ASHBURN, Va. — A long list of residents are signed up to speak Thursday night against a proposed power transmission line project designed to serve the exploding data center industry in Loudoun County.
The pressure is on Dominion Energy to change its plans and put a section of one 500 kilovolt line underground.
Dominion Energy proposes 9.4 miles of overhead transmission lines called the Aspen to Golden project. The project will feature towers as high as 190 feet along the fast-growing Route 7 corridor.
People living within sight of the proposed transmission lines are fighting the project.
“That horizon will dramatically change with any transmission towers,” said Beth LaBella-Foster, as she took in the view from the rooftop garden of her town home in the newly developed Regency at Belmont 55+ community in Ashburn.
LaBella-Foster said her property values are likely to take an immediate hit, and she and her husband would not have purchased their unit had they known of the powerline plans.
“I think undergrounding the towers is a great compromise," she said. "We all know that we are a data-driven, power-driven society. We get that. We accept it. We benefit from from that. However, there needs to be a balance in considering the quality of life."
Thursday evening, the SCC was scheduled to hold another public hearing on the issue at the Belmont Ridge Middle School. The Virginia State Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities, could force Dominion to go underground or not approve the project.
But Dominion Energy has determined undergrounding the powerlines is “not feasible,” according to Rob Richardson, the company’s consultant on the project.
“You are going to have to move, or remove, significant utilities,” Richardson explained. “Gas lines, water lines and fiber -- that is not a small project."
Richardson pointed out all the digging to go underground near natural areas like Goose Creek might destroy more environment than it protects.
Undergrounding would be much costlier, according to Dominion, which did not provide figures to WUSA9.