By Sandhya Somashekhar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 16, 2006

Dominion Virginia Power has excluded most of Loudoun County as a potential route for a power line in northwestern Virginia, putting to rest fears that steel lattice towers and high-voltage cables would slice through parts of the county with deep natural and historic significance.

The line is likely to be built, Dominion Virginia Power said, along one of several possible routes to be announced later this month within a 340-square-mile strip south and west of Loudoun.

The strip includes parts of Frederick, Warren, Fauquier and Prince William counties and broadly follows Interstate 66, ending at a substation in southern Loudoun. A series of 15-story towers would be built to support the power cables in a swath of land cleared of trees, 150 feet wide and 240 miles long.

In excluding most of Loudoun and all of adjacent Clark County, Dominion officials said the 500,000-volt line must go through or near someone's back yard. They warn that power-hungry Northern Virginia could face rolling blackouts by 2011 without additional electric capacity.

Opponents, including some in Loudoun, said they took little comfort in the announcement. They contended that the line would threaten to disfigure a region that is rich with carefully preserved green space and historic landmarks from Front Royal to The Plains.

"This is clearly an attempt to divide and conquer. It's one of [Dominion's] classic strategies," said Loudoun Supervisor James Burton (I-Blue Ridge), who represents part of the county that is now off the table. "I remain convinced that there is no compelling reason to bring it to this region."

Burton and others, including the slow-growth Piedmont Environmental Council, said Dominion's predictions of blackouts are alarmist. They accused the utility of trying to profit by bringing lower-cost Midwestern power into the Eastern electrical grid.

Dominion will select a preferred route by next spring, when it formally submits an application to Virginia's State Corporation Commission.