InsideNOVA: New hurdle for Dominion power line could quash Carver Rd. route

Dominion Energy now faces a major hurdle in its controversial effort to build a new power line through western Prince William County to reach a Haymarket data center.

The company says it’s discovered a variety of properties along the proposed route of the 230-kilovolt power line that are controlled by the county and its agencies, meaning Dominion will need permission from the Prince William Board of County Supervisors to cross that land. That’s a big problem for the utility company — county lawmakers have pledged to block the power line’s path along the route currently ordered by state regulators, which would cut through several communities along Carver Road in Gainesville.

Accordingly, Dominion is asking the State Corporation Commission for a two-month hold on its consideration of the project, in a bid to bring county supervisors back to the negotiating table to find an acceptable solution.

“We’re calling on the board to sit down with us, have some meaningful discussions and find common ground,” said Chuck Penn, a Dominion spokesman. “We’re hoping they remember that the board was instrumental in luring the [data center] to the county. Now it appears the county is working to obstruct, at all costs, the power needed to reach that project.”

Indeed, supervisors have already worked with a local homeowners’ association to obtain a conservation easement and block the route originally preferred by Dominion and state regulators alike — it would run along a Norfolk-Southern railroad line, and is known as the “railroad route.” The board has expressed concerns about the project’s impact on nearby historical sites since it was first proposed roughly two years ago, and supervisors maintain that the only acceptable option for the power line involves Dominion partially burying it along Interstate 66.

“The county is not interested in negotiating with Dominion, other than to allow access to that option,” At-Large Chairman Corey Stewart said when informed of Dominion’s latest request of the board.

Stewart was adamant that there’s “absolutely no way the county will ever provide access through its properties to allow Dominion to run this through the Carver Road community.”

In a July 24 letter to the full board, Bob McGuire — director of electric transmission project development and execution for Dominion — acknowledges that the company fully expected that sort of reaction. But between county-owned property and county easements, McGuire wrote that the company will need the board’s permission to build the project along either the Carver Road or the railroad route.

If supervisors hew to their position and block the Carver route as well, McGuire wrote that Dominion would need to turn to a third option: the Madison route, which would largely follow the Carver Road route before running a bit farther west to follow the path of James Madison Highway.

“If this occurred, the county would be responsible for even more Prince William residents being affected by the line and the line still being routed through a portion of the Carver community,” McGuire wrote.

The company has also identified “additional cultural and potentially historic resources” along Carver Road that could make that option untenable, according to a new filing with state regulators by the company’s lawyers. Carver residents have recently launched a series of protests against the project, claiming that it would irreparably damage properties owned by African-American families since the 1800s.

That’s why Dominion wants to put the “railroad route” back on the table, or even get the county thinking about an option that would run the power line above I-66, which activists criticized in the past for the large towers required along the route.

“That route does have some impacts, but maybe we can work together on a compromise,” Penn said. “But this delay only puts economic growth at risk.”

The company has long argued that the power line is a necessity for the area to keep up with ever-growing power demands, and stabilize electric service for western Prince William. But supervisors and activists opposed to the project believe it was solely designed to power the data center, which is owned by a subsidiary of Amazon.

“There are no negotiations necessary, because we don’t think the whole project is necessary anyway,” Stewart said.

In SCC filings, activists have even begun arguing that the data center doesn’t even need the power line to be fully functional. Though Dominion disputes that claim, regulators did direct the company to respond to those accusations (and others) immediately before Dominion asked for this 60-day delay.

But Penn is hoping that the pause can cool tempers a bit overall, particularly after Carver Road residents started worrying that the company would take their land to make the project happen.

“That’s not who we are, that’s not what this company is about,” Penn said. “The Carver Road route was not, and is not, our preference. We want to find a solution here.”