Why should Covington residents seeking Social Security disability benefits have to drive 90 minutes -- to Beckley, W.Va. -- to plead their case?

That's the question a Covington lawyer is asking in a campaign to get the Social Security Administration to hold hearings in Covington. Since March, residents of Covington and Alleghany and Bath counties whose disability claims reached the hearing stage have had to drive to Beckley.

Previously, they had to travel to Lewisburg, W.Va., a roughly 30-mile drive. The drive to Beckley is about 80 miles.

"It's not a big deal for a lawyer to travel that far," said lawyer Bill Wilson of the new mandate to drive to Beckley. "But it's a big deal for the claimants. Most of the time they're on medication and have to find somebody to drive them, and then they also have to gather witnesses.

"It's a section of society that ought not to be burdened this way."

Wilson has begun lobbying the Social Security Administration to hold disability claims hearings in Covington, and U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher has joined the cause.

Aidan Diviny, spokesman for the administration in Philadelphia, said the hearings were moved to Beckley because the agency's lease on the Lewisburg building expired in April and because the Beckley office has two hearing rooms.

But Wilson is agitated because when claimants travel all the way to Beckley, they don't plead their case live before an administrative judge -- the judge is sitting in a room in Charleston and the hearings are held via videoconference.

If the hearings are going to be held via videoconference, Wilson asked, why doesn't the Social Security Administration just install video equipment in its office in Covington and save Virginians a lengthy drive?

"It seems there's adequate space there," Wilson said of the Covington office. "It doesn't look like a beehive of activity."

But John Watson, head of the office, disagreed. "We don't have the room," he said.

Watson said the Covington office handles about 130 disability claims a month from residents in Alleghany and Bath counties and the three West Virginia counties of Monroe, Pocahontas and Greenbrier. Most of the claimants, he said, are West Virginians.

Diviny said all claimants can request to have their hearings held in Roanoke instead of Beckley. However, the drive to Roanoke is about 60 miles from Covington, with a travel time of more than an hour.

In a letter to the federal agency's chief administrative law judge in Falls Church, Boucher said videoconferencing equipment should be considered for the Covington office. "Many of my disabled constituents experience difficulties just traveling short distances," Boucher wrote in the July 29 letter.

Boucher's news aide said the congressman has not received a response.