Goochland Supervisors grill Valley Link

 

The blue line at the top is the May 27 version (Valley Link image.)

On May 28, the Goochland Board of Supervisors held a special called meeting in the high school auditorium to share information and gather citizen feedback on the proposed Valley Link 750kw electric transmission line for an as yet unfinalized 115-mile route between Campbell and Culpeper counties. Go to https://vltransmission.com/joshua-falls-to-yeat/ for more information.

County Administrator Dr. Jeremy Raley recapped the supervisors’ actions opposing Valley Link, including appropriating funds and working with the other nine counties impacted by the project, and urged continued citizen engagement. He encouraged all to continue to make their concerns known on the Valley Link website and with representatives in Richmond.

The Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC)  https://www.scc.virginia.gov/ has the final say on if and where the proposed line may be built. The formal application on the Joshua Falls to Yeat portion of the Valley Link project will be filed with the SCC this fall, with a ruling expected sometime in late 2027. Other parts of the Valley Link project will have separate SCC filings.

Citizens, some from the other nine counties in the transmission line’s path, raised many thoughtful, well researched questions and voiced their concerns to both Goochland Supervisors and Valley Link representatives. Among them was skepticism that the recently proposed merger between Dominion Energy (D) and Next Era Energy, a Florida company, would be beneficial to Virginia.

May 27 route proposal (Valley Link image)

In a press release dated May 18, Next Era said of the merger that “customers will benefit over time from its enhanced scale in operations, procurement, construction and financing, enabling it to more cost-effectively meet increased electric demand for approximately 10 million customer accounts.”

Rob Richardson of Valley Link made a brief presentation about the project. (Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wdVzFrJwnw )  Valley Link, he explained, is a joint venture comprised of Transource (https://www.transourceenergyprojects.com/), Dominion Energy (https://www.dominionenergy.com/), and First Energy Transmission (https://www.firstenergycorp.com/fehome.html).

The goal of Valley Link is to support long term grid reliability. It has been supported by PJM (https://www.pjm.com/) as the solution that best meets long term reliability needs. The 765 kv transmission lines will be supported by lattice towers between 135 and 160 feet high along cleared rights of way typically 200 feet wide. (For a rough comparison, the lattice towers supporting the transmission lines south of Rt. 6 in Crozier are 110 feet high, and the high school football stadium is about 600 feet long.)

Landowners in the Valley Link study area contended that early “spaghetti” maps with several possible routes made it impossible to determine how the project would impact specific properties. They expressed skepticism about the latest map, published on May 27, whose route nicks the northwest corner of Goochland for about 1.25 miles down from 28 miles on earlier versions.  

One of these routes, very close to Byrd Elementary School, prompted the Goochland School Board to adopt an opposition resolution, which was read by District 1 School Board member Meredith Moses.

Lane Carr, who oversees transmission line siting, explained that routes are determined after detailed investigation of parcels that might be impacted to exclude land with conservation easements, cemeteries, wetlands, and historically significant sites to plot the least disruptive path. More than 15,000 miles of route alternatives were explored in the routing process.

This should encourage legacy landholders like century farms—those in continuous operation by the same family for more than 100 years—to investigate placing their property in an easement to prevent development in perpetuity.

According to the presentation, “fewer than 75 homes along the proposed 115-mile route are within 500 feet of refined route alternatives”.

“We cast a wide net to evaluate any alternative.” Carr said that early interactions with landowners resulted in most people asking that the line “stay as far as possible away from my home.” The confusing March routes, which caused a lot of concern, have expired, she said.

Richardson said that Valley Link is a part of an electric transmission “backbone” designed to take pressure off existing lines, including those near Hadensville and Crozier and solve the problem of unprecedented demand for energy. All electricity used in Virginia, even that supplied by co-ops, is generated by Dominion and all users will benefit from an updated and more robust and reliable electric transmission system, he said.

At the conclusion of the presentation, supervisors asked questions.

Board Chair Jonthan Christy, District 1, asked if substations will be built along the Valley Link and other transmission lines. Valley Link right now is proposed as an end-to-end project. A proposed gas transmission plant in Cumberland is about three miles from the line. The Joshua to Yeat SCC application will show “all the homework” used to determine the preferred route for the SCC to evaluate, said Carr.

Jonathan Lyle, District 5, asked if the demand is in Northern Virginia why is the generating capacity not being built there. Richardson said that infrastructure to support power generation cannot always be placed near users. He cited a transmission line built in the1960’s to bring power from the Mount Storm generation plant in West Virginia was more cost effective than building train tracks to transport coal to a power station. The utility is upgrading existing generation options in NOVA, including a large solar facility near Dulles airport, but it is part of Dominion’s “all of the above” strategy to deal with burgeoning power demand.

 

Neil Spoonhower, District 2, contended that as Goochland has no plans for any kind of economic or residential development west of Goochland Courthouse our citizens will get no benefit from the proposed transmission line. Alluding to the seeming “Lucy and the football” strategy of morphing maps, he asked if the latest preferred route was changed in response to the amount of “heat” generated by citizens, and will be that presented to the State Corporation Commission (SCC) for approval or will it be moved again.

Carr explained that the routes begin with anchor points in industrial areas, like the data center in Louisa just over the county line near Shannon Hill. The route will be “refined” until the SCC application is filed to narrow what Valley Link believes is the best route. There will be more meetings and more open houses in June when Valley Link reveals which route it will take to the SCC for approval. She does not anticipate changes that would more significantly impact Goochland.

Spoonhower asked if options secured by Dominion to purchase more than 1k acres of land off Whitehall Road are part of Valley Link. Richardson said that the utility is always looking for opportunities to site, perhaps solar facilities, but that land is not part of the current project.

Lyle, wearing his Farm Bureau hat, asked how negative impacts on agricultural uses will be minimized. Agriculture is very compatible with transmission lines, said Richardson. “There’s nothing we like better than pasture. We’re not coming to spray. We’re most concerned about woody trees growing up into the transmission lines.”

He did not know if land under transmission lines could qualify as certified organic. Bonding and grounding protocols for metal fences under transmission lines are common, and safety mitigation should be a onetime fix that could be remedied by line engineers. Fixes for “stray voltage” would be addressed during easement purchase negotiations, but further down the road, these issues are landowner responsibility.

If a vehicle is safe to drive on the road it is safe to drive under a transmission line, unless it is unusually tall, said Richardson.

Spoonhower asked about negative health impact living near high transmission lines. Richardson said that the SCC application includes modeling fields and takes it into consideration. He also noted that there are many studies on both sides of the topic.

Christy asked about impact of construction activity, including location of lay down contractor yards.  Following SCC approval, not expected before late 2027, other permits must be secured and easements purchased, before these locations are established, so Richardson was unable to provide specific information.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Richardson thanked the supervisors for the opportunity to discuss Valley Link. He said that he and his team all live in Central Virginia, including Goochland. “We all care about what happens here because we are your neighbors. Comments from neighbors who care deeply did not surprise me. We hope that many of you will come see us on June 26 and bring your questions. Following those meetings, we will reconvene and take those comments to see what additional refinements can be made and have plans for a virtual meeting to address the community with the preferred route before submitting it to the SCC. Going forward there will be opportunity for citizens to share their comments with the SCC. After a 12-month process, the SCC will make the determination of the route that Vally Link can take.”

A second set of meetings, including a virtual town hall on June 10 and one in Goochland on June 16 from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Goochland Sports Complex, will be held in June Go to www.vltransmission.com for details.

Go to https://www.goochlandva.us/1454/Valley-Link-Transmission-Project for the Goochland County page.

Christy thanked schools, the Sheriff’s Office, Fire-Rescue and Valley Link for participation on short notice to make the meeting possible. He asked for detailed follow up on unanswered technical questions.

Spoonhower commended citizen participation. He said that “seeing the community engaged and come out not to yell at us but to partner alongside us and work hard to research these topics made all the difference. Thank you.”