Perhaps you’ve seen the signs.
In recent days, about 100 placards proclaiming “Stop Dominion Power Towers” have popped up along western Prince William roadways to raise awareness about new high-voltage power lines some say could threaten property values, historic sites and the general tranquility of the county’s Rural Crescent.
They are the work of “Protect Prince William County,” a new coalition of west-end residents and business owners mounting a loud campaign to fight the double-circuit 230kV transmission line Dominion Power has proposed to facilitate a new substation in Haymarket.
The utility says the station is needed by 2017 to accommodate additional power needs in the fast-growing area.
But opponents say the $65 million transmission line is mostly being built to accommodate a single customer – Amazon.com – which reportedly has plans in the works to open a 500,000-square-foot data center near Interstate 66 and John Marshall Highway, near the Wal-Mart.
Elena Schlossberg, the coalition’s executive director, says residents are furious that the power needs of one company could require the entire community to put up with unsightly 110-foot steel towers that will require a 120-foot right-of-way cutting through up to 12 miles of rural Prince William County.
Dominion has offered up a few different options for the new transmission route and says it plans to meet with stakeholders before submitting its preferred route to the Virginia State Corporation Commission for approval, expected sometime this spring, according to the utility’s website. The utility did not initially return emails requesting comment for this story.
One particular route, dubbed the “New Road Alternative,” sparked the formation of the grassroots coalition because it would affect numerous historic properties -- including Antioch Baptist Church, built in 1837, and its cemetery, which includes 200 gravesites, some of Civil War veterans. Also along the path: the LaGrange plantation house, now a winery, and a new retreat for injured veterans planned by “Serve our Willing Warriors.”
“Ultimately the community is being asked to bear the brunt and sacrifice our beautiful historical and cultural landscape for one company,” Schlossberg said Tuesday, noting that the coalition is not opposed to the data center itself but rather its location, at the edge of the protected Rural Crescent.
“This wouldn’t be an issue if the infrastructure existed, but it doesn’t,” she added. “This is why we have the problem.”
Protect Prince William had planned a town hall meeting at Battlefield High School this week to spread the word about the proposed transmission line but had to cancel because Tuesday’s snowstorm. The meeting has been rescheduled for Monday, Jan. 12, at 7 p.m.
Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart, R-At Large, said he planned to attend the meeting and agrees with the coalition that Dominion should choose the least intrusive route for the transmission line, which he said would run parallel to I-66.
That route is among those being considered by Dominion, but it would require at least some of the lines to be buried, which adds to construction costs. According to the utility, buried transmission lines cost $10 million per mile compared with only $1.75 million for above-ground construction.
But Stewart also said he’s a strong supporter of the data center, which he says amounts to an investment of more than $500 million that would generate at least $5 million in business property tax revenue annually.
“We don’t want to defeat the data center,” Stewart added. “It’s very important to county residents that we diversify the tax base.”
But like the county’s Economic Development Department, Stewart refused to say whether Amazon is the client behind the project, noting the county “is under a non-disclosure agreement.”
When asked if the county has offered other financial incentives for the project, Stewart said, “I don’t know.”
The secrecy around the data center project is frustrating residents aligned against the new transmission lines as well as two Republican state lawmakers – Del. Bob Marshall and Sen. Richard Black – whose districts include Prince William and Loudoun counties.
The two fired off a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos this week urging him to reconsider the Haymarket site and move the data center to Innovation Park, the county’s commercial development hub. So far, Marshall said, they have not received a response.
Marshall said he has enough proof that Amazon is at the center of the controversy, since no county officials deny the company’s involvement.
“When you ask [county officials], ‘Is this project for Amazon?’ they aren’t denying it,” Marshall said. “They’re just not asserting it. So that tells me it’s Amazon.”
Marshall said he found it hard to believe that Stewart doesn’t know whether the company was offered financial incentives to locate in the county.
“He doesn’t know? He’s the chairman of the board of supervisors and he doesn’t know?” Marshall asked. “This is the tail wagging the dog. Some staffer sets this whole thing in motion and nobody knows anything about it.”
Marshall said county officials have thwarted his own attempts to investigate the project through a Freedom of Information Act request. He said he asked for a site plan for the development, but it was refused.
Prince William County officials, Marshall said, have not done enough to keep area residents informed and have not considered the effect of project on property owners.
“They’re jeopardizing the quality of life of all the residents our here,” Marshall said. “What about the loss of the economic value to residents? They didn’t consider the plight of homeowners at all.”
(17) comments
Headline news for the state is very important and crucial. The importance is raised at the actual event of the essay service australia with settlement and for all improved. The nature of the headline news is mild and soft.
The challenge for capitalism is that the things that breed trust also breed the environment for fraud. And Amazon happens to be the best example.
Amazon maybe the ecommerce giant with wide-ranging investment interests but as far as its social responsibilities are concerned it appears too inconsiderate and insensitive. Amazon is not willing to comply with the legal directives issued by Virginia’s Corporation Commission Staff. According to which Dominion’s proposed power line to Haymarket is for a single customer – Amazon Data Center – and it is this customer who is liable to pay for the line extension, and that placing the 230 KV extension partially underground is the least damaging for the environment and for the residents who live within this area.
Based on the evaluations of SCC Staff, Dominion Power was unable to justify the need for the project without the Customers request for service to the Haymarket Project. The Staff also emphasized on the fact that the line extension may be viewed as an extension of electrical service to a new customer, therefore, may be subject to cost allocations. According to SCC Staff report, Amazon may have to pay the excess cost, estimated at $115 million.
A. Would Marshall have gotten any refutation if he had asked if little green men from Mars were opening that data center? My guess is no, and then Marshall could have concluded he had all the proof he needed that PWC was the epicenter for the Martian digital invasion.
B. Does anyone know for sure whether this Dominion desire to ramp up infrastructure is related to just one company, or is that speculation? My guess is it's just speculation, and I seem to remember Dominion and power lines/towers/transformer stations, whatever, being an issue in the western part of the county for a while. Like someone else said, other data centers have already opened (beyond those we call public schools), and data centers suck down a boat load of electricity. So maybe Dominion really needs the ramped up infrastructure?
C. I have a college friend in Wheaton, and he deals with regular Pepco outages. If new infrastructure is what Dominion needs to avoid that frequency of outages, allowing them to build that would be my preference. Of course, as an alternative, we could all make a pledge to cut our electricity usage in half, and that would probably stave off this Dominion need for years to come.
!WOW! Some of these comments are a shock to me. Our family moved to the "Rural Crescent" of Prince William County not quite 16 years ago from a desert metropolis on the other side of the country. Rt. 15 looked like a country road to me at the time with either forest or open land on each side, other than one small 7-11 at 234. Our local professional house inspector referred to our old rundown home on Waterfall Road as being "in the country". I ignorantly asked our realtor if this area would "stay this way". He responded, "Yes. The land won't support any more development." I believed him. We regularly saw many different kinds of wildlife on our one acre lot and along Waterfall Road. There wasn't even a single chain grocery store in Haymarket. No fast food. No shopping center. We happily drove into Manassas for all those things, and called it "going in to town". Then the devastating "rape of the land", (my own perspective on the place we'd moved so far to come to,) began. The wildlife is almost completely gone now ~ compared to what I used to regularly see and delight in. I really miss the opossums. I used to see turtles often in the warm months, and now a few years can go by without my seeing even one. This was one of the most beautiful natural places in our nation and there is far too little of that which remains. Now much of Haymarket has become suburbia. The wildlife have little safe and nurturing places left to go, and has been heartbreakingly dying out. My neighbors on Waterfall Rd. have included descendants of slaves who were finally able to claim a little bit of land here as their own and settle peacefully among forests and pastures and farms. ...................... "Idiots on the western end living in their ivory towers trying to ruin the county"??? How heartbreaking.
Here we go again. Idiots on the Western end living in their ivory towers trying to ruin the county. This is the best thing that has ever happened to the county and these fools don't want it.
Best thing ever and you don't even know what it is; that's faith!
If more power is needed, fine but the new road route is insane.
Also, power lines cost more to install underground but a lot less to replace after the next hurricane as you won'y have to replace them...
Very ironic that the "local residents" are complaining. Where were you "local residents" 20 years ago when Hay Market was ALL forested land. You did not have any objections to buying a house in Hay Market where developers bulldozed 1000s of acres of trees. ...but now it's "your" land, backyard, etc... being invaded by Amazon. NIMBYs are a strong force in Northern VA and very hypocritical.
Twenty years ago.. that would be about the time that the local rednecks and ignorant hicks of Prince William and Faquier Counties sawed off Mickey Mouses legs with their chainsaws and sent Disney's CEO Michael Eisner packing with a heart attack.
Albeit, sadly those people are long gone.
They threw in the towel considering things like the massive influx of illegal Hispanics into the area, property values and saleability plummeting 400, 500 or more percent, MS13 gangs, Asian gangs, Virginia turning blue politically, the last 6 years destruction of America's job market and economic structure and the insatiable surreptitious backdoor deals between developers, local, state and federal politicians and (but not least) all of it with 100% eager cooperation of the media, among much more garbage to consider.
Amazon doesn't need a data center in Haymarket for any decent and legitimate reason. But, whether the builders that build the data center are required to have Secret and Top Secret clearances or the objective is for Amazon to provide and guarantee 1 or 2 hour deliveries the entire proposal stinks like bad cheese.
One way involves sneaky government deals, the other means that Amazon intends to drive local brick and mortar business out of business. Either way, fair business competition would never, ever require the conspiratorial planning and orchestration of so much government power period!
"Amazon doesn't need a data center in Haymarket for any decent and legitimate reason."
Well, there goes your entire case with one stupid statement. It's funny the people to speak against such things often know very little of what they are speaking against.
Amazon not only provides for Amazon.com (and it's databases), but it also provides DNS services, advertising platforms, cloud networking, several database services and a sh*t ton of other "online" services that many large scale businesses and websites rely on. I'm sure you and many others see it as just a massive online retailer looking to move in and crap on residents like a Walmart would, but you don't realize the sheer size and diversity of Amazon.
Also, consider the Dulles technology corridor's proximity here. Northern Virginia is becoming a massive data center market in this country large enough to rival Silicon Valley.
I fail to see how they are planning to or even will drive "brick and mortar" businesses out of the area. Let go of your idiotic political interests for a minute to contain the stupid that's flowing from your mouth.
Perhaps you should attend the upcoming town hall meeting at Battlefield High School.
Amazon, Dominion Power and Corey Stewart might appreciate someone that's on oxygen to scream and yell how idiotic and stupid Delegate Marshall and the residents and business owners of the west end of the county are.
Make your voice heard in a blaze of glory!
Seriously meckert? Forested? Haymarket was already well on it's way to being developed 20 years ago. I've been here since 73 and Haymarket was not "forested" back then so it definitely wasn't 20 years ago.
You're spot on.
Other than the route 15 route 55 intersection the majority of the bulldozer development took place on both sides of the road going north along route 15.
This pretty well wiped out everything behind Silver Lake from route 15 to Bull Run mountain, plus the entire length of route 15 from Haymarket to Route 234. Interestingly a quick check of the Bi-County Parkway planned route parallels this development. Remembering how the National Park Service recently 'cooperated" with the Bi-County Parkway effort also better explains how and why the Manassas NPS decided to "return" 400 - 500 acres of pristine 100+ year old forest to what existed during the Civil War. This act didn't do anything for historic purposes, rather it readied more land for the long range plans that add up to what's going on now.
Conceding that if all of the development, Amazon, Dominion Power towers, PWC government, whatever all of the good things are, the indisputable fact is that every last ounce of it has taken place in secret via sneaky lie after sneaky lie after sneaky lie to the citizens.
There are still lots of people that detest liars and cheaters enough to fight them as long as it takes.
Would Prince William County's "non disclosure" agreement have anything to do with the Federal Government's massive (citizens) data warehousing agreement that has been rumored to be with Amazon?
And if that's the case what are the three (3) huge (guarded) cyber fortress buildings off Balls Ford across from Groveton Road for? There are enough transformers and generators beside and on the roofs of those buildings to warrant building a new power plant right beside where the still not dead Bi-County I-95 to Dulles Parkway is supposed to go.
If Amazon and Dominion Power want to run power lines, they can pay to have them underground.
It this were happening in Fairfax the lines would be underground. Since its Prince William...not so much. We are the gum stuck on the shoe for all of
Virginia. Richmond has more class then us.[sad]
Speak for yourself.....You might be the gum stuck on someones shoe. As for me I have more respect for myself than that. I am somebody.
JJ Reynolds, you are right 100% they can pay for it, but guess where that money is going to come from......YOU. They will just tack on a new tax, or useage tax, fee or access tax. They will dream up something new.
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