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By SHARON KILPATRICK
Rappahannock New* Staff Writer
The Rappahannock Electric Cooperative made it official Monday in a press conference—they will use the Hazel Switch to get power from Potomac Edison for the Rixeyville substation and will not try to construct a new line from Speryville to the Rixley substation.
Frank Andrews, Culpeper District manager, said the new proposal was “developed at the request of the Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors.” He said the new route is “the most cost-effective alternative” and will have the “least environmental impact.”
This plan is expected to cost REC $1 million, according to Nevins H. Wilburn, manager of engineering, who was present at the press conference. The work will involve upgrading the Hazel Switching station and installing “a double circuit” from there to an automated transfer swith closer to Culpeper. He said REC would also try to purchase the line from the automated swith to the Rixeyville substation from Virginia Power, and that cost is included in the $1 million. Mr. Wilburn said the work should be completed by October 1995.
The route uses existing power line rights-of way, and following this route no new rights-of-way will be needed, Mr. Andrews said. “This will provide a new source with better service reliability than we had before,” he said.
When REC approached the Board of Supervisors this past August, Mr. Andrews said the proposed new transmission line that wodld have passed by Red Oak and Bessie Bell mountains would carry 100 killovolts of electricity. The Potomac Edison line to the Hazel Swith carries 34.5 killovolts. Nevertheless, Mr. Nevins said that line will take care of REC’s needs “well into the future.”
Mr. Andrews noted that the Rappahannock Board of Supervisors “made it crystal clear to us they wanted some other solution.” Piedmont District representative Charles K. “Pete” Estes suggested REC explore using the Hazel switch.
Besides the opposition of the Board of Supervisors, REC also ran up against organized opposition from landowners along the proposed line from Sperryville to Rixeyville. They wrote letters to members of the State Corporation Commission,
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