Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection

Opposition to a new 500,000-volt power line corridor in Rappahannock County is ramping up as more residents join in the fight to prevent Dominion Virginia Power from building a new set of towers in the eastern part of the county.

More than 300 people funneled into Rappahannock County High School's auditorium on Feb. 22 for a power line presentation sponsored by the Piedmont Environmental Council and the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection.

"There are no good places to build a power line when the need to build a power line has not been established," RLEP President Paul Farmer said at the beginning of the meeting. "The need to build this power line has not been established."

From there, PEC President Chris Miller launched into an in-depth presentation that described the size and shape of the proposed towers, questioned Dominion's reasons for building the new corridor and suggested energy-saving measures that can help eliminate the need for new power lines.

Dominion executives have said additional power lines are needed to meet the electricity demands of Northern Virginia's growing population. Company officials predict existing lines may become overloaded as soon as the summer of 2011 if more energy is not pumped into the area via a new transmission corridor.

Of the four routes Dominion is considering for the new right-of-way, the existing 500,000-volt corridor that passes through Rappahannock has been deemed the company's preferred option. The three other proposed routes—one underground and two aboveground—roughly track Interstate 66 in northern Fauquier County.

An option to bury the line along I-66 has not been removed from consideration, but Dominion officials estimate such a project would cost $1.7 billion. The "preferred" route along the existing corridor is estimated to cost $210 million and a new aboveground corridor along I-66 would cost an estimated $150 million.

Dominion's Web site says the company will submit the four corridor proposals to the State Corporation Commission by the end of April.

PEC has been on the front lines of the campaign to prevent Dominion from building the corridor in northern Fauquier, and Miller said on Thursday that the new proposal poses "the same problem, but with a different emphasis."

Miller said Dominion's plan is not about preventing future electric deficiencies in Northern Virginia but about increasing company profits by delivering inexpensive electricity from coal-fired power plants in the Ohio Valley to Northeastern states. Miller said PEC has requested data to confirm Dominion's claim for increasing electricity demand, but the power company has not provided those numbers.

Miller said available technology could be used in Northern Virginia to achieve a 10 percent reduction in energy usage, which would equal the 3,000 megawatts Dominion would get from adding the new transmission corridor. But Dominion - the 34th largest greenhouse-gas emitter in the world - has not explored those possibilities, Miller said.

According to Dominion's Web site, the company plans to provide price incentives to customers who cut their energy consumption during times of peak demand. But that will not provide enough relief to resolve the problem of overloaded lines, the site says.

Miller encouraged people to take the simple step of replacing their incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, which use 75 percent less energy. He also mentioned the possibility of building a clean-energy plant to produce electricity for the soon-to-expand Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County and upgrading—rather than shutting down —the Mirant Power Plant in Alexandria.

Another option would be to replace wires on existing towers with 765,000-volt wires, which representatives from American Electric Power said was possible during a presentation they made to PEC.

Miller also emphasized that the new corridor will not be entirely in the existing right-of-way but will be adjacent to it.

"Very little of it is on existing right-of-way," Miller said. "They're co-locating it."

If the new steel-lattice towers are built, they will be up to 150-feet tall, Miller said. The towers in the existing corridor through Rappahannock stand at about 80 feet.

Miller also questioned Dominion executives' motives for changing their position on where the best location is for a new corridor. So far, all of their proposals have drawn sharp opposition from local residents.

Miller said the new route will cross several scenic and historic areas as it makes its way through Frederick, Warren, Rappahannock, Culpeper, Fauquier and Prince William counties before reaching its destination at a substation just over the Loudoun County line. One such spot is the Rappahannock River, which the state has designated a scenic river.

"Before you condemn someone's land you better have a damn good reason for it, and we don't think they do," Miller said. "The Virginia Piedmont carries an inordinate amount of 500-kilovolt lines in this part of the country, and we don't even use any of this power." Dominion does not have any customers in Rappahannock County.

Rappahannock residents were joined at the meeting by several citizens from Culpeper and Fauquier counties who are fighting Dominion's plan in their hometowns.

"I spent 20 years paying off a mortgage and now my land is basically condemned," Delaplane resident Cameron Eaton said. "I would not want any of you to be in the shoes that I was in."

She encouraged citizens to contact their officials with real letters, rather than e-mails.

"You've got to make some noise, you've got to write some letters," she said. Miller noted that Sen. John Warner has spoken out against the power line proposal, but Sen. Jim Webb has not yet taken a public position on the matter.

When an audience member asked Miller if PEC has chosen a preferred corridor of the four proposed, he said the organization is fighting all of the proposals. The same person also asked if the power line fight is becoming a case of "not in my backyard" battles between neighboring counties.

"As an organization and as a collection of communities, I don't think anyone is saying, 'I'm glad it's in Rappahannock,' " he answered.

Miller commented that, as a percentage of the county's total population, Rappahannock had the best turnout for any of the meetings PEC has hosted about the power line issue.

He also offered encouragement to anyone who thinks victory is impossible against Dominion's deep pockets and political clout.

"Twelve years ago I took on a job fighting Disney and people said it was impossible," he said, referring to the PEC campaign that thwarted the company's plan to build a historical theme park in Haymarket.

He also mentioned that PEC helped foil a proposal to build a 30,000-home development in Loudoun County and the Western Bypass, or "Outer Beltway," still has not been built some 30 years after it was proposed.

The battle against Dominion is against all odds, but that is no different from those other efforts, Miller said.

"There's been this incredible uprising of the population," he said. "And I've never seen anything like it."

Go to Power Line Home Page

Go to RLEP home page

Go to Current Issues