Residents, Officials Criticize Proposal

Lines Would Use Existing Corridor

The fishhook-shaped route Dominion Virginia Power has proposed for a new power line through Northern Virginia got a frosty reception yesterday from homeowners, conservationists and local officials, who said they remain opposed to the project despite its altered course.

Dominion officials said their latest proposal is designed to dodge the region's most sensitive areas -- Civil War battlefields, historic districts, nature preserves and large tracts of protected land -- while providing for the power needs of the fast-growing region.

The new preferred route, which Dominion will submit to the State Corporation Commission for approval in April, would use a corridor where the company has power lines.

But for the residents facing the prospect of 15-story transmission towers outside their bedroom windows, the proposal was unwelcome.

"This is insane," said Todd Skiles, a resident of Prince William's Braemar subdivision who noted that Dominion has two smaller power lines running through the area. There is a gargantuan cellphone tower and a huge water storage tank there, too, he said. "We're not a dumping ground for utility companies," Skiles said. "I don't think one neighborhood should have to bear the weight of everything."

Dominion's proposed route would cut through southern Fauquier County, then bisect Prince William east of Gainesville -- almost entirely avoiding western Loudoun County and other areas where power line opponents have spent millions trying to block construction.

W.S. Covington III (R-Brentsville), member of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, alleged class bias in Dominion's revised cartography. "You're acquiescing to Middleburg millionaires and sticking it to working-class families in Nokesville and Braemar," he said. "If you need the electricity, go in a straight line."

Dominion spokesman Jim Norvelle said the new route was the company's first choice, but it was scrapped when computer models showed the line would not deliver enough power to avert shortages.

But he said the company received a new model from PJM Interconnection, which oversees regional transmission, indicating that the construction of an additional line in Pennsylvania and Maryland would resolve the problem. That made the route viable again, Norvelle said.

"We have an existing corridor that we'll have to expand in some areas, but that's so much better than building a brand new right of way," he said. "This is the route that will have the least amount of impact."

Dominion would still need to expand the width of its corridor by 100 feet in most places, Norvelle said. The company would avoid trying to take property through eminent domain by hanging new transmission lines on existing towers for short distances where space is tight, he said.

One homeowner whose neighborhood was spared by the Dominion proposal said she takes little solace in the new map. "I want to be happy in one way, but it's still going to be impacting other people," said Dominion Valley resident Donna Widawski. "The process has not gone all the way through yet, and I don't trust [Dominion.] So I view this with skepticism."

Robert W. Lazaro, Jr., spokesman for the Piedmont Environmental Council, which has challenged Dominion's argument that the region needs more power, said that "putting it in someone else's back yard doesn't make it better. Just because one neighborhood dodged a bullet doesn't mean we're getting down and crying 'Hallelujah.' "