Theresa Ghiorzi Moves to Dismiss Golden-Mars, Citing Loudoun Route Rigging and Untallied Homeowner Takings

RICHMOND / LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — Theresa Ghiorzi has asked Virginia’s State Corporation Commission to throw out Dominion Energy Virginia’s Golden-Mars transmission case — not trim a pole height, but dismiss the application, restart siting from scratch, and force Dominion to finish the western feed it already promised before stacking another 500 kV corridor onto eastern Loudoun homeowners.

The motion, filed pro se in Case No. PUR-2025-00056 (500 kV and 230 kV Golden-Mars Lines, Lockridge and Sojourner 230 kV loops, and related projects), cites Rule 5 VAC 5-20-170 and asks the Commission to use Code § 12.1-13 powers to order Dominion to (1) work with high-demand customers to cut Data Center Alley load below the threshold driving reliability and NERC violations and refrain from connecting more high-demand customers until they can be served reliably, and (2) complete the rebuild of Line #514 before Golden-Mars.

Routing is the first count. At the start of evidentiary hearings, Ghiorzi writes, Golden-Mars routes 1, 2, 3, 3A, and 4 were blocked without Loudoun County Board of Supervisors and/or School Board approval, leaving Route 5 as the only truly viable overhead path. Route 3A appeared after the School Board’s March 25, 2025 resolution opposing an overhead crossing on school property. Then, between hearing days 9 and 10, Loudoun allegedly floated a conservation-easement “diversion” map — new easements created, others abandoned — aimed at locking out Route 5 and steering the Commission toward underground siting or Route 3/3A derivatives. Coalition counsel on the record called the late move a threat that chooses “which residents matter,” after advocates spent time and money backing Route 5 as the only viable option.

The result, Ghiorzi argues, is that Loudoun’s preferences — including which open-space easements it would abandon — shoved the “preferred” overhead path onto a small set of residential parcels (she cites about seven properties) while data-center campuses that caused the need get to decline Dominion’s “use of their property” requests. Not one acre of data-center land, she says, has been proffered for a transition station for an underground alternative. Dominion, in her telling, elevated non-binding county guidance over equal treatment of landowners and treated owners differently by financial status.

SCC Staff’s own hearing testimony undercuts the “public need” branding. Staff member Andrew Major stated staff analysis shows the lines “would not be needed if not for the multiple data centers in the area.” Staff’s Jay-Ar Llamido confirmed the staff report contains no appraisal of viewshed or related impacts. Homeowner Vicky Hu testified Route 3A would put a roughly 165-foot tower between house and garage, deforest most of the woods on her lot, and that claims the line will not hurt value are “false” while she still owes about half a million on the mortgage. Dominion’s experts, Ghiorzi notes, did no original property-impact valuation — they only critiqued a county viewshed study.

The motion’s necessity section ties the wire to Loudoun politics. Over roughly fifteen years the county chased data centers until about 200 campuses operate and 117 sit in the pipeline; Dominion’s Victor Block testimony, quoted in the filing, says the company serves the world’s largest data-center market in about 30 square miles of Loudoun, roughly 80% of Virginia’s industry, with 2022 peak metered load near 2.8 GW — about 1.5 times North Anna’s capacity. Across Virginia, the majority of votes placing data centers into zoning maps and by-right pathways have come primarily from Democrats. Loudoun’s Democratic-dominated Board of Supervisors — including the March 18, 2025 9–0 vote to add data center as a by-right use on older industrial rezones — kept expanding the inventory while, Ghiorzi says, refusing energy caps York County has used and grandfathering pipeline applications under the zoning rewrite.

Line #514 is the motion’s second structural punch. That western import from Doubs into Data Center Alley has run since 1966; PJM’s 2020 open window approved a partial rebuild for end-of-life towers with a recommended in-service date of June 1, 2025 (Dominion targeted June 1, 2024 on outage scheduling). Ghiorzi wants that rebuild finished before Golden-Mars adds another takings fight for Democrat-approved megawatts that already outran local baseload — one Panda Stonewall gas plant in the county, one Loudoun data center with on-site generation, and Chesterfield’s approved peaker still not a Loudoun baseload answer.

If the Commission buys the motion, Golden-Mars does not get a prettier route. It gets sent home — and Dominion gets ordered to stop wiring speculative load until the grid, and the western line already on the books, catch up.

Email the Board of Supervisors at:
Phyllis J. Randall (Chair, At-Large) – Phyllis.Randall@loudoun.gov,
Michael R. Turner (Vice Chair, Ashburn District) – Mike.Turner@loudoun.gov,
Juli E. Briskman (Algonkian District) – Juli.Briskman@loudoun.gov,
Sylvia R. Glass (Broad Run District) – Sylvia.Glass@loudoun.gov,
Caleb Kershner (Catoctin District) – caleb.kershner@loudoun.gov,
Matthew F. Letourneau (Dulles District) – Matt.Letourneau@loudoun.gov,
Kristen C. Umstattd (Leesburg District) – Kristen.Umstattd@loudoun.gov,
Laura A. TeKrony (Little River District) – Laura.TeKrony@loudoun.gov,
Koran Saines (Sterling District) – Koran.Saines@loudoun.gov

Email the Loudoun County School Board:
April Chandler, april.chandler@lcps.org,
Anne Donohue, anne.donohue@lcps.org,
Deana Griffiths, deana.griffiths@lcps.org,
Ross Svenson, ross.stevenson@lcps.org,
Kari LaBell, kari.labell@lcps.org,
Jon Pepper, jonathon.pepper@lcps.org,
Lauren Shernoff, lauren.shernoff@lcps.org,
Sumera Rashid, sumera.rashid@lcps.org,
Amy Riccardi, amy.riccardi@lcps.org,