Green Jersey

Group opposes North Jersey PSEG line expansion

Environmentalists and others gathered yesterday to voice their opposition to a high-voltage power line PSE&G would like to stretch across four counties in North Jersey.

The 45-mile, $650-million line expansion project is needed to help prevent overloads and blackouts, according to the energy company. Environmentalists and local officials, though, argued that the line, an expansion of the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line, would diminish renewable energy goals outlined in the new Energy Master Plan and could cause health problems and lower property values down the road.

PSEG would reportedly charge its ratepayers the $650 million for the 500-kilovolt line; the plan’s critics want the company to instead invest the same amount on another method of shoring up reliability… a green one. Namely, adding renewable energy sources and energy efficiency measures.

Represented at the event were members of Byram Cares, Environment New Jersey, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the N.J. Environmental Federation and the Sierra Club, the Highlands Coalition and Stop the Lines.

David Slaperud of Stop the Lines, a group based in Tranquility, geographically speaking, called the proposed power line “excessive and unreasonable” (via the Star-ledger). “It seems to be motivated by corporate greed,” Slaperud said, “not by public need.”

The group outlines four major concerns in a petition: A lack of health data available on the effects of high-voltage lines near houses; the proximity of an elementary school and several “recreational areas” to the route; the potential for lowered property values without compensation; and the fact that 180-foot towers (compared to the current roughly 85-foot towers in the area) would look ugly.

PSE&G had considered three paths for the line and said in August that it had chosen the Susquehanna-Roseland route, according to the Star-Ledger. The company already has the required rights of way for the path — the new line would run from Hardwick in Warren County through Sussex and Morris counties to Roseland in Essex County, and parallel the existing line — but hasn’t yet decided whether to seek local or state approvals, according to a PSE&G spokeswoman. The spokeswoman also said that based on the company’s information, “no direct or casual link has been established between electromatic fields and health effects.”

Gov. Corzine’s final Energy Master Plan, unveiled last week, includes plans to generate more than 6,000 megawatts of energy from renewable sources by 2020 and reduce the state’s overall energy use one-fifth by that time.

The proposed line is in direct conflict with that plan, according to David Pringle, campaign director for the N.J. Environmental Federation. “The BPU and Gov. Corzine have made major commitments to clean energy solutions, and their decision on PSE&G’s request to expand this line will be a test of those commitments,” he is quoted as saying in a recent e-mail blast from environmentalists.