References
Government Guidance Documents
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Substation
siting: Design Guide for Rural substations usda.gov
pdf See Also Exhibit
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Transmission
line siting: Guidance on Transmission Lines PDF
Commonwealth of Virginia State Corporation Commission Division of Energy Regulation
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Search Federal Register Environmental Documents epa.gov/
Sample
Query
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PJM Interconnection is a regional transmission organization (RTO)
that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity.
This PJM correspondence describes role of paPUC:
http://www.pjm.com
comments-to-teac.pdf
In Pennsylvania, the Public Utility Commission (PaPUC) has the authority to approve or
deny construction of a high voltage transmission line. This decision is made after the
completion of a detailed siting study including analysis of multiple line routes.
Additionally, the process encourages full public disclosure and discussion with affected
parties (not only property owners) during the siting process. In order for the PaPUC to
approve such a project, a Pennsylvania utility must demonstrate that:
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There is a need for the project;
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The construction, operation and maintenance of the line will not pose an unreasonable
risk to the public;
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The line routing minimizes impacts to the social and natural environment.
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Similar Contests
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| SaskPower Project Proposal, Appendix A. ERIN Consulting Final Report, Prince Albert to Timber Cove (PA 8) 72 (138kV Transmission Line Rebuild Stage One - Phase II
http://www.friendlyforest.ca
htm
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Impacts on Property Values
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Impact: High Voltage Power Lines: Do They Affect Residential Property Value?, Journal of Real Estate Research
7(3): 315-330, 1992.
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Land owner rights: DISCLOSURE OF EMINENT DOMAIN POWER OF ELECTRIC UTILITIES
http://www.pacode.com
html
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Impact: Water Quality Affects Property Prices: A Case Study of Selected Maine Lakes, by Holly J. Michael, Kevin
J. Boyle, and Roy Bouchard, Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station, University of Maine, 18 pp., 1996,
available online at:
http://www.umaine.edu
.pdf
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Impacts on Natural Resources
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PPL
mission is maximize return to shareholders, not to protect natural
resources
PPL Annual report: Our
Formula for Growth, 2007 annual report
Page 1: Subtitle:
Exceptional People,
High-Performance
Assets,
Understanding of Energy Markets = Growth
Page 24:
"Actively Protecting the Environment"
”Smart environmental moves are also smart business moves.
Doing the right thing for the environment is a key to
building shareowner value.”
Comment:
It’s
understandable that PPL, a for-profit-entity, is focused on growth
and shareowner value.
Use of the words “moves” and the stated objective (Growth
and shareholder value) in this report should make it clear that its
primary mission is not to protect natural resources, but to make the
right “moves” to maximize profits and grow.
Thus, careful oversight is needed to protect our land.
We don’t have to condemn PPL for being it is, but we need to watch
it very carefully and recognize that its primary agenda could be in
conflict with the public interest at times. ~ KarlS
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PENNSYLVANIA COMPREHENSIVE WILDLIFE CONSERVATION STRATEGY
"As an outcome of the State Wildlife Grants program, the
development of the Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy is a
benchmark action, designed to proactively manage and safeguard this
state’s declining fish and wildlife. And it’s not a moment too
soon."
http://www.wildlifeactionplans.org/pdfs/action_plans/pa_action_plan.pdf
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The case made eloquently for caution:
The Dose Makes the Poison—Or Does It?
INVOKING THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE:
You may have heard of the Precautionary Principle, an approach
that developed in Europe to protect human health and the environment
in the face of the many unanswered and answerable questions related
to environmental and human health. The principle calls for
implementation of preventative measures to protect environmental
quality and public health in spite of scientific uncertainties.
http://www.actionbioscience.org/environment/trautmann.html
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VALUING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES -
TOWARD BETTER ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION–MAKING
Committee on Assessing and Valuing the Services of Aquatic and
Related Terrestrial Ecosystems, Water Science and Technology Board,
Division on Earth and Life Studies
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11139&page=1
"The biota and physical structures of ecosystems provide a
wide variety of marketable goods—fish and lumber being two
familiar examples. Moreover, society is increasingly recognizing the
myriad life support functions, the observable manifestations of
ecosystem processes that ecosystems provide and without which human
civilizations could not thrive (Daily, 1997; Naeem et al.,
1999).
These include water purification, recharging of groundwater,
nutrient recycling, decomposition of wastes, regulation of climate,
and maintenance of biodiversity.
Derived from the physical, biological, and chemical processes at
work in natural ecosystems, these functions are seldom experienced
directly by users of the resource. Rather, it is the services
provided by the ecosystems—services that create value for human
users, such as flood risk reduction and water supply—together with
the ecosystem goods, that are the subject of this report."
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High-quality
study cites specific reasons for caution:
Nickerson,
et al. Biology Department, Tufts University
Effects
of Power-Line Construction on Wetland Vegetation in Massachusetts,
USA,
”Little
data exists concerning long-term effects of many types of
construction
activities in wetland ecosystems”
and also that:
“vegetation recovery
may or many not be indicative of functional recovery. Unfortunately,
the scientific understanding of the relationship between vegetation
and wetland function (i.e., wildlife habitat, water quality
maintenance, groundwater recharge) is limited and fragmented.”
Comment:
This
high-quality report supports invoking the precautionary principle
described below.
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SIGNIFICANT NATURAL AREAS
Bucks County contains a diversity of unique natural features. These natural features harbor a
wide range of flora and fauna, some of which are found nowhere else in the Commonwealth. In
June of 1999, an inventory was undertaken to identify and rank the most significant natural areas
remaining in the county, including those in the Pennridge Area. The inventory resulted in the
publication of the document, Natural Areas Inventory of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The
project was conducted by the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania
http://hilltown.org/pacc/Report/Section%20V%20-%20Significant%20Natural%20Areas.pdf
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What is the
importance of Riparian Buffers?
http://www.edf.org/documents/2758_NCbuffers.pdf
Riparian corridors are “buffers of trees, shrubs and grass along
waterways.”
Conserving streamside buffers is socially valuable, economically
viable and ecologically necessary. It costs more and takes longer to
restore water quality than to protect it in the first place. Modest
rules to protect narrow buffers can be fair to landowners, while
preserving clean water for the entire state.
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Impact of Invasive Plants
re: “Exotic and invasive plants have an extremely negative ecological impact on native ecosystems,” Lowe says. “They are rated as the No. 2 cause of biodiversity loss around the world, second only to man-made habitat
destruction.”
How startling the above statement is to the reader will depends on one's view of the importance of biodiversity. But
we don't think it takes much imagination to realize that a world without diversity of plants and animals will be more vulnerable to blights and other adverse events ... will be less able to provide future benefits, such as new medicines to treat disease.
What follows might help the reader judge the impact of ROWs on the ecosystems along the cross country path. The progression being: you cut down a swath of forest and apply herbicides so trees can't grow. This allows invasives to take root and spread. The cutting action and subsequent management fragments the native habitats and provide a corridor for
invasive species to displace and threaten what remains.
All this as reason to use commercial corridors whenever possible.
| Invasive Plants defined
"are non-native or alien to the ecosystem under consideration and whose introduction causes, or is likely to cause, economic or environmental harm or harm to human health. Invasive plants reproduce rapidly, either vegetatively, by seed or both. Their phenomenal reproduction and growth rates and lack of natural predators or pathogens allows invasive plants to overwhelm and displace existing native vegetation, often creating dense monocultures. In British Columbia, the term invasive plant is synonymous with invasive alien plant."
http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/frep/site_files/indicators/Indicators-InvasivePlants-Protocol-2008.pdf
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| ROWs and invasive plants
"When right-of-way (ROW) and natural resource managers return to school to learn how to control unwanted vegetation on public lands, many of them will work with Zach Lowe, a doctoral student in restoration ecology who restores native plant and animal habitats in Indiana and the Upper Midwest. For the past several years, Lowe and his colleagues at the Purdue University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources have been an important resource for state and county DOTs that are seeking to control invasive species on their properties. “Exotic and invasive plants have an extremely negative ecological impact on native ecosystems,” Lowe says. “They are rated as the No. 2 cause of biodiversity loss around the world, second only to man-made habitat destruction.”
http://americancityandcounty.com/features/government_taming_wild_roadside/
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| Human impacts, plant invasion, and imperiled plant species in California.
Ecol Appl. 2006 Aug;16(4):1338-50. PMID: 16937802
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16937802
"Invasive species are one of the fastest growing conservation problems. These species homogenize the world's flora and fauna, threaten rare and endemic species, and impose large economic costs. "
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| Invasive Species Population Study (PA)
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of State Parks
Ecological Threat (of garlic mustard) The lack of predators and aggressive growing habits of garlic mustard pose a severe threat to native plants and animals in forest communities. Many native wildflowers that complete their life cycles in the springtime occur in the same habitat as garlic mustard. Once introduced to an area, garlic mustard out-competes native plants by monopolizing light, moisture, nutrients, soil, and space. Wildlife depends on native plants for leaves, seeds, nectar, pollen, fruits, and roots, and when garlic mustard invades an area animals are deprived of essential food sources.
http://www.trecpi.org/pdfs/pre-lessons/Invasive_species_population_study_Teacher_Page.pdf
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| Developing an EU Framework for Invasive Alien Species
Invasive Alien Species (IAS) represent a serious threat to biodiversity which needs to be addressed if the EU is to attain its goal "to halt the decline of biodiversity by 2010"1.
1) Presidency Conclusions, Goteborg European Council, 15-16 June 2001
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/invasivealien/docs/ias_discussion_paper.pdf
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| Grasping at the routes of biological invasions:
a framework for integrating pathways into policy
"Alien species may arrive and enter a new region through three broad mechanisms: importation of a commodity, arrival of a transport vector, and/or natural spread from a neighbouring region where the species is itself alien. These three mechanisms result in six principal pathways: release, escape, contaminant, stowaway,
*corridor* and unaided."
"Alien species may arrive and enter a new region through three broad mechanisms: importation of a commodity, arrival of a transport vector, and/or natural spread from a neighbouring region where the species is itself alien. These three mechanisms result in six principal pathways: release, escape, contaminant, stowaway, corridor and unaided."
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/invasivealien/docs/integrating_ias_pathways.pdf
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Background
| PPL perspective and applications: pplelectric.com
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MC-03/26/08: Springfield seeks strength in numbers in PPL
fight Morning
Call / Blog
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BCH-03/26/08: Springfield hires lawyer to fight PPL PDF
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FP (BMN)-03/27/08: Quakertown and others settle old suit with PPL PDF
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Links
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