LCPS To Appeal SCC Ruling On Golden-Mars Route, Forbids Power Lines On School Land: Report

ASHBURN, VA – The Loudoun County School Board voted Monday night to ask Virginia’s utility regulator to reconsider its decision on what route the planned Golden to Mars power line should take and to request further negotiations with Dominion Energy on the topic, Loudoun Now reports.

The route of a new 500 and 230 kilovolt power line that would stretch for eight or nine miles through eastern Loudoun County remains a hot potato, with the energy company, the school board and residents unable to come up with a mutually agreeable route or even to agree that the lines have to be overland.

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For the past year, county residents and homeowners, as well as the Loudoun County School Board, have balked at proposed routes that would take the more than 150-foot monopoles through neighborhoods or school property.

LCPS Holds Power Over Key Easements

The Loudoun County School Board has so far refused to grant easements to Dominion Energy to use their property, even though Dominion and Virginia utility regulator the State Corporation Commission insist that cutting through school property creates the shortest and least disruptive route.

The Loudoun Valley Estates Homeowners Association, a group fighting the power line route that would cross their neighborhood, on June 23 gifted their land the proposed route 3a would traverse to the school board, on the understanding that the school board would then have the power to block any access to that land as well.

On June 30, the SCC ordered the project to continue along what it called the “clearly inferior” Route 3a, making no mention of the land swap.

The county board of supervisors has asked the school board to reconsider its decision not to grant the easements required for Route 4. Now the school board has in its turn voted to appeal the SCC’s order and to ban future power lines on school property, according to Loudoun Now.

The outlet reports that that question came up at the meeting, when a delegate asked how it was that the SCC was able to order Route 3a to be used without a school board easement. LCPS’s attorney didn’t have an answer to that question.

Residents Say New Lines Should Be Buried

The Loudoun Valley Estates Homeowners Association continues to argue for burying the lines. It had appealed a previous decision by the SCC that running the powerlines underground would be impractical. In a June 2 order on the case, the SCC noted that its April order was explicitly not a final order and therefore not eligible for that type of challenge.

It’s not yet known if the Ashburn homeowners' groups will attempt to challenge this order on the same grounds: that state law has changed, and running the powerlines underground as a pilot program could be feasible. In the spring, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed into law a bill allowing for four pilot projects to build electrical transmission lines of 500 kilovolts underground and authorizing the SCC to approve and expedite the review of such applications.

Read more from Loudoun Now here.