Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 13 · column 3 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
YET VEPCO is going through all of the motions of pain and anguish on seeing the ratepayers’ proposed route—a melodramatic performance that will win no prizes at the annual Playwriters’ Award dinner. For it should be crystal clear to anyone that Vepco will win and win handily with either route, and we, the residents, will be the losers.
Surely Vepco cannot really be so distraught at the thought of being awarded the approximate corridor it sought in the first place. If the SCC makes its choice between the two very bad and very similar routes, we are lost.
The battle may have been lost, in substance, at the very moment Technical Associates decided to give no weight to environmental factors in determining what to feed into the electronic computer. True, population centers, parks, and other environmental facts were considered, but its report seems to make clear that there was no precedent for assigning varying weights to each environmental factor.
Thus economic consid- _ erations became paramount, and the result wag inevitable — a proposed route that is a travesty. It would indeed cost(less than Vepco’s proposed route, but not so much less. Surely Virginians would not mind paying a little more if they could preserve and protect the beauty of the Virginia countryside—but of course the fact is that they will
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