Dominion’s power line plan sparks opposition

Chris Colvin spent two years fighting a data center proposed near her family’s historic farm near Catlett. Now, she’s having nightmares about another threat to their land: Dominion Energy’s new, high-power transmission line needed to feed data centers outside the county.  

Since learning Dominion is considering a route along the back of their 268-year-old farm – about “20 yards from where I put my head on my pillow,” she says – she’s woken her husband with shouts of “No! Stop! Help!” 
 
“My husband and I founded Protect Catlett two years ago and now it’s become extremely personal,” Colvin said of the group that stopped a planned data center in Catlett last year. 

It’s also personal for her neighbor, Tony Young. Dominion’s new transmission line could run even closer to the house he built 33 years ago. “I’m highly upset about it,” he said, noting the powerlines would cut through his property, his mother’s, and even chop off a part of his driveway.  

“If they think they are coming on my property, they can pound salt,” he said.  

Mel Colvin and Mary Root examine a map showing the route of Dominion Energy’s proposed expansion of the“Morrisville to Wishing Star” high-power transmission line. A spur of the line could travel through Mel and Chris Colvin’s historic family farm near Catlett. Photo by Peter Cary.

Dominion Energy wants to beef up a transmission corridor from Morrisville, in southern Fauquier County, to Wishing Star, a substation near Dulles, to bring more power to data center alleys in Prince William and Loudoun counties. The project will add new 500-kilovolt lines in some places, widen the right-of-way, and may require bypass routes like the one going past the Colvins’ home, to avoid sensitive areas such as wetlands, conservation areas and homes.  

Similar intrusions are planned on the route in Prince William County and will affect the Manassas National Battlefield Park. 

At an open house in Bealeton Tuesday, Dominion displayed dozens of maps and pictures of transmission towers and had nearly a dozen engineers, consultants and communications specialistson hand to answer questions. 

But the presentation ran into a buzz-saw of opposition from representatives of the Piedmont Environmental Council, the Coalition to Protect Fauquier County and veterans of the battle to stop the Catlett data center.  

Chris Colvin, bottom right in black, joins other opponents of Dominion Energy's new Morrisville to Wishing Star transmission line expansion during a meeting Tuesday, May 13 in Bealeton.

Julie Bolthouse, land-use director for the Piedmont Environmental Council, said her organization wants to see alternatives to widening the route “because Fauquier is not driving the demand.”  

“Dominion has not done a full analysis of the impacts and has not considered all of the alternatives,” she said, adding that there are other ways to get power to the data center alleys. 

But Dominion says it’s the best route they can devise and would cost ratepayers the least.  

In February, Dominion revealed in an earnings call that it had signed contracts to feed 19 moregigawatts of power to data centers in Loudoun and Prince William counties, nearly doubling itsprevious contracts. (Dominion says 1 gigawatt would power roughly 250,000 homes.)   

Dominion has said it is required by law to supply power to all those who ask for it, though it hasimposed waits of four to seven years for new data center connections. 

Fauquier County Supervisor Ike Broaddus, whose Scott District is not traversed by the line,nonetheless joined others holding“Stop the Power Towers” signs and said he’d like to meet with Dominion to get more information on alternative routes.  

Broaddus also made pointed comments to Dominion officials at a supervisors’ work session on the subject last week. He said transmission lines not only devalue properties they cross but also thosewhose views they spoil. 

After Dominion representatives acknowledged the utility might have to condemn properties along the route, Broaddus told residents attending the work session: “I would encourage those homeowners to hold out for all the money in the world.”