The Public and Powerline

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Well, no "normal" firm would ever be able to take such steps, right? But PASNY could . . . because, you see, PASNY is one powerful power company.

THE PEOPLE

Opposed to this mega-utility were a few upstate New York "North Country" residents like Jerry Moeller . . . a lean, hold-a job-on-the-outside, raise-what-I-can-when-Ican, work-hard-to-keep-all-of-it-together small farmer. Actually, Mr. Moeller wasn't the type of person who'd be inclined to protest any public company. In fact (before the trouble started), he'd always been -as a friend once said-"a mild-mannered, upstanding fellow who'd never questioned the government". So naturally, when Jerry got a letter saying the company might possibly put a powerline through part of his land, the farming citizen-and his wife, Doris assumed that the words "a powerline" referred to one of the standard wooden-pole-and-wire rigs that carry electricity to any rural person's home, and so he didn't raise any fuss about it.

Two years later, a PASNY representative came to the Moellers' house to get their signatures on the right-of-way easement papers for the company's powerline. By that time, though, Jerry and Doris had learned just what kind of line PASNY intended to build . . . and knew that the proposed 765kilovolt Quebec-to-Utica transmission complex-which would include 175-foot-tall towers and be as powerful as the biggest voltage carrying system in use anywhere on earth-was far from an ordinary electric hookup.

The couple had also begun to hear some disturbing reports about the biological hazards associated with "765's" (an Ohio beef farmer, for instance, told Jerry that his breeding cattle had produced only 10% of their normal calf crop since having been grazed under that midwestern state's infamous 765 line). After receiving such information, the Moellers naturally approached the construction proposal with a slightly more cautious attitude.

But the gruff utility spokesman-who, in Doris's words, was "arrogant, derogatory, and evasive"-refused to address the Moellers' concerns honestly. In fact, the company man became so angry at the couple's unwillingness to sign without question that-he threw down the easement papers and stomped out of the house with the warning: "Go ahead! Fight this line if you want to . . . but we'll win!"

THE BARSE ELM

And you'd better believe that the Moellers did fight the proposed 765! As a matter of fact, lots of independent-minded North Country folk-Mohawk Indians, farm wives, land use planners, midwives, ministers, professors, students, dairymen, immigrants, and stogie owners-began forming loose coalitions all along the proposed 155-mile construction corridor. Initially, the groups pursued their cause through the appropriate legal channels: They talked with government representatives, argued with the power company, and appealed to the courts. But once the local folk 'realized that such well-intentioned efforts were in vain (in one instance, PASNY actually managed to ig nore a state Supreme Court injunction against further construction), they turned to nonviolent civil disobedience. People began sitting on power company tractors, lying down in the path of construction roads, and placing farm equipment in the way of utility workers.

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