Good Afternoon, Judge Anderson,
My name is John Dodson and as you know I live on Dry Fork near Rocky Gap in Bland County. I spoke to you last year on the relationship of the people and the community to this land and these mountains in which we live. John Harris and I rode with you and several AEP officials through the areas of the county affected by the Cloverdale route. We talked and you listened with a sympathetic ear. I know you have heard people in other communities in other counties that expressed similar feelings.
I now see that AEP has another route through the valleys of Laurel and Dry Fork where my family lives and a route through the very heart of this county, through the homes and farms of my friends and neighbors in the Hicksville and Hollybrook communities, through the Slide and Crandon communities, Mechanicsburg and Skydusky Hollow, Pumpkin Center, The Skillet, Clear Fork, the Wilderness and No Business, and across Buckhorn and Wolf Creek Mountains, over School House Hill and Brushy Mountain, and finally over Big Walker Mountain , Little Creek, and Little Walker and into Wythe County, whose people have borne the burdens of progress so heavily over the decades. If this power line were necessary for the progress of the people of Bland County, SW Virginia, Virginia, and the nation, I am sure Bland County people would shoulder their necessary responsibility and do their duty, and accept this 765 KV power line. However, this is not the case.
I first became involved in this controversy a little over 5 years ago because one of the many routes at the time affected dear friends of ours. I was opposed to the line because I did not want it in my friend’s back yard, nor in my back yard. I am a history teacher at the Rocky Gap High School and I recognized the political and economic factors at play in the construction of this line. I saw how the route was being moved by those with more political and economic power unto those unaware of the situation and with less power than those moving it. I understood the issues of exploitation, cultural attachment, environmental concerns, and so on. As the years went by I slowly and reluctantly began to understand a little of the technical aspects of AEP’s application and actually bought a copy of this latest filing and have read a good bit of it.
In talking with AEP officials last year I kept asking them how could they put the line here, didn’t they know this? Or why did you put it there? Did you not know about that? I was told that they could not be expected to knock on every door. The Cloverdale route was drawn from maps and a helicopter. They never set foot here. They have done a better job this time. They have hired the same guys who have done all their work to this point, the University Studies Team of VPI, who have subcontracted to Hill Studios of Roanoke. Hill Studios has set foot in Bland County. I know AEP does not care where the line goes in particular, they just want it built. It is because of this, that they go through the motions of doing a thorough study. We asked AEP for a good map that we could use to gather the information they needed. Hill Studios said they wanted citizen input. We asked them to publish a good map so people would know they might be affected. and would come and give them the input they ostensibly desired. We asked them again and again. We were never given a decent map to use. The people never saw a good map to know whether they were under the line or not. These routes have not been drawn with the necessary input from the people. I could talk about route and why it should not go here or there, but what I would really like to talk about is why it should not go anywhere.
At this point in time as we are poised for great changes in the energy market brought about by deregulation, the rate payers in SW Virginia will pay to build this transmission line that will be used to sell power to other areas. AEP will make large profits from this. As others may point out during the recent hot weather, wholesale electricity sky rocketed in price. This brings to mind my experiences 20 years ago with natural gas companies. I was approached by several individuals who wanted to purchase the rights to any natural gas under my land. At first they offered$2 an acre. I told them I was not interested. Later others offered $5 an acre, then $10, when the price reached $20 an acre I became interested. They paid me that amount and enough to pay my taxes annually for the next four years. If they had drilled and found gas, I would have received a royalty of 12 1/2%. After 5 years the lease ended and I once again controlled the gas rights to my property. Now what do I get if they build a power line over my property? Well, I will get fair market value for a 200 foot right away. Do I receive any royalties for the huge profits AEP will make carrying power over these lines to users in other areas of the state and the nation? NO, I do not. Do I get any compensation for the loss of property value of the rest of my land? NO, I do not. But most of all do I have any choice on whether to accept the AEP line or not? NO, I do not. AEP uses the state’s power of eminent domain to seize my property to use for its own profit. AEP wants all the advantages of a monopoly under regulation without any limits to its profits under deregulation.
I would also like to address the issue of preparation for this hearing. I recently spent a morning with a cultural anthropologist at Radford University. She has done cultural attachment studies in Craig County and Giles county for earlier AEP applications. She was quite willing to help us, until I told her the time frame we were operating under. It had taken her well over a year to do the earlier studies. There will be no time for a cultural attachment study. The community of Hicksville is affected by this line. It has just recently ended a long, costly fight to keep a medical waste incinerator from locating in its midst. Now Hicksville has to fight this power line. It appears to be an unending fight to preserve one’s quality of life.
We are encountering the same problem in obtaining an electrical engineer to do a needs analysis. Preparation for this hearing today has been greatly affected by this time constraint. AEP bombards the airwaves and print media with its propaganda. It frames the debate into progress, meaning power as AEP determines it, or no power, as advocated by opponents of this line. It is certainly David vs Goliath and now our only sling shot, has been disarmed by this hearings schedule.
As a member of the Bland County planning commission I have been impressed at the awareness of the people of Bland County to issues of the environment and quality of life. The County is one of a few rural counties that have adopted zoning. Property rights and individual rights run deep in the blood of mountain people. It was not without much soul searching that the conclusion has been reached that sometimes we have to prepare and act collectively in order to defend and preserve our way of life. This power line brushes our zoning restrictions aside with all the consideration of a horse swishing a fly off its backside.
Our Comprehensive Plan has been shattered. All our efforts to develop this county in a way which allows responsible growth and protects and preserves our environment and quality of life have been destroyed. The centerpieces of this planning have been our Industrial Park and the Wolf Creek Indian Village. As tourists visit the successful Wolf Creek Indian Village and watch flint napping and other ancient crafts they will do so listening to buzzing, snapping, and popping of the 765 KV power line. This line also skirts the area set aside for our industrial park. Is this the America that Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and the rest of that great pantheon of patriots fought for? I think not.
I do not think the staff of the SCC has been fair in considering Congressman Boucher’s proposals. The alternative to this line does not lie in any one of these alternatives, but in combinations of them. AEP has been asked to consider only one alternative, and is it any wonder their study was unfavorable? The effort has not been made to do a true analysis of alternatives to this line. The SCC needs to see how deregulation will affect SE Virginia, it needs to take into account the overall and long term affects caused by coal fired plants in the Midwest on our environment. There needs to be a pause. There needs to be a moratorium on power lines of this size while we take a long look on meeting our energy needs for the future. Do we not owe this to future generations? To our own children? I think we do.
The role of the state of West Virginia in all this is very troubling. The response of officials in Virginia is even more so. West Virginia, quite sensibly, reduced by half the length of the line in their state and moved in a direct line out of the state via its Southern coal fields into Virginia. This doubled the length through the Commonwealth of Virginia. Has this been questioned by the SCC? Has there been any discussions between the two states on another route that has less impact on Virginia? There has been none to my knowledge.
In conclusion I would like to say that when this started I promised myself and confidently proclaimed to others I would not allow this to devour me as it has so many others. I was wrong. I would like to paraphrase two quotes from two different Appalachian authors of note. Lee Smith once told the story of how her father could not be away from home very long because he needed a mountain to rest his eyes upon. I might add a mountain without this power line defiling its beauty. One of the characters in a Denise Giardini novel once proclaimed that one did not strike to win, but to please God, for if one struck to win they had lost before they had begun. This is what has taken me and so many others. All one can do in life is the right thing and the right thing must be in the thousands of decisions we make as we live our lives. The right thing is to oppose this line. The wrong thing is to build it.
AEP is big, Judge Anderson, but it is not bigger than the people. The State Corporation Commission represents the people and their interests. AEP is quite capable of looking after its interests, the people need the government and its agency, the State Corporation Commission to look after theirs. I hope this will be the case and this application will be denied.