Prairie Public Broadcasting

VELCO power line cost jumps MONTPELIER, VT (VPR) -

(Host) Vermonters will pay about four times more than previously predicted for a power line planned for the western side of the state.

The cost to build the VELCO line has jumped by roughly a hundred million dollars. Some of the cost increases are due to changes that won't be covered by other New England utilities.

VPR's John Dillon reports:

(Dillon) In July, VELCO disclosed that the cost of the 62-mile power line had jumped from $120 million to as much as $228 million.

But it wasn't until this week, during hearings at the Public Service Board, that VELCO officials revealed how that increase could affect Vermont ratepayers.

Under the old estimate, Vermont customers would have to cover $12 million of the $120 million cost. The rest would be borne by ratepayers elsewhere in New England.

VELCO's project manager Tom Dunn says Vermonters now will have to pay up to $50 million.

(Dunn) "Well it's not the same project. The board's order in January included undergrounding in Shelburne and possibly in Charlotte. Those are costs that we think will likely be paid by Vermont."

(Dillon) Dunn says Velco also modified the project after it was originally proposed. And not all of those changes will be paid for by utilities around New England under a cost-sharing arrangement.

He says the price of materials and labor needed for the project has sharply increased. The increases have affected everything from steel wire, to transformers to wood power poles.

(Dunn) "And for one particular kind of wood pole, we paid about $2,200 for that pole in '03. That very same pole is about $4,600 today."

(Dillon) Opponents of the project want the Public Service Board to investigate how the increases will affect Vermont consumers.

Sansea Sparling lives in New Haven, a town that's fighting the project.

(Sparling) "If the board is not examining it, and the governor is not examining it, and the Vermont Department of Public Service is not examining it, and if the Legislature is not examining it, who's job is it to examine a very very, very, big increase in costs to the Vermont ratepayers?"

(Dillon) The Public Service Board has a little over a week to decide whether it will re-open the Velco case.

For Vermont Public Radio, I'm John Dillon in Montpelier.
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