Community Orgs Voicing Support For Delay, Dismissal Of Transmission Power Line Application

West Virginians Against Transmission Injustice (WATI) and the Lake O’ Woods Club both told the West Virginia Public Service Commission the application for the Mid Atlantic Resiliency Link should be delayed by at least 60 days.  

Developer NextEra Energy applied Jan. 30 to construct a new 107.5-mile-long transmission line from Pennsylvania through West Virginia to Virginia. Public comment sessions were held in all four of the affected counties of Monongalia, Preston, Mineral and Hampshire in June. The PSC set regulatory hearing dates for late October and early November, with a deadline to file direct testimony by Sept. 8.    

The citizen groups agree with commission staff that said last week the delay is necessary to allow proper response to changes to the transmission line’s 100-mile route submitted by developer NextEra Energy.  

“(NextEra’s) route revisions are material, not minor. The route revisions add three newly affected landowners months after the initial filing of the application and after key procedural deadlines have passed,” WATI wrote. “Merely extending the intervention deadline cannot cure that prejudice. These landowners missed the public comment hearings, staffs investigation, discovery activity, and the early development of the record. Due process requires meaningful participation from the outset, not after the record has substantially developed.” 

WATI’s letter also pointed out that one of the five route changes submitted by NextEra was not requested by a landowner but rather necessitated by “later recognition of terrain and routing issues.”  

They argued that the late change “suggests the routing analysis underlying the application may not be complete or reliable.” 

Staff also warned the application may need to be dismissed entirely after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered in June a review of the rules that govern how large energy users connect to the electric grid.  

The West Virginia Energy Users Group (WVEUG) also submitted a letter supporting the application’s delay or dismissal due to the “potential for unfair cost allocation and cost shifting to West Virginia ratepayers.”    

The group, a statewide association of large, energy intensive industry argued that the cost impact to West Virginia ratepayers cannot be known until the federal review is completed.