September 18,2008

This letter is to give you arguments as to why I am opposed to PATH, the 1% c9 line proposal to go through the North Fork Valley in . -vz~a 2- 0 ac?) I was born and raised in Virginia. In 1990 my husband and I found a beautiR1 pie% op property in Grant Co. West Virginia, only two and a half hours &om om home in Manassas, Va. The land was pasture land with no water or electricity. We built a humble cabin to live in when we visited our land, usually on weekends. We found our visits were steadily increasing and in 2001 we had a 3 bedroom house built. In 2005, tired of the traffic and the rat race of Northern Virginia, on a leap of faith we retired from good paying government jobs and moved to our WV home. We wanted to share the beauty of this land which led us to our decision to add on and Breakfast. In January of 2006 we opened Breath o

In our guestbook are many happy notes from people who have stayed at our Bed and Breakfast and who have hked the nearby North Mountain.. .

“. .. we enjoyed everythlng... touring Smoke Hole Canyon, hiking

and Dolly , and “duckying” on the Potomac.. . ”

Ths family of four also had hked which challenged us along with our grandchildren on the same hike this past July.

These notes include people from Norway, Great Britain, Australia, and one from France who wrote in her best English,

“This beautiful landscape you have chance to live here.. . we are thlnking to Scotland with similar contrasts of lights.”

A mom dropped off her teenagers at one of the North Mountain trails on a Friday night, stayed with us for two nights, and on Sunday morning picked them up and brought them back here for a hearty breakfast. They were ecstatic from their adventures.

A senior guest who lives on the Jersey shore told me that people who live on the ocean are corning to West Virginia for the beauty and peace that they can no longer get on a crowded beach.

I could go on.

Worlang part time as a church secretary I now know many people in Petersburg. These people have seen their town decrease in the number of jobs available to keep their grown children at home. I see our church literally dying because there is little here. But there is hope. I lived 40 years in Northern Virginia and never knew this beautiful area existed until the day we answered that ad in the Cumberland, Md. newspaper when we were visiting friends in May of 1990. Now I am seeing a growth in an industry here - the Tourism Industry. Our new CVB can back me up on that.

When I travel back to Virginia to visit my grandchldren I see more trees being cut down and more buildings being put up and more traffic on their brand new highways. I can’t be proud of what Virginia is doing to their land. Virginia doesn’t want to do their share of the new Corridor H. They don’t want to help West Virginia.

As I age I become so disappointed in how our country is selling us out to other countries. I hope and pray that you help us not to sell out OUR beautiful State of West Virginia to other states with no regards to our own needs.

May God bless you in your work. I know it’s not easy to weigh the dollar against what God has given to us naturally, that there are those who don’t appreciate the beauty of our already pushed at, plowed through, dug up, and cut down land. But I hope and pray that you can help get minds changed to the construction of power lines that would dominate our scenic views of the “similarities to Scotland.”

Thank you,

Mis. Geri Moser, Innkeeper Breath of Heaven Bed and Breakfast PO Box 485 Petersburg, WV 26847

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