The county will not be helping Allegheny Energy build a 765-kilovolt transmission line across northern Loudoun by relinquishing the conservation easements it holds on land needed for the proposed route.

By a unanimous vote at its April 7 meeting, the supervisors approved a letter to the power company declining to give up any conservation easements that stand in the way of PATH - the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline.

Sally Kurtz (D-Catoctin) added that any application to the State Corporation Commission should include putting the line underground.

The power company has proposed routing the new line across Loudoun just north of Lovettsville along the existing right of way of a 500-kilovolt line. Conservation easements on the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship and in the River's Edge subdivision stand in the way of widening that right of way in order to install larger, higher towers.

Both PATH public meetings in Lovettsville followed the trade-show format -- citizens visited stations, each addressing a separate aspect of the project, and spoke one-on-one with company experts.

Allegheny's Mark Nowitski said there are no plans for a public meeting in that area. The State Corporation Commission will hold its own public hearings, Nowitski said.

The company has been buying the Rivers Edge parcels protected by easements, Kurtz said.

Critics of the project maintain that the real object of PATH is to move cheaper, coal-fired power from West Virginia to lucrative markets in New York and New Jersey. The pollution will come to Loudoun, they say, not the power.

Allegheny's experts counter that the line is needed to stabilize the transmission grid in the entire area, and Virginians will be facing blackouts by 2013 if the new line is not in operation.