378 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



cheaper. The real test of costs is what are the annual costs, not what 

 is the initial investment. 



4. Mr. Nelson may want to comment on this. Under the Col- 

 lier-Burns Act of California, the highway right-of-way is multipur- 

 pose. This is the only State where this is recognized. All the other 

 States insist that the right-of-way is like the railroad, which prohibits 

 other utilities to get on except by sufferance. The utility corridor, or 

 whatever you want to call it, is one of the things I would like to see 

 explored further, particularly by the new panel that the Federal 

 Power Commission is bringing into being. 



A DELEGATE. No amount of aesthetic redesign of transmission 

 turrets can make up for the destroyed homes, for the desecrated 

 landscape and for the loss to communities that result in the pathway 

 of these turret lines. 



Why hasn't there been advantage taken of technological advances 

 that do not require utilities overground, such as gas turbines that 

 are being used by other visionary utilities? 



Mr. SWIDLER. Well, there are certain troubles with gas turbines. 

 One, they're not very efficient. They give off a lot of air pollutants. 

 They are not very good for the community where they are located. 

 They have a high noise problem that really will create a neighbor- 

 hood inconvenience. And in addition to that, there is a question 

 involved as to whether this is the right way to make use of natural 

 gas supply on a year-round basis, whether it contributes to the best 

 use of our exhaustible resource of natural gas. These units are, for 

 the most part, peaking units, which are too expensive to operate 

 on base load. You need a peaking unit when you hit your peak, 

 which may be the same time that your natural gas peak occurs. 

 You might thus need to build special gas transmission facilities to be 

 sure you would have desired capacity there when you need it. For 

 all these reasons, they fit some places, but they don't fit every place. 



Mrs. ALEXANDER SAUNDERS. This question goes along with what 

 Mr. Bennett has been saying : What control may a community exert 

 or expect to obtain by legislation to prohibit overhead lines or to 

 request underground lines when the power that is being transmitted 

 is not used by the community in question? 



Mr. BENNETT. Briefly, you run into this question, that a local 

 ordinance may be unconstitutional under State law because the 

 matter is of statewide concern. 



