Pennsylvania

Energy. Environment. Economy.

National Park Service Opposes New Power Lines in the Delaware Water Gap

November 25, 2011 | 5:27 PM
By Susan Phillips

Stan Honda / AFP/Getty Images

Tow­ers carry elec­tric­ity from the Peach Bot­tom Nuclear Power Plant in Lan­caster County, Pennsylvania.

Plans for new high-voltage power lines through the Delaware Water Gap National Recre­ation Area have hit a snag with this week’s release of the draft envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ment by the National Park Ser­vice. The state­ment says can­cel­ing the project would be the best option to pre­serve “the bio­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment,” and pro­tect “…the his­toric, cul­tural, and nat­ural resources,” of the Water Gap Recre­ation Area.

The pro­posed 145-mile line would run from Berwick, Pa., to Rose­land, N.J. It would run through exist­ing rights of way, but would replace the cur­rent 85-foot tow­ers with 200 foot tow­ers. The plan would also widen the exist­ing rights-of-way, and con­struct new access roads in the Delaware Water Gap Recre­ation Area, the Mid­dle Delaware National Scenic and Recre­ational River and National Recre­ation Water Trail, and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.

Cost­ing about $1.2 bil­lion dol­lars, the pro­posed trans­mis­sion line would carry elec­tric­ity from the Susque­hanna nuclear power plant in Berwick, Pa., run­ning through Lack­awanna, Luzerne, Mon­roe, Pike and Wayne coun­ties before cross­ing the Delaware River into New Jer­sey. The line would be built by PPL Cor­po­ra­tion and PSE&G and run by PJM Inter­con­nec­tion. Pro­po­nents say the new trans­mis­sion line is needed to reduce con­ges­tion, pre­vent­ing elec­tric­ity dis­rup­tions in heav­ily pop­u­lated areas.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists say New Jer­sey should rely more on alter­na­tive energy sources like wind and solar. The Obama Admin­is­tra­tion decided to fast-track the project last month, say­ing it would cre­ate 2,000 jobs. The National Park Service’s draft envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ment includes a 60-day pub­lic com­ment period. Their final state­ment should be com­pleted by the fall of 2012.

Comments

  • Anony­mous

    First, the lines begin in Berwick, not Susque­hanna — you’re about 3 coun­ties off.

    Sec­ond, I think that it’s great that so-called “envi­ron­men­tal­ists” are doing such a good job at cut­ting their own throats. First, they are work­ing hard to dis­cour­age the enlarge­ment of exist­ing nat­ural gas pipelines into Man­hat­tan and now they’re stop­ping the expan­sion of exist­ing power lines. They are doing a great job to make sure that NYC will freeze in the dark. I’ll bet that if you threw them a life pre­server in the water, they’d fold their arms and sink. I’m sure the reg­u­lar cit­i­zenry will salute their fore­thought when brown outs and high prices occur.

    Go Gree­nies!

    • Susan Phillips

      That’s cor­rect, the lines begin at the Susque­hanna Nuclear Power Plant in Berwick, not in Susque­hanna, Pa. The error is fixed.

    • Grtwent

      First off, the stud­ies have shown that due to increas­ing energy effi­ciency since the project was first pro­posed, that the power line expan­sion is not needed.  Sec­ondly, there’s a rea­son that the NPS has come out against the project (aside from need) — there are three FEDERALLY PROTECTED areas involved.  You obvi­ously have no regard for those dimin­ish­ing nat­ural areas left remain­ing that serve mul­ti­ple pur­poses (includ­ing serv­ing as a recre­ational space for mil­lions of peo­ple each year).  If the pow­er­line is so nec­es­sary, why can’t it be built so as to not impact these areas?  Sure it will cost more, but there’s a price to be paid when “progress” is needed.  That price need not be the com­pro­mise of areas that the Con­gress deemed wor­thy of pro­tec­tion years ago (and needed even moreso now).

      • Anony­mous

        @Grtwent. I’m fully in favor of pro­tect­ing nat­ural areas, that’s why I would rather see the new lines fol­low exist­ing lines rather than strik­ing out across undis­turbed areas. I think that the entire Delaware Val­ley is wor­thy of pro­tec­tion, not just the area under fed­eral con­trol. If there is no need for the power, even bet­ter. I also don’t mind if New York­ers pay more for their power and become more energy effi­cient. I sim­ply see a trend where some New York­ers are try­ing to block all energy sources from pro­vid­ing energy for the Met­ro­pol­i­tan area. That could be problematical.

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