VELCO balks at testimony on reliability
MONTPELIER, Vt. -- The company proposing a major new power line for northwestern Vermont is trying to block a Public Service Board witness from testifying about electric grid reliability -- even though reliability is the project's middle name.
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At issue is whether the board will consider testimony from Robert Blohm, an internationally recognized expert on power grid issues, indicating that the Vermont Electric Power Co.'s Northwest Reliability Project may not be needed to meet national reliability standards, and could actually hurt the reliability of Vermont's power grid.
Among other things, the portions of Blohm's testimony that VELCO wants struck from the record say the power line upgrade could make Vermont more vulnerable to the type of cascading power outages that struck much of the northeastern United States and Canada on Aug. 14, 2003. Blohm was an author of a joint U.S.-Canada report on that outage.
Building big new power lines to bring in electricity from distant sources would be "like giving alcohol to a drunken sailor," Blohm said in written testimony filed at the board.
He argued that long-distance power transmission may result in cheaper power becoming available to a given area, but those savings would be "offset by its cost disadvantage due to reducing both Vermont's and the rest of New England's reliability."
VELCO's lawyers on Tuesday asked the board to reject Blohm's testimony, arguing that opponents to its power line upgrades should have brought it into the case sooner than they did.
The company has proposed building 64 miles of new and bigger power lines from West Rutland to New Haven and then up the Lake Champlain shore to South Burlington. The project also would include upgrading 12 VELCO and
In the company's filing, VELCO lawyer Kimberly Hayden complained that the board had reversed an earlier order striking much of Blohm's testimony, and that the company was left with very little time to prepare a response before the next hearing in the case, which is set for Friday.
Hayden said "the board's last-minute reversal of its decision to now allow this testimony in the record leaves VELCO with less than five business days to prepare for the hearing."
She said Blohm should not be allowed to present new testimony so late in the case -- the board is expected to rule in January -- when "he had a fair opportunity to do so" earlier in the case.
Hayden said the board's ruling "leaves VELCO at a complete disadvantage because there will be no opportunity to conduct discovery, prepare cross examination or offer a rebuttal witness."
James Dumont, a lawyer representing the town of New Haven, where a major project substation is planned, said he had sought to bring Blohm's testimony into the case because VELCO could not answer questions about national reliability standards.
"When I was asking their quote-unquote `experts' about the national standards they didn't know the answers. ... It was because they didn't know that we had to call Mr. Blohm," Dumont said.
He said VELCO should ask the board for more time if it thinks more time is needed. He noted that VELCO still hasn't applied for wetland alteration permits the project needs from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
"We have all the time we need because they can't start construction for a year," he said. 
