OPSB holds public hearing on proposed Trent-Vassell project

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

The Ohio Power Sit­ing Board (OPSB) held a pub­lic hear­ing Mon­day evening at the Big Wal­nut High School Audi­to­rium to hear pub­lic con­cerns about the Trent-Vassell 138 kV Trans­mis­sion Line Project. The Trent-Vassell Trans­mis­sion Line would con­nect the Vas­sell Sub­sta­tion east of Sun­bury, now under con­struc­tion, to Amer­i­can Elec­tric Power’s exist­ing Trent-Delaware 138kV Line.

Amer­i­can Elec­tric Power’s Vas­sell Sub­sta­tion is being built on 265 acres adja­cent to the vil­lage of Sun­bury owned by AEP. The Vas­sell Sub­sta­tion will be built in three com­po­nents. The largest com­po­nent will be a trans­mis­sion sub­sta­tion for 765 kV lines com­ing in, the sec­ond will ser­vice 345 kV, and the third will be for 138 kV.

The Trent-Vassell 138 kV Trans­mis­sion Line trav­els roughly south from Cen­ter­burg Road (County Road 48) cross­ing North Old 3-C High­way, Ohio 3/US 36, and Ohio 37. AEP’s pre­ferred route is 2.7 miles long, the alter­nate route 3.1 miles.

OPSB Admin­is­tra­tive Law Judge Katie Sten­man con­ducted Monday’s hear­ing. In addi­tion to town­ship res­i­dents liv­ing adja­cent to the power line route, Delaware County Com­mis­sioner Den­nis Sta­ple­ton attended the hear­ing, as well as state rep­re­sen­ta­tives Andy Bren­ner and Mar­garet Ann Ruhl, and Berk­shire Town­ship Trustee Bill Holtry.

Only two res­i­dents liv­ing near the power line route spoke dur­ing the hear­ing. Hart­ford Road res­i­dent Dou­glas Smith, speak­ing for both him­self and his wife Mar­cella, said the pro­posed power line will run along the entire length of his prop­erty line, low­er­ing the value of his home, alter­ing the view from his deck and pos­ing a poten­tial health hazard.

Joe Walker Road res­i­dent Linda Rine­hart had pre­vi­ously been before the Ohio Power Sit­ing Board when pub­lic hear­ings were held at Sun­bury Town Hall to hear pub­lic con­cerns about the Vas­sell Sub­sta­tion. Bill and Linda Rine­hart live on five acres near the Vas­sell Sub­sta­tion site.

“AEP says they’re not going to pay us for our declin­ing prop­erty val­ues, even though they’re build­ing a $265 mil­lion health haz­ard in our back yard,” Rine­hart said. “They would be respon­si­ble if they bull­dozed our house down, but they say they’re not respon­si­ble for our house los­ing half its value.

“This is the biggest sub­sta­tion in Ohio, pos­si­bly the biggest in the United States, and they say they’re not respon­si­ble,” Rine­hart con­tin­ued. “One thing I’ve learned from this whole process is that AEP is way to big and pow­er­ful. They pretty much do what they want, when they want to, and nobody can stop them.”

Rine­hart said she and her hus­band intend to stop using AEP as an elec­tric­ity provider, and will encour­age oth­ers to do the same.

“And all you peo­ple are wast­ing your time with the Ohio Power Sit­ing Board; they have not men­tioned one time about our prop­erty val­ues going down,” Rine­hart said. “They told AEP that they must mit­i­gate all or any com­plaints and come up with a solu­tion, but, of course, this does not include declin­ing prop­erty values.

“And the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Com­mis­sion of Ohio should change their name to The Amer­i­can Elec­tric Power Agency, because they are not there to help the pub­lic,” Rine­hart added. “Aren’t we the pub­lic? Aren’t we the ones that live a hun­dred feet from all of this?”

An adju­di­ca­tory hear­ing is sched­uled for Wednes­day, May 16, at the OPSB Colum­bus offices. The OPSB will issue a rul­ing in the case dur­ing the summer.

Posted by Gary Henery on May 9 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.