July 22, 1999, Fort Chiswell High School

Andy Kegley

Your honor, Mr. Anderson.
I spoke before you last June over in Bland County, and never suspected that I would have this repeat opportunity. I've lived in Wythe County since 1981, though family ancestors are buried here from the late 1700s. I am Executive Director of a non profit housing agency, Mountain Shelter, and feel blessed to know many of the people coming before you today. I first became involved with APPAL last summer, and am proud of the work and organizing accomplished in these two counties over the last year.

I would like to focus my comments tonight around three main issues: the New River, absentee landowners, and the 25-year experience of the existing 765 kv line in Wythe County on residents of the Barren Springs, Patterson and Jacksons Ferry substation communities.

I would like to add my endorsement to the fine comments made by my friend, Dave Muhly, at your Bland County hearing last week regarding the question of need for this power line. When Hydro Quebec (the only other North American utility with 765 kv lines) sells electricity to New York city utilities during the recent heat wave at 30 times the normal rate, I think no more explanation of why corporations such as AEP want to buld transmission lines such as this is necessary.

The New River: We are privileged to have such a resource in Virginia. Even another agency of the state government, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, recognizes the New River and the recently created linear state park, the New River Trail State Park, as one of the jewels of its crown. Gov. Gilmore highlighted the trail state park in a recent greenways conference in Roanoke. When the University Studies Team first outlined their methodology for studying corridors, they stated they could not cross state park land. I reference the AEP submission to the SCC on Aug. 20,1998, and quote: " If the UST were to employ its previous methodology, the New River Trail State Park would have been identified as an exclusion zone, and no crossings of a state park would have received further consideration by the UST, leaving only the potential crossing north of Claytor Lake for futher consideration. However, through discussions with ther responsible state agencies, the SCC Staff environmental consultant, and AEP transmission engineers, a preliminary acceptable crossing parallet to an existing transmission line crossing of the state park has been identified. " endquote. The question is open. Why did a state agency relinquish control of its crown jewels without public comment, environmental impact or economic impact of the millions the state is spending in the vicinity of the Foster Falls Village ? Add into this equation the proclamation by President Clinton of the New River as one of the first Heritage Rivers. We are exploring what this designation might mean for our interest in the New. As was said about the New River in the 1970s Blue Ridge Dam hyrdoelectric project, The New River: Like it is.

Secondly, absentee landowners. As one of about two dozen who participated in the UST workshop in this same building last December, and who helped spread the word about the importance of that participation, I can't help but wonder that there was a deliberate stategy to run the corridor across absentee owned land. If you look at the route the corridor takes once it crosses I-81 near Grahams Forge, it crosses large landholdings of Oscar Rogg of New Canaan, Connecticut, Jim Justice of Bluestone Farms in Beckley, West Virginia, and J.C. Weaver of Clearwater, Florida, who owns nearly 3000 acres. Then it crosses the newly created River Hills subdivisions, with owners all across the southeast U.S. Mr. Weaver in fact is marketing his land explicitly because of the natural and scenic beauty. Then it crosses the former Frazier property, recently subdivided into some 70 tracts which sold out in six months, primarily to out-of-staters interested in building second homes here along the New River. Exhibit A

I am sure you have heard this already from many of the actual folks who have invested tens of thousands in remote, river front property. But living in North Carolina and Florida and California, how were they to protect their investment, how were they to know to participate in the UST work. I have spoken with many of them, and am impressed that they bought into this land not because of some fancy, full color marketing brochure, but simply because of its proximiity to the New River, and the chance to be removed, the chance to live lightly, and simply. Today, many people's vision of the future has been scarred.

And their vision as absentee landowners is really no different than that of us existing residents of Southwest Virginia. In our plea to you that this power line is not needed, anywhere, we here in Wythe have the added experience to offer of the past two and half decades. In the 1970s, under far different scenarios and regulations, a 765 kv line was built through here, as part of AEP's earlier transmission system. A substation was built about ten miles down the road, named not after the neighboring communities of Foster Falls, Patterson or Barren Springs where real people really live, but rather innocuously Jacksons Ferry. This brings me to my third and final issue: the health of folks living near the Jacksons Ferry substation.

I and others have argued loudly over the past year that a detailed study needed to be made of existing 765kv line communties before any new ones are licensed. We recognize what is reported by scientists and epidemologists about the causal effects of power lines on health. But we can't say that we have read a study of the direct impact of 765 kv EMF on health. We know we are open to suspicion--that other variables can be thrown back at us, such as offered by one local doctor, that our population is older, works in agriculture and thus uses more prone to be exposed to pesticides, has a poorer diet, and is less literate.
Still, I can not turn my back on three associations. Our local hospital, Wythe County Community Hospital, in its 1998 Cancer Program Annual Report, focused on the increasing occurrence of lymphomas. I quote: "In the past few years, many of the physicians at WCCH have commented that the occurrence of lymphoma in Wythe County seems higher than expected for a community our size.." The report forthightly acknowledges that the frequency of lymphomas occurring at WCCH exceeds the national frequency by over 20 percent. On some specific subtypes of lymphomas, the frequency is double or more the national rate. Over a five year rate, (1991-95) the incidence of lymphomas was 15 per 100,000 in Wythe County, compared to 13.6 for the entire state, 10.9 for the New River Valley health district, and 9.4 for the Mount Rogers health district. The occurrence rate is climbing, since 1994 when there was one case, to 1997, when 7 cases were reported. I offer a copy of this report for your persual. Exhibit B

As the second startling observation, I offer what my friend Eva Farmer experienced when she moved back here from West Virginia. At nearly 80 years age, she found upon moving to within a mile of the Jacksons Ferry substation that her cancer policy with a major insurance company was increasing its premium by nearly 25 percent. She called and asked why, and was told that she lived in a cancer prone area. She doesn't have that in writing.

Finally, in numerous conversations and visits with residents of this impacted community, one hears loudly and often of another cancer case. We asked members of the Barren Springs Senior Citizens group to try to document the type of cancer and where those who were ill lived, fearing a connection to proximity to one of the several already existing high voltage power lines around Jacksons Ferry. Eva Farmer, Elsie Kemp and Elizabeth Williams all put many hours into this project, and I offer a copy of their map as part of my testimony. They documented a list of over 115 cases of cancer within the past 20 years in a radius of less than three miles from the substation. Exhibit C

I know that one in three of us will contract cancer in our lifetimes. I also know that the apparently prevailing cluster of cancer in that neighborhood is an oddity. When I come home to my community, I scratch my head, take stock of my neighbors, and wonder why I don't see or hear about a similar prevalence of cancer there.

When I read AEP's application submitted to the SCC last month, and review section IV in Volume X , Health Aspects of EMF, I find no reference to the definitive study of exposure to ELFs and EMFs--the federally mandated NIEHS EMF-RAPID report. The RAPID report was commissioned in 1992, and the final report released to Congress on May 4, though it didn't become publicly released until June 10. AEP released its application on May 7. At the very least, I would hope that the SCC would ask AEP to return to the RAPID study in re-evaluating the impact of high voltage power lines on health.

I know you are aware of the executive summary of the RAPID report, and how the strongest wording in the summary is the "weak" association of health risks of ELF-EMFs. However, and I quote, "the strongest evidence for health effects comes from associations observed in human populations with two forms of cancer: childhood leukemia nd chronic lymphocytic leukemia in occupationally exposed adults."

A majority of the members of the Working Group assembled last June to review and evaluate the weight of the scientifc evidence compiled as a result of this six year study concluded that ELF-EMF exposure did not warrant labeling as a "known human carcingoen" or "probable human canrcinogen" but did in fact conclude that exposure to ELF-EMF power line frequency is a "possible" human carcinogen.

Take another look at our map of the Jacksons Ferry substation neighborhood. Look at the closest crosses to the substation, marking known deaths. Two of those three deaths were boys, not even in their teenage years, who lived basically their entire lives within a few thosuand feet of that 765kv substation.
Ask yourself now about how much risk we as a society can burden anyone with. Did it not take nearly three decades for our culture to come clean on the risks associated with nicotine exposure, despite corporate and government reluctance. Did it not take years for other exposures such as asbestos, lead, silione implants and others to be acknowledged by the scientific community? Something as controversial as EMF exposure, today identified as a 'possible' human carcinogen, should not be given the green light by any level of government regulatory oversight.

How many more studies will have to be conducted, while innocent people are exposed and dying, until we can say enough is enough. There are cemeteries down the road near Jacksons Ferry. In one, the substation looms just beyond the grave of one of those ten year old boys. In another, where a man was buried just a couple weeks ago after dying of leukemia, a friend remarked to me that the nearby overhead power line was even singing at his burial.
Thank you.