5.22.09 Scranton Times-Tribune: PPL power line hearing well-attended

The Times-Tribune reports that more than four dozen residents showed up for a public hearing on PPL’s proposed 500-kilovolt transmission line, which would run 101 miles from Berwick to the Delaware River.

A few of them spoke in favor of the jobs and infrastructure the project could bring to Northeast Pennsylvania. However, the majority of those who spoke at Newton-Ransom Fire Hall were concerned about the same thing: possible negative impacts the proposed 500-kilovolt line would have on the environment, health and aesthetics of the area, if built along its proposed route.

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The utilities contend the project is necessary to prevent overloads on 23 existing transmission lines in Pennsylvania and New Jersey by 2013.

Many those who testified in front of PUC administrative law judge, Susan Solwell, wanted to know “why the circuitous route?”

After the meeting, PPL spokesman Paul Wirth, said “When you have an existing power line, if you follow that, it has less impact than creating a new power line, where one doesn’t exist. It’s worth it to us to go farther … then it has less impact overall.”

Private citizens as well as representatives from various environmental groups like the Sierra Club and community groups such as the Scranton-Abingtons Planning Association, doubted the local need for the line, and were concerned that much of its power go elsewhere, such as New Jersey.

Many also wanted to see more alternative energy, given recent state legislation.

“Does PPL fund any research in alternative or renewable energy?” Lee Jamison, president of SAPA and Newton Twp. resident, said. “It’s probably fair to say that it’s far less than what PPL is prepared to spend on this project.”

An electrical construction worker who builds power lines across the country, Jason Bonner of Lackawaxen, supports the project. He scoffed at the idea people would support alternative energy because it, too, could affect places people care about.

“We could saturate the top of the Delaware Gap Ridge with windmills,” he said.

Also in favor of the project is David Blauer, a representative of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 1319. He said the project could provide jobs for the 70 unemployed line workers in his union, among other potential benefits.

“It would probably provide us with about three years worth of work,” he said.