In Caroline County, Rich Adams stands to lose some elderberries, and Mark Sandor is worried about data centers.
And in Stafford County, concerns include the potential for property values to drop and health impacts to surface.
Discussion of Dominion Energy’s plan to build a 70-mile, 500-kilovolt power line is just getting started in the Fredericksburg area, but residents already have a lot to say.
The transmission line, called the Kraken Loop, would go through Louisa, Spotsylvania, Caroline, Stafford and Fauquier counties. It aims to connect the existing North Anna Substation to the proposed Kraken Substation in Caroline and ultimately tie into the proposed Yeat Substation in Fauquier.
Public input will help refine potential routes for the line before they are reviewed by the State Corporation Commission, which has the final say on the project, Dominion says, and the company has been holding public meetings about it over the past two weeks.
‘Necessary impact?’
At a meeting in Ruther Glen Thursday night, Adams said the Kraken line would come right along one edge of his property, which is on the south side of the Rappahannock River.
“And so, what’s going to happen is, you know, eventually they’re going to put in a tall pole, and it’s going to take out a small portion of my fruit orchard; not a lot,” Adams said at the gathering at Madison Elementary School in Ruther Glen.
What’s more of a concern, he said, is whether line construction takes out the elderberries’ roots. So he expects to work with Dominion’s construction engineers to try to preserve those roots.
Adams said he isn’t against the project, though.
“All I want is to be able to work with Dominion Energy to try to minimize, shall I say, necessary impact,” he said.
Sandor, who lives in Woodford, had data centers on his mind.
The Kraken Loop would not be built exclusively for data centers, facilities that manage, process, and share large amounts of data. But their heavy use of power is part of the reason the project is necessary.
A Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) report released last year found that building enough infrastructure for unconstrained data center demand will be extremely difficult. And the review by JLARC, the Virginia General Assembly’s investigative arm, said that, although data centers are currently paying their own share of power costs, their increased energy demand will “likely increase system costs for all customers.”
Dominion has proposed creating a new electricity rate class aimed at data centers, with the idea that residential customers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for the technology businesses.
An SCC decision on that plan is expected next month, Dominion spokesman Craig Carper said Thursday.
That might not be quick enough for Sandor. He’s anxious for the issue to be handled.
“Why doesn’t the governor light a fire under the SCC and get this subclass for high users resolved?” he asked.
Concern in Stafford
Two days before the Caroline meeting, the Stafford County Board of Supervisors agreed to hold a future vote on a resolution that would ask Dominion to bury the Kraken line.
Hartwood District Supervisor Darrell English brought up the matter. He said the above-ground line could come close to houses valued at upwards of a million dollars, and that homeowners could see a decrease in property values if the project goes forward as planned.
“I think as a county we need to do something to protect the citizens,” said English, “and that’s the reason I’m asking for that resolution.”
It’s not clear, however, that the Kraken line would ever be buried. Carper said burying a line is more expensive than putting one above ground and lengthens construction time.
“Logistically, it’s a lot harder to do,” he said. “And then the big thing is maintenance.”
If a standard line has issues, they can usually be fixed in a matter of hours. That time can balloon to months with buried lines, Carper said.
Also, the notion that new power lines decrease property values isn’t necessarily correct, according to Dominion.
Values can go down when easements for power lines are put in place, but they also can go up later because the easement ensures that nothing other than the power line can go there, said Justin Cochran, Dominion’s senior rights of way management representative for Northern Virginia.
“We personally, you know, as a company, have hired outside firms to do research,” said Cochran, “and basically, the research is inconclusive because sometimes there are cases that it’s gone up. Other cases, it’s gone down.”
Health worries
Large power lines can also spur concern about health impacts. Eliana York told the Stafford supervisors on Tuesday that that’s her primary worry with the Kraken project.
York is a caretaker for her elderly father, who has thyroid cancer, and she’s been fretting ever since hearing about the Kraken line that exposure could cause him additional problems.
“It has been keeping me up at night ever since,” York said.
Dominion, however, said research doesn’t confirm cancer fears regarding electricity.
Ammar Hashim, transmission line standards engineer for the company, said some studies couldn’t find evidence of power lines’ adverse, long-term effects on health.
“However, on some other studies, they could find some correlation, but they couldn’t find causation,” he said.
Dominion plans to hold a second round of Kraken community meetings in the first quarter of next year. But those interested in the issue don’t necessarily have to wait until then to discuss the matter.
English recently shared a Facebook posting with the Free Press that announces a meeting about the Kraken Loop on Dec. 13 from 2:30-4:30 p.m. at the Porter Library in North Stafford.
The meeting, the announcement says, is “to find out how you and your neighbors will be affected and what you can do to help Kill the Kraken.”
