The National Park Service has announced that the public will be able to further comment on PSE&G and PPL's $30M land-bribe once the plan is revealed. However, it sounds more like you'll just be flapping your gums after the decision has been made, so don't wait -- go ahead and comment NOW before January 31.
The National Park Service and the public need more time to evaluate two utilities' proposed trade to add park land in exchange for allowing a massive power line to cross Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, federal officials said Monday.
"Acquiring conservation lands to enhance national park resources and to create or connect regional wildlife corridors could be a means of mitigating and compensating for impacts from construction, operation, and maintenance of a transmission line upgrade," the park service said in its first public comment on the proposal. "However, the NPS will not be able to determine whether the lost use and resource impacts are offset until the agency has fully evaluated the mitigation proposal and the public has had a chance to review it."
Following this week's hearings, the park service will take written comments until Jan. 31. But the utilities aren't expected to make details of their proposed land purchases public until officials file their own written comments.
This leaves unanswered how public comment will be considered if the public doesn't get land purchase details until after the comment period closes. National Park Service spokeswoman Deb Nordeen said she is unsure how the process will work, but the public will be able to comment on the agency's final impact statement late this year.
The NPS seems to be a little worried that they will be correctly painted as accepting a bribe from a for-profit corporation in exchange for looking the other way while a national park is destroyed. And, of course, they will be!
The Susquehanna Roseland project is not needed any more than PATH ever was. This $1.2B project has now increased its cost by another $30M to pay for the NPS land-bribe, and you are the one who's going to be stuck paying for it all, along with a sweet 12.9% yearly profit for PSE&G and PPL, including that purchase of the land-bribe.
The NPS-hosted public hearings began last night. The power companies bussed in union members to speak in favor of their project, purporting that the transmission line would provide jobs.
Hey, remember when PATH bussed in a gaggle of union stooges to speak in favor of their project during PSC hearings in Shepherdstown back in 2009?
The National Park Service and the public need more time to evaluate two utilities' proposed trade to add park land in exchange for allowing a massive power line to cross Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, federal officials said Monday.
"Acquiring conservation lands to enhance national park resources and to create or connect regional wildlife corridors could be a means of mitigating and compensating for impacts from construction, operation, and maintenance of a transmission line upgrade," the park service said in its first public comment on the proposal. "However, the NPS will not be able to determine whether the lost use and resource impacts are offset until the agency has fully evaluated the mitigation proposal and the public has had a chance to review it."
Following this week's hearings, the park service will take written comments until Jan. 31. But the utilities aren't expected to make details of their proposed land purchases public until officials file their own written comments.
This leaves unanswered how public comment will be considered if the public doesn't get land purchase details until after the comment period closes. National Park Service spokeswoman Deb Nordeen said she is unsure how the process will work, but the public will be able to comment on the agency's final impact statement late this year.
The NPS seems to be a little worried that they will be correctly painted as accepting a bribe from a for-profit corporation in exchange for looking the other way while a national park is destroyed. And, of course, they will be!
The Susquehanna Roseland project is not needed any more than PATH ever was. This $1.2B project has now increased its cost by another $30M to pay for the NPS land-bribe, and you are the one who's going to be stuck paying for it all, along with a sweet 12.9% yearly profit for PSE&G and PPL, including that purchase of the land-bribe.
The NPS-hosted public hearings began last night. The power companies bussed in union members to speak in favor of their project, purporting that the transmission line would provide jobs.
Hey, remember when PATH bussed in a gaggle of union stooges to speak in favor of their project during PSC hearings in Shepherdstown back in 2009?
My favorite part of that episode was the stragglers who drove themselves and ended up asking us where the "union rally" was being held. Uh-huh... these guys showed up at their own volition to support PATH ;-) Or, maybe it was what happened at the next public hearing in the series when the PSC refused to let more union guys testify because the union was an intervenor and thereby prevented from testifying at the public hearings. That was fun :-)
The power companies seriously need to come up with some new plays -- the game is up!
The power companies seriously need to come up with some new plays -- the game is up!
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