RLEP organizes opposition to power line
by Paul Farmer, August 2007
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The existing towers are tall and disfigure the landscape. The new towers will be even taller and require a new right-of-way paralleling the existing one. Photo by Carl Zitzmann. |
With help from Concerned Culpeper Citizens (CCC) and directly affected landowners in five local counties, RLEP has organized a grassroots coalition of landowners with the goal of defeating Dominion Resources' proposal to build a monstrous 500-kilovolt electric transmission line through our counties.
The Power-line Landowners Alliance, or PLA, comes to the fight with a case that no other party is likely to present—that a massive new power line along the proposed route through Rappahannock, Culpeper, Fauquier, Prince William, and Warren Counties is an extraordinarily bad idea that will have a devastatingly serious and permanent adverse impact on citizens who live or own land along the line.
The case will be argued by teams of lawyers from multiple litigants before the three-member Virginia State Corporation Commission. The PLA has hired outside counsel and expert consultants to help prepare and present a case that will defeat Dominion.
RLEP, CCC, the South Wales and Rattlesnake Mountain Homeowners' Associations, and more than 150 landowners have already joined the new organization—most making significant financial contributions to the effort.
With its contribution of $50,000, RLEP is the largest PLA donor to date. Almost one-half of the contribution—$20,000—was from local citizens who donated to RLEP for the power line fight before the PLA was organized. The remaining $30,000 is from the RLEP General Fund. RLEP has agreed to act as fiscal agent for the PLA, and the RLEP Power Line Task Force (PLTF), now headed by Pat Curry, is providing staff services for the PLA and RLEP.
The sole intent of the PLA is to represent the interests of landowners who will bear the burdens of lost use, value, and enjoyment of lands affected by Dominion's ill-conceived misadventure in land desecration. The PLA is intervening on the landowners' behalf, exerting a level of influence at the SCC that no single landowner could expect to exert on his or her own.
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Adverse health impacts of high-voltage transmission lines are unproven, but a number of peer-reviewed scientific studies suggest they are real and significant. A National Institutes of Health study has found that, especially in children, exposure to extremely low frequency magnetic fields, such as from power lines, "...may pose a leukemia hazard." This and other possible health impacts continue to be studied. |
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In addition to environmental, cultural, and historic concerns, the direct financial and lifestyle impacts on landowners (both those who live in the path of the line and those who have land nearby) will be enormous. No affected landowner should stand alone without legal representation in this matter. Few, however, have the financial wherewithal to independently enter the fray on their own behalf. Now, with the PLA in the fight, every affected landowner in five counties can expect to be strongly represented in the Richmond decision-making process.
Counsel for the PLA strongly believes that the organization has a winning case to make to the SCC. The PLA also supports the case that the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) and others will make that this new transmission line is not needed. But other than the PLA, no organization plans to make the case that the proposed route through the affected counties is an extraordinarily bad route for another massive industrial power line. If the SCC finds that a new transmission line is needed, only the PLA stands in the way of the SCC's designating that the route will come this way.
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Gale Johnson
Rappahannock Co. |
Chair |
Stephanie Ridder
Rappahannock Co. |
Vice Chair |
Rick Kohler
Rappahannock Co. |
Secretary |
Perry Cabot
Culpeper Co. |
Budget Officer |
Jim Moorman
Western Fauquier Co. |
Principal Liaison
with Counsel |
Les Armstrong
Southern Fauquier Co. |
Director |
Susan Day
Culpeper Co.
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Director |
Paul Farmer
Rappahannock Co.
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Director |
Joyce Harman
Rappahannock Co. |
Director
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For weeks, the PLA, RLEP, CCC, and an initial group of landowners worked behind the scenes to put a strategy in place to battle Dominion where it really counts—at the SCC. Now is the time for all those in Rappahannock County and elsewhere who will be most affected to come forward, hear more about this issue, and take action.
If you own land along the current Dominion transmission line through Rappahannock County (or any of the affected counties), if you have land near enough to the power line to see its towers when raised to as much as double their current heights, or if you simply feel strongly about this issue, the PLA and RLEP ask you to make a donation to help fight Dominion's proposal. Donations above the $100 level are especially needed, but any donation will help, and all donations written to RLEP for this purpose are fully tax-deductible. Please print out this form and return it with your donation.
Please send your donation to:
RLEP - The Alliance
P.O. Box 422
Washington, VA 22747-0422
Visit the PLA website, www.ThePLA.org, for more information.
RLEP, CCC, and the PLA intend to win this battle. Whether you're among those affected by the proposed power line or just care about the environment in Rappahannock, your support is needed to win this fight. Please give generously.
Questions? Please contact us!
Email: powerline@RLEP.org
Address:
Power Line Task Force
c/o Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection
P.O. Box 94
Washington, VA 22747
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