Land Agents Violate Power Companies’ Own Rules
A number of us in southern Calhoun County have been talking to our neighbors about what AEP/Allegheny’s land agents have been telling land owners over the past couple of months. It’s not a pretty picture.
Here are some items that we have heard:
- Agents telling an elderly couple that if they don’t agree to AEP/Allegheny’s right of way agreement, they will “get nothing” if they make the power companies take them to court to seize their land
- An agent telling a land owner that “there is nothing you can do to stop PATH from being built”
- An agent telling a land owner that signing the power companies’ option agreement on the power line right of way will mean that the land owner will be able to keep the option advance and the PATH line probably will not be built.
One Calhoun PSC intervenor has filed a motion in the PATH case asking the PSC to order the power companies to stop harassing land owners about survey agreements and rights of way until the PSC has made its decision on PATH next June.
Another Calhoun land owner has filed a letter with the PSC with a signed statement describing one of the incidents above.
More land owners in more counties across the state need to file written complaints with the PSC and the Consumer Advocate Division if AEP/Allegheny land agents lie to them. Here is a link to an earlier post on The Power Line which includes a link to the power companies’ own code of conduct for land agents as well as phone numbers for the PSC and the Consumer Advocate Division.
Land owners who have complaints should also attend the remaining PSC public hearings in Canaan Valley and Buckhannon. The director of the Consumer Advocate Division and staff attorneys from the PSC attend all the public hearings. You can talk to them personally, but you should also voice your complaints by testifying on the record at the hearings.
Here is information on the remaining PSC hearings:
Tuesday, 10/13/2009, 12:30 pm & 6:30 pm in Davis, WV at Canaan
Valley Resort & Conference Center, Spruce Room, Route 32 N, Canaan
Valley State Park
Thursday, 10/22/2009, 12:30 pm & 6:30 pm in Buckhannon, WV at West Virginia Wesleyan College, Campus Center Social , Hall, 59 College Avenue
Stand up and help your neighbors.
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