A massive high-voltage power line could be routed through the Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Training Center outside of Shepherdstown, through one of the designer houses on Terrapin Neck, even across the much visitied Antietam National Battlefield.  As of yet, the precise route is not fixed.

What is known is that the high-voltage transmission line will start at the power station in John Amos, W.Va., run across West Virginia to the substation in Bedington, Berkeley County, (near Scrabble), cross the Potomac River and finish at the soon to be built power station 70 miles away in  Kemptown, Md.

The 765 kV,  165-foot-high line, which will be built by Allegheny Energy.

Allegheny won the contract to construct the line from PJM, the regional transmission entity for, among other areas, the Potomac River valley. PJM manages the long-term regional electric transmission planning process that builds the infrastructure used by Allegheny and other regional energy providers.

Antietam Battlefield Superintendent John Howard is concerned not only about the impacts of the line on the historic landscape. A disturbance the size of the transmission lines, he said, would be “like an open wound” on the natural environment within the battlefield.

With the power levels that PJM and Allegheny are projecting the size of these pylons would be enormous. The pylons must have at least three, if not six or nine, conductors. These are carried by steel trusses and insulated with glass discs. Although the heights vary with the terrain, the steel lattice-work would average about 50 meters high. The right of way for the power line is projected to be 200 feet wide.

Melissa McHenry, public information contact of Allegheny Power, says the precise route of the power lines has not yet been established. She said that the visual impacts of the line will be mitigated by its “zig zagging” to minimize effects on natural and historical sites, and that Allegheny Energy will hire outside contractors to recommend ways to minimize environmental impacts.

McHenry  describes Allegheny’s engineering and construction on the project as “a really cool process.” Several teams working up and down the line will work simultaneously to build and raise the towers. The supports are dropped into the ground first. The pylons are put together, lattice by lattice, in their squared-off cones lying on the ground, instead of building up from the ground. When the structure is finished, a helicopter is hooked to the top and hoists the whole thing off the ground. According to McHenry, the plan is to “use different types of steel to blend” the towers in with the surrounding environment.

The idea of burying the transmission lines was not given serious consideration due in part to cost. In the case of Antietam, said Howard, underground lines would jeopardize the archaeological resources of the park even more than the disturbances of constructing the power lines.

Federal energy legislation limits the ability of both the National Park and local governments to impact Allegheny’s decisions on route. Recently, however, residents of Northern Virginia were able to persuade Dominion Power to alter the route of another planned transmission line.
The planning process to pick routes will begin in 2008, with construction starting in 2009. The earliest date of completion for the Amos-to-Kemptown line is 2012.

For more information contact Public Information Officer Melissa McHenry at (614) 716-1120.

Click here to get Alleghany Power's information on The Trans-Alleghany Interstate Line Project

Erika Ostergaard, Thomas Harding, and David Lillard collaborated on this article.