KEYSER, W.Va. — Confusion over the roles of the various players complicated the first public hearing of the Public Service Commission for the Mid-Atlantic Resiliency Link. The PSC heard from residents in Mineral County Thursday night, but specified at the start of the meeting, those who had signed up as interveners were not allowed to speak at the meeting.
“Over the last two weeks we’ve been getting mixed messages from the Public Service Commission,” said Tony Campbell, President of West Virginians Against Transmission Injustice. “The Consumer Advocate division told us interveners would be allowed to speak and the legal staff said no you can’t. So there’s a lot of frustration and you saw it tonight with a lot of folks upset.”
PSC Chairwoman Charlotte Lane explained those identified as “interveners” in the case would be allowed to speak during the evidentiary hearing in Charleston which is slated for late October and early November. They will be allowed to testify, call witnesses, and cross examine other witnesses. “Protesters” are those who are simply opposed to the project and the public hearings were exclusively for them to share concerns.
“I think most people who have filed something in this case are really protesting, rather than wanting to be interveners, but we will see. Right now we have 170 interveners,” said Lane.
Those who did speak offered concerns about the impact of the line on their property. Teal Tripadoe was among those who decided to speak fearing their voices would not be heard.
“Our land is being directly affected. I just felt like the things we wanted to convey, needed to be said today. I felt like the Good Lord was putting it on my heart and I needed to talk,” she said.
“Northern Virginia for the last 15 years had had a data center boom. Right now they have 300 data centers and want to do 300 more, but they don’t have electricity to do it,” Campbell explained.
Campbell said while Loudon County, Virginia is cashing in along with the data center operators and power line developer NextEra Energy, West Virginia rate payers are going to be hit with the bill.
“We will have to pay about $14 Million a year in increased rates,” he said.
But Katelyn McCormick with NextEra refuted the claim. She said the MARL project is not about providing power to a set of data centers in Virginia, it’s about overall strengthening of the electric grid for the long term.
“Grid reliability benefits all of us. The grid is under stress from growing demand and we can’t wait for the grid to fail to fix it. This project is part of long term electric reliability and it’s going to help keep the lights on and make sure that power is moving throughout the system,” she explained.
The MARL Line is proposed to stretch from Pennsylvania to northern Virginia and cross a little under 60 miles of West Virginia when the route is set.
The PSC has three more public hearings. One tonight in Romney. The next two are slated for next week in Morgantown and Kingwood.
Owen Sweitzer of WKLP/WQZK Radio contributed to this story