Legalectric

Day before yesterday, New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities met to make determinations on the Motions for Intervention of a large number of parties.  Stop the Lines, of course being one!  They’d objected to our Intervention:

PSEG Response to Intervention Motions

PSEG Response to Escrow Motions

… but had no objection to my Pro Hac Vice… go figure.  And the feeling I had from the BPU is that they were honestly encouraging interventions.  SO, what happened?

State: 17 groups may intervene in PSE&G’s power line proposal

By Colleen O’Dea • Daily Record • April 27, 2009

All 17 groups that sought to be part of the hearing process on Public Service Electric and Gas Company’s proposed transmission line project may do so, the state Board of Public Utilities decided today.

Meeting in Newark, the board also directed PSE&G to meet with the intervening parties – several municipalities, environmental organizations and citizens groups – to negotiate an agreement on the establishment of an escrow account from which the groups could pay for expert witnesses.

“Super,” is how Dave Slaperud of the 300-member Stop the Lines, one of six groups the utility had sought to bar from intervening in its application to add 500 kilovolt lines along a 46-mile transmission corridor from Pennsylvania through Morris County to Roseland, described the BPU’s decision.

“We would have been really surprised if we had been denied intervener status,” said Slaperud. “There are so many of us living along the line who are affected and not all the municipalities are getting involved in the process.”

Among the government bodies that are involved are East Hanover, Montville, Parsippany and Byram townships and the Montville Board of Education. Interveners are allowed to request discovery documents, cross examine witnesses and present their own expert testimony.

And more:

Groups cleared to speak at powerline hearings

Read the rest of this entry »

Susquehanna-Roseland is but a small part of a much bigger plan:

For more information on the Ssuquehanna-Roseland transmission line, see:

STOP THE LINES

The National Park Service seems to be taking a rational approach — a thorough review of impacts on public lands:

National Park Service plans power line study

By BRUCE A. SCRUTON

bscruton@njherald.com

The National Park Service wants a full environmental impact study done on how construction of new 500-kilovolt electric transmission lines will affect the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, the river itself and the Appalachian Trail, a designated national heritage trail.

Just more than four miles of the proposed route crosses through the recreation area on its way from Susquehanna, Pa., to Roseland in Essex County. The Pennsylvania section is being proposed by PPL and the New Jersey section would be built and owned by Public Service Electric & Gas, the state’s largest power utility.

The National Park Service had the option to cede oversight to the utility-regulating agencies of the two states, but announced that “the NPS will adhere to its own regulatory and approval process” regarding the lines.

The proposed route follows an existing right-of-way which contains 230-kilovolt lines which were built in the late 1920s and pre-dates the recreation area. But when the federal government purchased the properties, it also became the party to the rights-of-way. In addition, to construct the new towers, the utilities will need additional, temporary rights-of-way.

Construction over environmentally sensitive areas along other parts of the route has given rise to much of the public opposition to the project.
Read the rest of this entry »

PPL gets earful at Saw Creek public hearing

Nearly 300 come out for Bushkill power line hearing

Bushkill power line hearings draw hundreds

Let’s take a look at their SEC filings!

PPL’s 2008 10-K

PSEG 2008 10-K

Some utility toady on commenting on one of the articles above suggested I buy PPL stock… right… good idea…

Last week, there was a Prehearing conference for the New Jersey docket in the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission project.  Stop the Lines was there, and several other potential intervenors, to discuss the schedule, which will stretch out likely most of the year, with a decision probably in early 2010.  This project is in the Mid-Atlantic National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor, so if the utility doesn’t get its decision in a year, they could push it up to the Feds.

CLICK HERE FOR PSE&G’S SUSQUEHANNA-ROSELAND PROJECT LINK

Their site is cute — it starts with the bold proclamation:

DO YOU KNOW?

The purpose of the Susquehanna-Roseland

line is to ensure reliability in our

region — not to sell power to New York City.

Uh-huh… right…

Here’s a “Regional Planning” powerpoint from PSE&G from the 2/26/09 Highlands Council meeting:

PJM Regional Tranasmission Planning

And a recording of that meeting with the PJM presentation:

Highlands Council Meeting February 26, 2009

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Power line critics want to state case before BPU

Citizens group wants PSE&G to pay for its experts

By Colleen O’Dea • Daily Record • March 3, 2009

A citizens group that opposes Public Service Electric and Gas Co.’s proposed power line project is seeking to intervene in the company’s application before the state Board of Public Utilities.

The 300-member Stop the Lines group also is asking the BPU to require PSE&G to pay for it to hire experts to refute the company’s contentions in support of its application to build new towers and add 500 kilovolt lines along the 46-mile transmission corridor from the Pennsylvania border through Morris County to Roseland.

“It was absolutely crucial for us to intervene in this process on behalf of citizens along the proposed route of this seemingly unnecessary expansion,” said David Slaperud, a resident of Fredon and trustee of Stop The Lines.

Motion filed

Slaperud said the organization filed a motion to intervene in PSE&G’s application before the BPU last Thursday during a scheduling conference on the $750 million project. He said the Fredon School District and Willow Day Camp in Lake Hopatcong have filed similar motions. The BPU has not acted on any of these yet.

Last Thursday, PSE&G attorneys met with several BPU staffers, and state Deputy Attorney General Kenneth Sheehan in Newark to discuss a schedule for the application.

“Board staff expects the board to issue a pre-hearing order setting forth the procedural schedule and overall nature of the proceedings after its agenda meeting on March 12,” said Doyal Siddel, a BPU spokesman.

PSE&G has filed an application to upgrade the existing power line corridor with towers as high as 195-feet tall and add lines carrying another 500 kilovolts of power to prevent circuit overloads and power outages that could begin in 2012 without the work.

PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission cooperative, has ordered the work be done.

In papers filed last week, Slaperud said it’s important that Stop the Lines become a party to the process because its members “live, work and recreate” along the line and “will be substantially, specifically and directly affected by the outcome of this contested case.”

The papers question the need for the upgrade and the requirement that all ratepayers in New Jersey and the rest of the 13-state region pay for it. Stop the Lines asks that alternatives, including greater conservation, be considered. The group also asserts that the taller towers will destroy scenic vistas, would be unsafe if placed in the existing 150-foot right of way and the lines on them will generate higher electromagnetic fields, which could affect the health of those living nearby.

Pay for experts

Stop the Lines’ filing asks that PSE&G be required to pay for it to hire experts because the “current economic crisis” has made it difficult for the group to hire its own lawyers and because “PSE&G was saved the expense of intervenor experts that would have been assessed had they brought their application to the 15 individual planning boards in communities along the route.”

PSE&G officials were unavailable to comment Monday, but a spokeswoman said last month that the company did not believe it should be forced to pay for expert testimony for the line’s opponents.

Today we said good bye to our Kady.  Above, there she is on her “Gotcha Day!”

And here she is in our “new” house a few years ago:

And this morning:

She’s been our dog for five years, the first dog that Alan and I got together, found on Petfinder not long after Krie, the doggy with the winglet ears, died unexpectedly.  That was January 2010.  I was in the middle of the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission project hearing in Newark, New Jersey, camped out officing at the R.Treat Hotel and I saw this photo and knew she was THE dog:

That’s Kady, and her “pup” in the background, peering out.  She was no spring chicken, a middle-aged grrrrl found as a stray in Georgia, with her young pup, and was spayed down there, and headed up the  I-95 dog underground railroad to 6th Angel German Shepherd Rescue, where she was treated for heartworm and then fostered out on Long Island.  She was there for a year before we saw her listed for adoption.

Kate was then “Lady,” and we were told that she was extremely dog aggressive and shouldn’t go to a home with another dog.  Sure… whatever… we filled out the application, went to meet her after the hearing in Newark, and took “Lady” and our Kenya for a walk.  They fussed a bit at first, but when we got back to the house and put Ken in the van, “Lady” jumped right in.  No doubt about it, she wanted to be our dog.  So a week later, after the house visit, we went back to Long Island to pick her up.

“Lady” is no name for a dog of mine, and no name for a German Shepherd, so given all our grrrrrrrrls were “K” grrrrrrls, she became “Kady.”  And getting to Delaware was kind of a rude awakening for our new grrrrl, she arrived just in time for FOUR feet of snow:

And she was clearly dog aggressive:

After Kenya died, we were inexplicably drawn to our Little Sadie, and life with Sadie was quite an adjustment for our shep grrrrl, but they became fast friends (one faster than the other!):

And then there’s the day that we brought them east to Co. R. E near Oconomowoc, WI to pick up a third sister, the irrepressible Summer!

Next thing she knows, Kady and the big galoot are headed down to St. Louis for BaronFest I for some GSD bonding, and that did it for these grrrrls:

And these grrrrrls got along famously, when they weren’t being bitches and drawing blood:

And then a year later, BaronFest II:

And then the next year, she was on her own for BaronFest:

(where are the rest of those BaronFest photos???)

Kady was a quiet grrrrrrl, a good match for her rowdy sister Sadie.  She loved the neighborhood kids and was oh-so-gentle, and loved to be loved up.  She was my constant companion every day, spending most of her time under my desk or behind in her spot with her toes curled around the wheels of my chair — YEOW!

It was time… she’d checked out and was just existing, no fun for her.  We will miss her every day.  Sadie seems to be pissed at us, and when we got home and she smelled us over good, she ran into the living room, jumped up in “her chair,” and was cowering and shaking, so I guess we need to convince her that we won’t be taking her to the vet any time soon.