Town Hall Meeting
January 6th
7 pm
Battlefield High School, 15000 Graduation Drive, Haymarket
It is imperative as many people as possible attend the January 6th Town Hall Meeting, 7pm at Battlefield High School. Anyone who cares about due process, anyone who cares about the rights of personal property, anyone who cares about the historical and cultural resources in the Haymarket area, anyone who cares about the integrity of the Rural Crescent should make their voices heard to our elected leader so we can help them push back against this power line route. The only acceptable route is the I66 hybrid alternative.
When Dominion Power, with no notification to residents, during the Thanksgiving holiday, included a new power line route traversing the Rural Crescent , they had every intention of submitting that route to the SCC in mid January. It was only two weeks into a citizens outcry, beginning Dec. 7th, they finally changed their submittal date to “likely after the first quarter”. To date, the citizens along the newly proposed New Road Route, have had no direct notification from Dominion Power.
What and who is the Power line intended to feed? A power station for a private user, most likely Amazon from information obtained through various sources.
No one has officially confirmed that Amazon is the end user, though the company’s name has shown up in Haymarket and Prince William County planning documents. An article in the Prince William Times cited documents linking the proposed center to Amazon data center affiliate Vadata Inc. Amazon is also a major federal contractor and has a $600 million cloud-computing contract with the Central Intelligence Agency. Representatives from Amazon did not return an email seeking comment.
It’s also interesting, if Amazon isn’t the customer, why are they advertising for jobs for their “haymarket data center” ?!
In fact, Dominion Power acknowledge in a recent Washington Business Journal article.
Dominion has been working with the undisclosed client for more than a year, Dominion spokeswoman Le-Ha Anderson said. Anderson said Dominion’s existing network is not large enough to support the 100 megawatts of additional power needed and that Dominion has proposed the additional substation because it is required by law to provide power to users. The cost of the power line and substation is estimated at about $65 million, according to Dominion.
So, the rate payers will have to pay for Amazon’s substation? But not only are we being asked to pay for the power needed, we will pay with our very property our cultural resources, our rural crescent. Some residents will lose homes, while others will lose acres to a required 120 cleared path, clear cut forever, with any living vegetation over 10 feet forever gone.
Dominion Power’s customer, reportedly Amazon, can have its power substation, but what they can’t have is our homes, our land, our precious cultural and historical landmarks.
This stinks.
And Starry uses up his allotment of being right once a year at the earliest opportunity.
NIMBYism at its best. I bet you didn’t complain a bit when Dominion installed the substation that powers YOUR house even though it was in somebody’s backyard.
Amazon needs another 100 MW of power. So Dominion has to build another substation to support that. What’s the big deal? There are substations and large right of way lines running through Fairfax Station (Novec substation on the north end of Henderson road and a HUGE right of way that you can see on Google Maps.) It hasn’t exactly made Fairfax Station undesirable.
Do you want economic development in PWC or not? If so, you have to support the infrastructure needed for it. You might not like it, but any new infrastructure is always going to build in somebody’s back yard.
Apples and oranges Furby. Fairfax Station doesn’t have near the density that the current areas in Haymarket are built at and if I recall, many of those ROW in Fairfax were pre-existing. As to NIMBYism and opposition to economic development, again you are wrong. Nobody is saying don’t build the power lines, rather all are saying build them but build them in the right place (shortest, most direct route), use existing VDOT ROW and build the last half-mile to mile underground.
Might want to read up on the issue before flapping you yap.
Gee Mom, I thought I made it crystal clear, we support the I66 hybrid route. Here is the other idiocy. What is the COST to the county in lost real estate revenue for the affected along this route once their properties are devalued? Millions.
I hate it when people comment before reading. Furthermore, the substation is ONLY for one private customer, an Amazon data center, so yeah, that does piss me off a little.
Won’t the substation be able to power other facilities?
They need to go with the I66 route.
To partially defend Furby, he is entitled to his own opinion, even though I don’t particularly agree in this instance.
Yes, much of this issue is NIMBY. Isn’t that where most change happens or doesn’t happen? It isn’t in MY backyard. It IS in Elena’s backyard. It is obvious that she is more worked up than I am. I live several miles from the impacted area. Therefore, my level of concern is probably going to be a little less than hers.
That’s human nature. That’s why those more directly affected have to sell the rest of us. It isn’t that we are shooting off our yaps. I saw Furby’s comment as stating something he thought was obvious about attracting business.
Finally, I don’t think NIMBY is a bad thing. That’s really where it all begins.
Actually, it won’t. At least for some time. There is an immediate need for 100 megawatts. That is BEFORE Amazon builds it 500,000 sq ft facility. The building there now is 200,000 or so sq ft.
Really, what this problem stems from is the inability of PWC Planning and Economic Development to stick to its own comprehensive plan. There is a reason that you create economic corridors, that is where you put the infrastructure to support them. Putting a facility of this magnitude at the edge of the rural areas is just sheer stupidity.
Also, that Dominion has not even calculated the environmental or economic impact to property owners AND the county is crazy. The way Dominion Power went about his entire last minute added routes is beyond ignoring due process. ALL the other routes were notified by Dominion, they had their meeting to discuss impacts of transmission line. But these added rural routes, during the Thanksgiving holiday with NO notification, STILL, by the way, there has been no notification, is beyond sneaky. Dominion was planning on submitting these routes to the SCC in mid January until citizens began raising a stink, then they were forced to move submission date to SCC.
And to make matters even more ridiculous, it appears as thought shortest route, even partially buried, along 66, that has the least amount of impacts by FAR, is also the cheapest, and yet, Dominion will not make that their preferred route. Huh?