Pr. William Plots Fight Against Power Line

Supervisor Suggests Land Conservation

A conservation push might be coming to northwest Prince William County as landowners and public officials try an untested tactic aimed at blocking Dominion Virginia Power's plans for a 500,000-volt transmission line through the area.

Supervisor W.S. Covington III (R-Brentsville) has requested that the county's legal staff provide board members with an opinion this week on the effect of placing about 300 acres of newly acquired county land under conservation easement. That land, the Silver Lake property, lies within the study area Dominion has designated as a potential corridor for its 40-mile power line to link substations in Frederick and Loudoun counties.

The power company does not plan to announce the line's exact route until spring, but Covington and other opponents of the Dominion project hope easements, which prohibit or restrict development, might be a roadblock for the utility. In neighboring Fauquier County, supervisors have approved easements on 1,600 private acres, including large tracts inside the Dominion study area.

Covington and other Prince William supervisors said they got the idea when they noted the extent to which Dominion's proposed routes dodge land already under easement, zigzagging around those parcels.

"For some reason, Dominion Power is going around properties designated with conservation easements," Covington said. "We ought to be exploring whether we can block them from going through land that the county controls."

In Covington's district and that of Supervisor John T. Stirrup Jr. (R-Gainesville), residents are outraged by the possibility they could lose their houses or end up with 130-foot transmission towers and power cables overhead. That possibility has led to a major grass-roots campaign to halt the project. Last month, Prince William supervisors unanimously passed a resolution opposing the project.

Now supervisors are waiting to find out whether they can wield conservation easements to stall or block Dominion. Easements typically are sold by landowners in exchange for development rights, and they provide a host of tax incentives.

"We're not sure if this is the answer to stop the power lines from being built, but it's something else we're exploring," Stirrup said. "It's a tactic in the overall strategy."

Dominion executives said new easements won't get in their way, wherever the company decides to build.

"We believe we have the legal right to place new transmission lines on conservation and open-space easements," said John Smatlak, Dominion's vice president for electrical transmission. "But we are trying to be respectful of those conservation easements and consider them when we route our transmission lines."

Dominion was careful to avoid land already under easement when it drafted its potential routes, Smatlak said. But new easements will not receive the same deference.

"When new conservation easements are proposed in an attempt to block transmission lines, we do not plan to reroute the line around those," he said.

"I understand it's a very emotional time period for landowners when we place potential routes," he said. "So I'm not surprised they will take every avenue to prevent the line from being built or to have it rerouted."

Dominion, which serves most of Northern Virginia, says a new line is needed to keep pace with the region's population growth and economic expansion. Demand is expected to increase 8 percent in five years, when the line would go into service, the company said. The line would provide enough electricity to power 275,000 residences, reducing the strain on the electric grids across the mid-Atlantic, company officials say.

Angry landowners and local officials say Dominion hasn't convinced them that the need for excess capacity is real. They accuse Dominion of wanting to deliver cheap coal-generated power from the Midwest to the premium New York-New Jersey market.

The company denies that claim.