Virginia Warned in 1999 That Power-Line Easements Leave Landowners Paying for Residue Damage

RICHMOND — Long before Data Center Alley turned Northern Virginia into a magnet for 500 kV and 765 kV corridors, the General Assembly already knew what transmission easements do to private land. In 1999, Senate Joint Resolution 271 and companion House Joint Resolution 491 created a joint subcommittee to study whether Virginia’s eminent domain system fairly compensates citizens when utilities take property — and when lines devalue ground they never buy.

The enrolled resolution was blunt. Deregulation was shoving electric, gas, and telecom firms into national competition. New infrastructure needed corridors “up to several hundred feet in width,” leaving residual parcels along the route. Transmission construction, lawmakers wrote, “may negatively affect the values of properties located near to but outside of the acquired right-of-way corridor,” and “some Virginia public service corporations, when allowed to condemn property, do not typically compensate property owners for devaluation of properties located outside the right-of-way corridor.” Rural land values were rising on residential potential; serenity and natural beauty sold homes; large electric lines undercut both. Several big transmission projects were already proposed. The study was not an academic exercise.

Chair Madison Marye’s panel met across the Commonwealth. Its July 21, 1999 Salem meeting was dedicated to utility-line condemnations. Staff summarized thirteen years of Virginia Health Department EMF monitoring and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ then-new review: scientific evidence of health risk was weak, yet public fear of living near high-voltage lines still showed up in residue-damage fights. Virginia’s own precedent left the issue open. In Chappell v. Virginia Electric and Power Co. (Record No. 941106, June 9, 1995), Vepco condemned 0.85 acre of easement across a Hanover County farm for its 230 kV Elmont–Chickahominy line. The landowner valued residue damage far above the utility’s appraiser; the trial court barred EMF and public-fear evidence; commissioners awarded $37,980 total. The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed, holding the landowner had not properly preserved the excluded testimony and that the award stood. The Marye meeting notes flagged Chappell as leaving Virginia’s compensability rule for power-line fear unsettled.

Citizens from Bland, Botetourt, Franklin, Giles, Montgomery, Roanoke, and Wythe counties told the same story in public hearings: AEP’s proposed 765 kV towers and highway corridors left them on an uneven field. Speakers said sight and view impairment were ignored; adjacent owners whose land was never touched still lost value; additional lines could later occupy the same easement without new pay; litigation costs could eat half an award because condemnees paid their own lawyers and appraisers. AEP’s Virginia president told the panel the company condemned under five percent of easements over 25 years — including 42 of 714 owners on 765 kV routes — and urged caution before rewriting the Eminent Domain Act. Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter warned that after electric restructuring, lines built with underpaid condemnation would move power to out-of-state customers and crowd out upgrades to existing corridors.

By December 1999 the subcommittee was drafting concrete fixes: jury trials instead of commissioners; condemnor-paid litigation expenses when awards beat the last offer by 15 percent or more; condemnor-paid licensed appraisals for owners; disclosure of appraisals with purchase offers; and — specifically for 765 kV — extending the dwelling setback distance from 60 to 100 feet. Senate Document 53 (2000) carried the Marye Commission’s findings into the next session. Some procedural reforms passed; the harder fights over litigation expenses and lost business profits were deferred for more study.

Those unfinished fights matter again because the load driving today’s wires is not abstract reliability. 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 kept expanding campuses — including the March 18, 2025 9–0 by-right expansion on older industrial rezones — while residents begged them to slow down. That local inventory is what now justifies interstate 765 kV proposals, Mid-Atlantic Reliability Link rebuilds, and Data Center Loop certificates that will need new easements across farms and residual parcels the 1999 resolution already described. The Marye record shows Virginia spotted the compensation gap a generation ago. The corridors being mapped for Democrat-approved load are where that gap meets the next round of condemnations.

Email the Hanover County Board of Supervisors:
Sean Davis, smdavis@hanovercounty.gov,
Jeff Stoneman, jsstoneman@hanovercounty.gov,
Faye Prichard, foprichard@hanovercounty.gov,
Danielle Grieshaber Floyd, dgfloyd@hanovercounty.gov,
Michael Herzberg IV, fmherzberg@hanovercounty.gov,
Ryan Hudson, rmhudson@hanovercounty.gov,
Susan Dibble, spdibble@hanovercounty.gov,

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 Richmond City Council:
Andrew Breton, andrew.breton@rva.gov,
Katherine Jordan, katherine.jordan@rva.gov,
Kenya Gibson, kenya.gibson@rva.gov,
Sarah Abubaker, sarah.abubaker@rva.gov,
Stephanie Lynch, stephanie.lynch@rva.gov,
Ellen Robertson, ellen.robertson@rva.gov,
Cynthia Newbille, cynthia.newbille@rva.gov,
Reva Trammell, reva.trammell@rva.gov,
Nicole Jones, nicole.jones@rva.gov,

Email the Salem City Council:
Renée Turk, rturk@salemva.gov,
Anne Marie Green, agreen@salemva.gov,
Randy Foley, rfoley@salemva.gov,
Hunter Holliday, hholliday@salemva.gov,

Email the Hanover County School Board:
Whitney Welsh, SB-wwelsh@hcps.us,
William D. Sroufe, SB-wsroufe@hcps.us,
Karen Lynne, SB-klynne@hcps.us,
Greg Coleman, SB-gcoleman@hcps.us,
Bob Seifert, SB-rseifert@hcps.us,
Ryan Martin, SB-rmartin@hcps.us,
Frank E. Shelp, SB-fshelp@hcps.us,

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,

Email the Richmond School Board:
Matthew Percival, mpercival@rvaschools.net,
Kathryn Ricard, kricard@rvaschools.net,
Ali Faruk, afaruk@rvaschools.net,
Wesley Hedgepeth, whedgepeth@rvaschools.net,
Stephanie Rizzi, srizzi@rvaschools.net,
Anne Holton, aholton@rvaschools.net,
Cheryl Burke, cburke2@rvaschools.net,
Emmett Jafari, ejafari@rvaschools.net,
Shavonda Fernandez, sdixon@rvaschools.net,

Email the Salem School Board:
Andy Raines, andyraines@salem.k12.va.us,
Macel Janoschka, mjanoschka@salem.k12.va.us,
Teresa Sizemore, tsizemore-hernandez@salem.k12.va.us,
Mike Crawley, mcrawley@salem.k12.va.us,
Chris King, cking@salem.k12.va.us,