheny Energy submitted its application in April 2007 to build the 37-mile power line.
The company promises it will return to property owners in both counties the land easements it has held since the 1970s and will not use eminent domain to reclaim them. It also will not use the federal National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor as a backstop to push this particular project forward.
Instead, the company will conduct a "collaborative process" with affected parties to find alternatives to meet the electrical demand in Washington County. The advisory panel is expected to release a report in six months, and Allegheny Energy will resubmit its application with the PUC.
"Instead of being in an adversarial role, we will work together with Allegheny Power to find solutions to local energy issues," Snyder said.
Options include managing demand, promoting energy efficiency programs, improving existing power lines and substations or building new transmission infrastructure. That may include construction of a similar high-voltage line in Washington County, although it is unknown where it would be placed or if it is even needed.
"We definitely have a need (for power), and we need solutions to solve the problem," said Jim Haney, vice president of transmission for Allegheny Energy. "If 500-kV is part of the solution, we would have to build it."
Greene County also will receive as much as $750,000 that the commissioners want to use for energy and environmental education in schools. The money also could be earmarked to fund scholarships for students who want to study alternative-energy initiatives in college.
However, the perceived victory for Greene County appears to complicate the issue for its northern neighbor.
The power company offered the Washington County commissioners a similar deal that included an $850,000 payment, but it did not provide the same protection against construction of a high-voltage line. The commissioners said they received the offer Friday and had little time to review it.
"My colleagues and I met over the weekend to try and give this due diligence and decided it was not a good deal for Washington County," Commissioner Larry Maggi said Monday. "They're still claiming they (might) put a line through. With this agreement, does that mean they're going to move it two or three or four miles away? It still affects Washington County residents, and that's our take on it."
Commissioner Bracken Burns said he would not endorse any altered project that would run a power line through "someone else's front yard or someone else's historical farm or through someone else's meadow" in Washington County.
"My opinion is that we're being asked to declare defeat in the face of victory," Burns said, alluding to the PUC judge's recommendation. "My concern is that I was being asked to negotiate my values."
With this agreement, the Greene County commissioners promised to throw their support behind Allegheny Energy's plan to construct a substation in Dunkard Township and run a 1.2-mile power line from there into West Virginia. That portion is considered critical for the TrAIL project that will carry power through West Virginia and into Northern Virginia.
Still, Snyder thinks the agreement is good for Greene County residents, especially those in the path of the original proposal.
"The PUC heard our voices loud and clear and handed down a favorable opinion in August on this matter," she said. "And I'm proud to say Allegheny Power heard their voices loud and clear."
