Siting Council Approves

New Power Line

By Diane Scarponi

Associated Press

NEW BRITAIN — State regulators Monday approved plans for a high-voltage transmission line that would ease power congestion in Fairfield County and diminish congestion-related charges for Connecticut Light & Power customers statewide.

The Connecticut Siting Council, by a 6-2 vote, approved a plan that struck a compromise between Northeast Utilities’ need to improve the transmission system and the local towns’ desires to put the power line underground.

Under the plan, the 20-mile, 345-kilovolt power line would run from Bethel to Norwalk aboveground on tall utility poles, but dip underground near sensitive areas such as historic districts and neighborhoods.

The vote ends more than 1½ years of debate over how the power line should run, and it sets a precedent for the second phase of the power line upgrade, a 69-mile line from Middletown to Norwalk.

State and federal agencies have said that southwestern Connecticut’s power system is dangerously overburdened, putting the region in danger of service interruptions or even blackouts.

Because of the cost of handling stress on the lines, a new federal regulation requires all of CL&P’s customers to pay an extra fee for the line congestion.

The fee costs the average CL&P customer about $4.50 more each month. Previously, congestion charges were spread throughout New England.

The new line, and other phases to come later, will alleviate this congestion and the extra charges, NU said.

Construction is scheduled to begin next year and finish by May 2005.

The original NU proposal would have put the 20-mile line aboveground, on poles as tall as 130 feet. The five affected communities – Bethel, Redding, Wilton, Weston and Norwalk – rebelled.

Various towns and groups came up with their own plans. At one point, the council had 20 proposals before them.

NU and four of the towns had settled on a compromise similar to what the Siting Council approved Monday. Norwalk was not part of the settlement and Mayor Alex Knopp said he was dissatisfied with the plan.

Members of the Siting Council said they were concerned that the underground portions of the line would not be as reliable as overhead lines, but they said they wanted to support the compromise.