Erie, Pa., Couple Takes on Utility Over High-Voltage Lines. - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

By Peter Panepento, Erie Times-News, Pa. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

May 30--Brenda and Rodney Denning had modest goals when they bought their $70,000, two-story house on Devoe Avenue in 1999.

After years of renting and waiting, the Dennings wanted to own a home. They wanted privacy and space; a place where they would someday retire and grow old.

Today, they say they are not getting what they paid for.

Several months after the Dennings moved into their home on Erie's far west side, the thick row of trees that lined the east side of Devoe Avenue started coming down. Those trees had served as a leafy buffer between the private homes on the west side of the street, which runs north from West 38th Street, and the very public traffic of Interstate 79, which runs parallel to Devoe Avenue's east side.

Those trees were soon replaced by a row of 80-foot-tall steel poles that tote 115-kilovolt electricity transmission lines.

Gone is the seclusion that greeted them when they arrived. Gone, too, is the idea of the Dennings growing old in that home.

Instead, they worry about the potential health risks that come with living fewer than 50 feet from high-voltage power lines.

Though there is plenty of evidence to contradict the claim that living in proximity to power lines poses health risks, the couple has seen enough to fear for their safety.

'We bought this house with the intent that when we retire, this would be it,' Rodney Denning said, pointing out his living room window at the towering pole that stands directly across the street. 'They've pretty much ruined all of that. We're stuck.'

Still, the Dennings uncomfortable with selling their home so soon after moving in and unwilling to accept their fate are trying to fight back.

The couple is traveling to Pittsburgh today for a hearing with a state Public Utility Commission administrative law judge, looking for a ruling that would force GPU Inc. to take down the poles and bury the lines underground.

Though the Dennings acknowledge that the utility was within its legal rights to install the power lines on the city right of way across the street from their home, they say GPU also has a legal and ethical obligation to protect its neighbors.

Without the help of a lawyer, the Dennings made it through a preliminary hearing in October to get their case on the judge's docket. They have since deposed witnesses, filed motions and recruited experts to argue their cause.

And despite the fact they are taking on a global company that has summoned a trio of lawyers for the case, the Dennings believe they can win.

'We're surprised to get this far and so are a lot of other people,' Brenda Denning said. 'But we're persistent. ... I do believe we'll eventually prevail.'

GPU officials maintain the company followed the rules when the lines were installed as part of a five-year, $10 million project to improve its transmission system.

Though company officials declined to comment on the case Tuesday, a spokesman said in a May 2000 interview that GPU took out newspaper ads and held public hearings in anticipation of the project.

The project included the installation of a transmission line that runs from the company's Greengarden Road substation south along the west side of I-79, across the interstate at West Grandview Boulevard, then along the east side of I-79 to an area just north of the Millcreek Mall.

Included in that path is Devoe Avenue.

Although GPU followed public protocol, the Dennings said they had no way of knowing of the company's intentions when they were looking at the home two years ago.

They said they didn't learn about the project until several months after they moved in, when a GPU official knocked on their door to inform them that the company was taking down the trees out front.

When GPU took out the trees to clear room for the power lines, it took away much of the privacy that the Dennings said first attracted them to the home.

It also opened the door for additional sound and dust pollution from the interstate.

'You couldn't see 79 when we moved in,' Brenda Denning said as a steady stream of cars and semis blurred behind her. 'You could hear 79, but you couldn't see it.'

But the Dennings said they are most concerned about the electromagnetic fields that accompany the high-voltage lines, which are 47 feet from their front door.

'My wife is exposed 24-7,' said Rodney Denning, an electrical wireman. 'We couldn't put our house far enough back on the property to get out of the field.'

GPU officials argue that there is no clear indication that its electric lines pose any health hazards to Devoe Avenue residents.

But the Dennings say they have seen and read enough to know that they do not want to take that risk.

With that in mind, they have enlisted the help of physicist Duane Dahlberg and Ed Maxey, a surgeon, to help them plead their case with the PUC.

Dahlberg, a retired professor of physics at Concordia College in Minnesota, was in Erie Tuesday, taking electromagnetic readings at the Denning house in preparation for the hearing.

'This is a large transmission line carrying a high current,' Dahlberg said. 'There are very few homes in the U.S. that have (electromagnetic) levels this high.'

Brenda Denning said she has already had to decline the chance to look after an expected grandchild at her home, saying she does not want to put the baby at risk.

She said she would only say yes to that opportunity if GPU decided to bury its lines underground, thereby removing the electromagnetic field.

'You can't replace life with money,' she said.

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(c) 2001, Erie Times-News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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