The Potomac Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH) is a proposed $1.8 billion 200-plus mile long 765 kV extra high voltage electric transmission line linking the Amos substation (located adjacent to the nearly forty year old 2,933 MW coal-fired John E. Amos Power Plant located in western West Virginia) with a new substation proposed to be built in Frederick County, Maryland. PATH has been recommended by PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization. PJM is a consortium of power companies, transmission companies and other interested utilities. PATH is a joint project of AEP and Allegheny Power.
Energy Matters
PEC works toward energy solutions that emphasize efficiency first, use appropriate technologies for the 21st Century and respect the scenic and historic character of the Piedmont.
Energy Efficiency Web Resources
Learn about insulation, heating and cooling efficiently and tax incentives.
Transmission Lines: Why We Fight
This summer, an unwanted clear-cut tore through the edge of the woods at Rick and Virginia Dorkey’s cattle farm near Bealeton, in Fauquier County. Construction crews put up a line of gigantic metal towers on the farm, jutting far above the trees. It’s impossible not to see them. The massive structures dominate the views across hayfields and pastures.
Federal Court Strikes Down Transmission Line Corridors
In 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy designated two National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs), where energy companies were granted unprecedented access to federal eminent domain authority for the fast track siting of transmission lines. These “corridors” spanned 100 million acres, and the larger of the two, in the eastern part of the country, extended from New York to Virginia and included six of PEC’s nine counties: Clarke, Culpeper, Fauquier, Loudoun, Madison and Rappahannock.
Radioactive Rivers
Beneath the rolling landscapes of Culpeper, Fauquier, Madison and Orange are deposits of the radioactive mineral uranium — potential mine sites. In the 1980s, companies filed mining leases on thousands of acres of land in these counties, as well as in southwest Virginia, with an interest in extracting the uranium, which can be processed into nuclear fuel.
Because uranium mining poses severe dangers to public health and the environment, PEC fought to prevent it, helping to secure a statewide moratorium on uranium mining in 1982. This ban is still in effect. But a Canadian-backed company called Virginia Uranium, Inc. is now pushing to mine a large deposit in southwest Virginia.
Virginia Uranium Company Pushing to End the Ban in 2012
On the day that an earthquake struck Virginia, as the region prepared for a hurricane, representatives of Virginia Uranium found themselves addressing the City Council of Virginia Beach, to explain why containment pits of radioactive mine tailings upstream would not pose a danger to the city’s water supply.
The timing of that meeting could have gone better for them. Still, they asserted that they’ll be able to mine uranium safely in Virginia. It’s a tall order—considering that the piles of hazardous mine wastes would cover hundreds of acres.
Uranium Here
In 1979, Bill Speiden was offered a lease for uranium mining and milling on his Orange County farm. That uranium hasn’t gone anywhere.
The debate over uranium mining and milling in Virginia is coming to a head, with a much-awaited study from the National Academy of Sciences due to be released in December. Proponents are pushing the General Assembly to end the state’s ban on uranium mining in the January 2012 session. The stakes are high; not just for southwest Virginia, but for the entire state—including the Piedmont.
The Death Knell for PATH?
The Death Knell for PATH? Only time will tell.
On Feb. 28, 2011, the regional electric grid manager, PJM, issued a statement saying that it has ordered development of the PATH transmission line to halt.