ONE YEAR AGO: PATH POWER LINE PROJECT COMES TO A HALT - Citizen Activism Stopped Project

(03/03/2012)

By Bob Weaver The controversial PATH electric project has been halted by PJM Interconnection, a private agency that runs the region's grid. PJM has directed AEP/FirstEnergy, to "suspend efforts" on the Goliath project that would have generated electric in WV for the eastern seaboard. Bill Howley, Calhoun resident and citizen activist against the project said, "It was genuine citizen opposition across the state, involving housewives, farmers, taxpayers and politicians." Howley said, "We won it fair and square. The numbers never added up from the beginning." The project would have affected WV citizens in several ways. PATH would have increased coal-fired pollution in the Mountain State, with costs of the multi-billion dollar project partially being borne by WV ratepayers and taxpayers. The wide-swathe construction of giant transmission lines would have affected hundreds of land owners in West Virginia, including about 70 in Calhoun County. The Calhoun Commission, among many other county commissions, went on record opposing the project several years ago because of the shifting of costs to citizens, increased pollution to WV far from the urban areas where PATH proponents said increased electric is needed, and the effect of landowners whose family and ancestral farms would be disrupted. The 765-kilovolt highline would have started at the John Amos power plant in Putnam County and run 275 miles into Maryland. The upgrading of the grid can be done at 1/3 the cost, said Howley, indicating the company consistently used fuzzy numbers regarding increased electric demand. "There are positive, cheaper ways to upgrade the grid," he said, indicating energy corporations have long neglected to upgrade their delivery systems. Howley has maintained The Power Line blog opposing the project. Read the Charleston Gazette's Power Line Put On Hold See also PATH COMPANIES HAVE WRONGLY CHARGED OVER $3 MILLION TO RATEPAYERS, SAYS COMPLAINT - Calhoun's Haverty Says Money Used For "Propaganda Program"

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