Land
- Prince William Supervisors Vote Unanimously to End By-Right Data Center Development
An 8-0 board vote advances Tom Gordy’s 90-day grace framework, shrinks the 2016 overlay, and leaves residential and school setbacks for later Planning Commission action.
- Dominion unveils route changes for Valley Link Transmission line
The proposed Valley Link Transmission Line's Route 2 option with variations, which Dominion Energy has shared with nine Virginia counties that the line could cross, if approved.
- Virginia Outdoors Foundation protected 11,000 new acres and awarded nearly $6 million in grants
From family farms and public parks to expanding the Bull Run Mountains Natural Area Preserve, VOF's work in 2025 added to its portfolio of protected open space for future generations.
- Bull Run Mountains Preserve inducted into the Old-Growth Forest Network
BRMNAP becomes the 14th forest in Virginia to be inducted into the network, and the second in Prince William County.
- Mike Turner Strategy: Require Onsite Microgrids, Green Business Zone With Up to 50% Tax Rebate — Or Keep Building 500 kV Lattices
Ashburn supervisor’s paradigm paper says Loudoun’s grid cannot keep pace; he floats mandatory carbon-net-zero microgrids, SMRs, and a Green Business Development Zone sweetened with rebates against ~$666M in data-center BPPT.
- Judge Upholds Caroline County's Eminent Domain for Rappahannock Water Project
A Caroline Circuit Court judge ruled that the county properly exercised eminent domain to acquire 11 acres from farmer Cory Garrett for a Rappahannock River water intake facility.
- Virginia Data Centers Point Past 60 GW as Bills, Water, and Diesel Costs Mount
Statewide impact study cites ~1,300 possible facilities, Dominion bill path toward $315, Loudoun’s billion-plus gallons, 8,910 generators, and PJM transmission skewed to data-center load under Democrat-era growth policy.
- Loudoun Democrats Re-Approve Aspen Substation — Sell It as Oxygen-Machine Reliability After Data-Center Boom
After briefly rescinding approval, the Democrat-majority board restores Aspen amid talk of 95 existing or proposed substations; Umstattd and Randall frame wires as life-safety while critics say homes had power before 200 data centers.
- Average Residential Bills Toward $315 by 2039 as Data-Center Load Dominates
Unconstrained Demand cites Dominion figures taking typical residential bills from about $142.77 now to $315.25 by 2039 — primarily on data-center sector energy needs — while JLARC separately pegs $14–$37 monthly generation and transmission cost pressure by 2040.
- Feds suggest parts of Bath and Highland counties as a critical habitat for the rusty-patched bumblebee
The little Bumblebee is considered a keystone specie because it helps the environment by pollinating.
- Bristol building owners continue to fight legal battle against abortion clinic
The landlords of Bristol who tried for two years to get the abortion clinic out of their building have appealed the dismissal their lawsuit against clinic owner.
- Virginia Education Press Needs intense Support
You can forget about any humility you might have expected after the Virginia education media falsely claimed for months that 70+ Virginia
- From Marye’s Transmission Study to the 2013 Amendment — Utilities Still Take Land for Data Center Load
RICHMOND — Virginia’s modern property-rights constitution did not begin with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo decision.
- UCS: Data-Center Grid Hookups Put $4.3B on PJM Customers in 2024 — Virginia Alone Near $2B
Union of Concerned Scientists brief says transmission-level campus taps are socialized through FERC and state rates; Virginia’s 60 tracked projects total about $1.988 billion under the rules Democrat-era load growth exploited.
- Loudoun’s Turning Point: First 5–4 Data-Center Denial in 2024, Scaled 6–3 Pass, Then March 18 End of Open By-Right
Turner’s timeline traces Democrat-board politics from the first major denial of a 2.9M sq ft project, to a 1.3M by-right comeback, to the 7–2 March 18, 2025 vote ending open by-right — with grandfathering still attached.
- Loudoun: 55% of Cited Data Centers Sit Within 200 Feet of Homes
Unconstrained Demand’s Fairfax proximity stats — 55% within 200 feet, 70% within 500 feet — show how Democrat land-use permissions put industrial campuses into residential buffers statewide.
- Central Virginia Lined Up for 290+ Data Centers — Spreading Loudoun’s Fight Down the I-95 Corridor
Unconstrained Demand says Central Virginia expects 290-plus campuses that would rival Northern Virginia’s hubs, with statewide tallies near 1,300 facilities and 390 million square feet as Democrat recruitment goes statewide.
- Abigail Spanberger Signs Executive Order 22 on Data Center Accountability and AI Task Force
Governor Abigail Spanberger’s Executive Order 22 and 2027 legislative slate target NDAs, local approval for large loads, noise and backup power, and an AI task force—without a statewide moratorium.
- Dinwiddie Residents Grill Haven Oak Data-Center Developers on Water, Power, and Battlefield Land
Tract’s ~1,000-acre campus proposal draws sharp Q&A at VSU as the company pivots to closed-loop cooling and drops buildings over a Civil War battlefield core.
- 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.
- Meeting Unconstrained Virginia Data-Center Power Demand Will Be “Very Difficult” — Households Face Rising System Costs
December 2024 JLARC Report 598 finds unconstrained demand could double Virginia power need in a decade, new build rates look unachievable, and Dominion residential customers could see $14–$37 more per month in generation and transmission costs by 2040.
- Loudoun’s Substation Swarm: 95 Existing or Proposed, 30–40 More Coming — Every Data-Center Vote Becomes a Wires Vote
County presentations tied to Aspen put Loudoun near a hundred substations with dozens more planned; Democrat supervisors admit approving a campus means approving the substation and line that follow.
- Spanberger presents slate of data center regulation proposals, puts first directives in motion
Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed Executive Order 22 on Friday, Sept. 18 to kick off her data center regulation package.
- Mike Turner 2026 Deck: Loudoun Data-Center Load Hit 5.33 GW — Planned Adds Still Short of 14–20 GW Path
Ashburn supervisor’s June 15, 2026 paradigm slides and strategy paper put 53M sq ft built, 60M in pipeline, and microgrid/SMR/HVDC scenarios against a Democrat-board boom that March 18 only partly closed.
- Data-Center Growth Adds Tens of Billions to Plan NPV vs “No Data Center Growth”
SCC-directed 2024 IRP supplement (PUR-2024-00184) shows portfolio NPVs about $100.2–$103.3 billion with data-center growth versus about $77.2–$80.9 billion when data-center load growth is frozen.
- Valley Link’s 765 kV Northern Line Is PATH Reborn — Aimed at Loudoun Data Centers, Critics Say
RICHMOND / LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — A roughly 260-mile, 765-kilovolt transmission line from West Virginia into Maryland — the northern spine of PJM’s Valley Link portfolio — is being pitched as new reliability steel.
- Kimley-Horn to Loudoun: Data-Center Pipeline Implies ~8,190 MW — More Transmission Than PJM Had Approved
County-commissioned September 2024 due diligence tallies ~117 pipeline buildings at ~70 MW each and urges corridor mapping, undergrounding, collocation, and reconductoring as Democrat-led Loudoun faces the grid gap it helped create.
- Airport leaders in the region seek to expand service from Dulles airport to Asia
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority officials attended an event in Taipei (via MWAA).
- Fast-Track Large-Load Queue Is Not in the Public Interest — Preferential Power for Speculative Data Centers
RICHMOND — In a June 30, 2026 brief in PUR-2026-00011, Theresa Ghiorzi tells the SCC a paid ‘fast-track’ interconnection preference for large loads fails Virginia’s public-interest and public-use tests, citing Norfolk Southern (2025) and Dominion’s own ~70 GW speculative queue.
- Alexandria Schools Race Toward September 30 Decisions on Hazardous Walk Zones and Bus Routes
ACPS and City Hall are reviewing parent hazard claims at key Alexandria intersections before a Sept. 30 ParentSquare deadline on walk-zone bus exceptions amid driver shortages.
- Warner, Kaine and Local Candidates Push to End NDAs on Data Center Deals
Senators urge voters to put officials on the record as secrecy surrounds projects like Wood Haven Technology Park.
- Theresa Ghiorzi Moves to Dismiss Golden-Mars, Citing Loudoun Route Rigging and Untallied Homeowner Takings
RICHMOND / LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — In PUR-2025-00056, Theresa Ghiorzi asks the SCC to dismiss Dominion’s Golden-Mars 500/230 kV application, restart siting de novo, finish Line #514 first, and stop connecting high-demand customers until Data Center Alley load drops below NERC-violation thresholds.
- Prince William Supervisors Unanimously Block $300M Vint Hill Switching Station
Board denies Dominion special use permit after residents and supervisors say the utility failed to clarify data-center loads near Braemar and Vint Hill housing.
- The battle over data centers isn’t just about data centers, but they’re the battleground we have.
Marvell data center in Culpeper County, Virginia.
- Peter Francisco, the ‘Hercules of American independence’
The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
- Virginia confronts $1.7 billion shortfall in highway maintenance funding
Construction work along the Dulles Connector in Northern Virginia, with roadwork equipment and activity visible along the roadway.
- The next piece of Chesterfield’s Springline development is a new mixed-use building worth $80 million.
Collins Enterprises has begun construction on its second mixed-use development at Springline in Chesterfield.
- MARL Price Tag Climbs Toward $1.46 Billion After Loudoun Reroute and NextEra Cost Doubling
LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — The Mid-Atlantic Reliability Link corridor into Data Center Alley is getting more expensive — and Loudoun’s own routing politics are part of the reason.
- MARL Power Line Is Generation Delivery for Data Centers, Not Grid Reliability, Filings Argue
LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — The Mid-Atlantic Reliability Link project — the multi-state 500-kilovolt corridor also described as MARL / Gore-Doubs-Goose Creek — is being sold as a reliability upgrade.
- PJM Shortlists Dominion’s Heritage-to-Mosby Underground HVDC as Southern Backbone for Northern Virginia Load
RICHMOND / LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — PJM’s 2025 Window 1 southern-cluster shortlist puts four Dominion +/- 525 kV HVDC variants from Heritage to Mosby — about 185 miles and roughly $4.8–$5.0 billion — against cheaper 765 kV and 500 kV overhead portfolios, with proposal 275 leading incremental transfer into NOVA.
- Data Center Fight Moves Into Greater Richmond as 17 Campuses Advance Across Eight Counties
Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, and Dinwiddie hearings fill with water, power, and tax-base arguments while Spanberger’s September directives and moratorium petitions set the statewide backdrop.
- Data Center Load Is Driving Capacity Costs — and Risk of Blackouts
WASHINGTON / RICHMOND — The Independent Market Monitor for PJM told federal energy regulators that the region’s capacity crisis is not a mystery.
- Virginia Panel Advances Plan for a Licensed Nurse in Every School by 2028
School Health Services Committee backs a nurse-per-building or per-325-students rule with two-year hiring waivers; November 18 vote would send the proposal to the 2027 General Assembly.
- Line 514 Was Sold as Rusting Towers. Loudoun’s Data Center Alley Needs the Power Anyway.
LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — Before the Golden-Mars 500-kilovolt project became the latest fight at the State Corporation Commission, another line
- Dominion Pitches Fully Underground HVDC Into Loudoun as PJM Answer to Data Center Load
RICHMOND / LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — Dominion Energy Virginia is asking the PJM Board to greenlight a High Voltage Direct Current project the
- Danville City Council Considers First Zoning Code Overhaul in Two Decades
Danville City Council will consider an update to its zoning code at its regular meeting Tuesday at 7 p.
- Abigail Spanberger Urges Congress to Police Artificial Intelligence Risks to Privacy, Jobs, and Resources
The governor’s September 22 letter to House and Senate leaders seeks federal guardrails as Virginia advances Executive Order 22 and data-center accountability rules.
- Loudoun’s Data Center Loop: Democratic Supervisors Greenlit the Boom. Ratepayers and Homeowners Face the Lines.
LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — Northern Virginia already hosts the densest cluster of data centers on the planet.
- EMF Fear Still Drives Virginia Power-Line Residue Fights as Democrat-Approved Data Centers Need New Steel
RICHMOND / LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — Electromagnetic fields are not a side conversation in Virginia’s transmission boom.
- Data Center Development Could Triple Energy Demand if Unconstrained
On Monday, the Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission published its long-awaited Report about data centers.