Alternative Power Path Would Spare Most of Trail

A state official has recommended a route for a controversial high-voltage power line between Leesburg and Hamilton, selecting a path that mostly bypasses the Washington and Old Dominion trail.

In a filing to the State Corporation Commission on Thursday, Howard P. Anderson Jr., a hearing examiner for the commission, recommended that the high-tension line go along a 12-mile path that skirts all but two miles of the walking and cycling trail. The power line would cut through the upscale Shenstone neighborhood just west of Leesburg and adjacent farmland.

In his 81-page opinion, Anderson said that his preferred path "would protect the tree canopy along the W&OD Trail, reduce impacts on private property, and lower the overall cost of acquiring new right-of-way."

The State Corporation Commission, which will make the final decision, will take Anderson's recommendation into consideration when ruling on the project later this year. Dominion Virginia Power has proposed installing the line to meet the rapidly growing demand for power in western Loudoun County.

Opponents say that the line, no matter what the route, will be an eyesore on the landscape and may have adverse health consequences for those living beneath it. Opponents have lobbied Anderson and Dominion for a plan to lay the cables underground.

In his report, Anderson rejected burying the cables, an option that he said he felt was being pushed primarily for aesthetic reasons. He also dismissed the critics' health concerns. "There is no evidence in this proceeding, scientific or otherwise, to conclude that electric and/or magnetic fields pose a risk or hazard to human health," he wrote.

Instead, he recommended that the cluster of cables be carried atop steel towers more than 100 feet tall, in some cases 145 feet tall.

"It's going to be a 12-mile-long scar on the landscape of Loudoun County," said Patrick Sloyan, chairman of an opposition group called the Western Loudoun Transmission Line Stakeholders.

Some opponents have been particularly fearful that Dominion would run the line along the W&OD trail, a course that the company suggested when it began the effort to build the line in 2004.

Dominion owned the trail property until 1978, when it sold the land to the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. But the company retained the right to build a power line there someday. Since then, the 45-mile trail has become a popular recreational destination in Northern Virginia, attracting 2 million to 3 million users a year.

The public outcry caused Dominion to abandon that proposal, and in 2005 the company submitted its application to the SCC with a different preferred route. But Anderson subsequently put the trail route back on the table in an effort to have all options considered.

A Dominion spokeswoman said Thursday that Anderson's recommended route represents a "reasonable alternative" to the company's preferred choice -- a southerly route that would have avoided the trail almost entirely.

In his report, Anderson wrote that he thought Dominion's preferred route was too long and traversed too much private property. According to the SCC, the route he recommends would avoid taking any homes.

Anderson's recommended path begins at the Pleasant View substation east of Leesburg and proceeds northeast along Dominion's right of way. It then runs northwest on Market Street to the Route 7 Bypass and follows the bypass south and west. At the intersection of Dry Mill Road and the bypass, it continues northwest parallel to the W&OD trail and through the Shenstone subdivision. Just south of the Route 7 and Route 9 interchange, the route turns away from the trail, running northwest until it intersects with Route 7. It then parallels Route 7 west to the proposed Hamilton substation.

Most of the route falls within Dominion or Virginia Department of Transportation right of way, Anderson said.