As it was originally planned, PATH would
cross 13 West Virginia counties,
before reaching into Virginia and
finally ending up at a substation in Kemptown, Maryland.
The power companies are withdrawing
their application in Virginia because
of new evidence filed this month that suggests the multi-state power line isn’t
needed by 2014, as was originally claimed. However, applications are still
pending in Maryland and West
Virginia.
Allen Staggers is a spokesman for
Allegheny Energy.
“It’s not saying that it’s not
needed at all," he said. "It’s just saying that it may not be needed
by that time frame."
But PATH
opponents are raising questions about why it’s taken so long for this new
evidence to come to light.
Bill Howley is a PATH
intervenor from Calhoun County.
"By mid-year every year, PJM
does an estimate of their peak load for the summer and the winter of that
current year," he said. "So they also had those peak load estimates,
which they also had not factored into their computer model of how to predict
power needs."
Howley says that PJM, the regional
transmission organization that makes predictions about power needs, already had
lots of data suggesting that PATH wasn’t as
urgent as the applications implied. Every summer, PJM completes a Regional
Transmission Expansion Plan. But this data wasn’t used in the computer
simulations the PATH applications were based
on.
"Why did they not voluntarily
update their computer simulations, knowing there were applications pending
before the public service commissions in three states?" he said.
"Couldn’t they have saved us all a whole bunch of trouble if they had come
to exactly the same conclusion that they were forced to come to in Virginia
if they had done it voluntarily in mid-summer."
In Virginia,
the state corporation commission could have denied the power companies’ request
to withdraw the application, and evaluated it based on the new evidence. It
didn’t do that.
But in his ruling, Hearing Examiner
Alexander Skirpan stipulated that any future application would have to include
this month’s new data, as well as the 2010 Regional Transmission Expansion
Plan.
The companies withdrew the
application because the data shows the line isn’t necessary as soon as the
companies claimed, but Staggers is sure that this summer’s annual analysis will
reinforce his company’s argument and the application will be re-filed in the
third quarter of 2010.
“It will allow that most recent and most current PJM study
to be part of the evidence and that will give each commission the best information
to make a decision on,” Staggers said.
But Howley isn’t sure that the summer’s study will support a
re-filing of PATH’s application.
”Every year they have pushed the required start up date for PATH
back another year,” he said. “So the year before last, PATH
was originally supposed to go into service by 2012 or the world was going to
end. Blackouts were going to start happening and comets were going to fall from
the sky and it was just going to be disaster.”
Those searching for more information about PATH
won’t find it on the project’s Web site anymore. The site once contained maps
of the proposed route, as well as frequently asked questions about the project.
But after the new data came out, the power companies removed all the
information from the Web site.
Staggers says the power companies are
not considering re-routing PATH based on the
new information.
A new application for the transmission
line was just filed in Maryland
after the original was rejected on a technicality. The West Virginia Public
Service Commission has until next February to make a decision.