Preservation, environmental groups say Valley Link transmission line risks Virginia’s natural resources

Ten historic preservation and environmental groups are cautioning against the potential impacts of the proposed high-powered Valley Link transmission line that will span 115-miles across Virginia, casting it as a danger to the state’s natural resources.

The high-voltage line that will stretch from just outside Lynchburg to Culpeper County would be the largest transmission project in Dominion Energy’s territory.

“We have more ties to our land. It’s not replaceable for us. You can’t sell it and then get something else,” Irene Leech, a board member for Friends of Buckingham, said at a press conference Tuesday in Locust Grove. “This (transmission line) that they’re wanting to put in will bring things that we don’t think fit with the direction that our county and our land is going.”

The 765 kilovolt line would be the largest in Dominion’s operational portfolio, able to carry 6,600 megawatts of power from Joshua Falls in Campbell County into Northern Virginia, where energy-intensive data centers are clustered.

The transmission line is intended to be “on and off ramps” for additional lines to bring power on and off the route. Dominion officials emphasized that energy transmitted by the Valley Link line wouldn’t solely support data centers. Rather, they will serve all energy users in the northern part of the state where demand is high.

The proposed routes of the project would cut through nine counties: Campbell, Appomattox, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Louisa, Orange, Goochland, Spotsylvania, and Culpeper. But the three companies who are developing it – Dominion, Transource, and FirstEnergy — haven’t finalized the one they prefer.

Valley Link Transmission spokesman Craig Carper said new routes will be released ahead of the public information meetings planned throughout the summer in each of the counties.

The project was identified by PJM, the grid operator for the Mid Atlantic region, to bring more power to areas where there are unmet energy needs.

Representatives from the Piedmont Environmental Council, American Battlefield Trust, Central Virginia Battlefields Trust, Central Virginia Land Conservancy, Fluvanna Historical Society, Friends of Buckingham, Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, Historic Germanna, Preservation Piedmont, and Scenic Virginia are collaboratively opposing the project.

Their main concern is damage to historical sites and views in natural areas throughout the central part of the commonwealth, which are major drivers for tourism.

Kathleen Kilpatrick, the President of the Historical Society of Fluvanna who previously served as the state’s historic preservation officer, said the short-term benefit of tax revenue from data centers that are driving the need for projects like Valley Link don’t discount the long-term impacts of this sort of infrastructure.

“We’d like for future generations to be able to experience history, and nature, and all the things that we have,” Kilpatrick said. “Imagine if everything is just wall to wall data centers throughout this area. What a different world that would be, and not what I think we want to carry forward,” she said.

Kilpatrick pointed out historical sites that would be very close to where the proposed routes will be in Fluvanna, including Bremo Bluff, which has links to the state’s colonial past. She said the transmission line could hamper tourism there and upset nearby residents.

“We have a host of vibrant, strong, descendant communities, mostly a wave along the James (River), where the formerly enslaved settled after emancipation,” Kilpatrick added. “They are bound together by kinship, by history, perseverance, their churches, schools, homes, and enterprises. (They) are there living as part of the landscape and they, too, will be assaulted very strongly by this threat.”

A number of Civil War battlefields and natural landscapes span across the counties in the sights of the project, spurring Preservation Virginia to place the entire project corridor on their annual list of Virginia’s most endangered historical places, released this week.

“During this year, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, we feel that now more than ever, it’s imperative to consider the impacts or cultural resources before these infrastructure projects or greenlit,” Preservation Virginia CEO Will Glasco said.

Local governments in the nine counties have begun to officially mobilize their opposition to the project. Orange County Board of Supervisors Chair Bryan Nicol said his board has passed multiple resolutions seeking more information about how the routes are being chosen and what can be done to mitigate damage.

“We’ve joined with our school board, our delegates, and senator, to oppose this. We’ve asked and sent to Dominion and Valley Link questions about the need for this, trying to get information from them that they’re not providing, Nicol said. “Every chance I get to join with either organizations or citizens, to get more information about this to understand why they’re doing it, why they’re proposing this in Orange County, and what the impacts are,”

Carper said local residents have shared important views and context in the public meetings that have already been held earlier this spring. The companies are factoring those opinions into how they draw the next drafts of routes, slated for release in June.

The entities take those concerns seriously, he said, but must also fulfill their responsibilities to deliver reliable power to ratepayers.

“It’s a balancing act. We’ve got to meet demand, but we’ve got to mitigate impact,” Carper said.

The list of informational meeting locations and times can be found at the Valley Link Transmission website.