The Prince William Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to provide a $30,000 grant to the Coalition to Protect Prince William County, residents who began organizing in late 2014 to keep the proposed transmission lines and their 110-foot steel towers from impacting residential neighborhoods and historic areas in rural western Prince William.
The coalition is an official “respondent” in the State Corporation Commission’s case to site the power lines. The group has been raising private funds, mostly to pay attorneys’ fees, to advocate for the route they believe will least impact property values and area historic sites. That track would carry the lines along Interstate 66, partially buried underground.
The supervisors’ decision came a few hours after a new group of power-line opponents – the Alliance to Save Carver Road – staged a press conference in front of the county’s James J. McCoart Administration Building.
The group represents about 30 residents of a historic, African-American neighborhood around Carver and Old Carolina roads. Most are descendants of freed slaves who were permitted to purchase land in the area, known to residents as “the settlement.”
The residents learned only recently their community would be impacted by the transmission lines and feel “trampled on,” said Alliance to Save Carver Road spokeswoman Joyce Hudson.
Yolanda Grayson King, whose family has owned land in the area for five generations, said most of the residents living there are elderly. They own their homes and their property but have few other assets and cannot afford to hire attorneys to represent their interests against Dominion Energy or state regulators.
“A lot of the homes are older, so the value is in the property, not the homes,” added Janet Robinson, who also has relatives living in the area. “Relocating would be a hardship for them.”
“This is the only legacy they have to pass along to their children. This is their inheritance,” King added.
During their press conference, the group was joined by Del. Bob Marshall, R-13th; Supervisor Jeanine Lawson, R-Brentsville, and Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart, R-At Large. Stewart, who recently announced his campaign for U.S. Senate, is a frequent critic of Dominion Energy. At the press conference, he called the utility “a corporate bully.”
“We are going to stand up, and we are going to stand with you and protect the Carver Road community,” Stewart said.
After the board’s vote, Nathan Grayson, King’s brother, said he welcomes the donation but is concerned the amount won’t be enough to allow the coalition to mount an effective defense.
“I think this is just a band-aid and I’m afraid the cut’s going to bleed right through,” Grayson said. “I really don’t think it’s going to take us through the long haul.”
In an interview after the vote, Lawson, whose district includes the Carver Road area, said supervisors arrived at the $30,000 figure after “a lot of deliberation” between board members. The donation is unusual in that supervisors have not pledged tax dollars in support of a private legal challenge in recent memory.
But Lawson likened the donation to the board’s support for its nonprofit “community partners” and said supervisors felt it was justified considering the transmission lines’ threat to private property values and “historic heritage” of the Carver Road area. The money will come from the county’s “contingency funds.”
Lawson said the board would wait and see how the SCC rules on motions to reconsider the Carver Road route for the new power lines, which were filed earlier this month by the Coalition to Save Prince William County and the Somerset Home Owners Association. The SCC announced July 14 it would suspend its June 23 order selecting the Carver Road route while it weighs the arguments presented in the motions.
“We didn’t say we wouldn’t donate more in the future,” Lawson added. “But right now we’re in a situation where we don’t know what the SCC is going to do and when they are going to do it.”
The motions challenge Dominion Energy’s need for the new transmission line and allege the state regulators are violating the Virginia Constitution by authorizing “the taking of private property” via eminent domain to serve “a single retail customer.”
VAData, a subsidiary of Amazon, operates one data center on a 38-acre parcel near U.S. 15 and John Marshall Highway and has plans to build two more.
According to the coalition’s motion, the VAData attorneys told those attending a March 8 meeting with the Norfolk District Army Corps of Engineers that the data centers won’t need additional power from the new transmission line until the third data center is built, which, they added, “will not be for the foreseeable future.” The meeting was called to discuss federal permits needed because construction on the data centers will impact wetlands at the site.
Emails to Amazon and VAData representatives for comment were not returned.
Dominion Energy continues to counter the claim the transmission lines are needed only for the data centers. The utility has also said the transmission lines will not claim any homes along the Carver Road route.
“It is important to note that this project has broad public benefit and on day one of completion will serve more than 450 customers directly and improve reliability for more than 6,000 customers in western Prince William County,” Dominion Energy spokesman Charles Penn said in an email.
It’s not known whether the three SCC commissioners will issue a new decision on the transmission line route or when they will weigh the motions to reconsider, said Ken Schrad, director of the SCC’s division of information resources.
Schrad said it’s not unusual, however, for the commission to receive such motions on transmission-line projects and noted the commissioners “could just read the motions and say nothing has changed.”
Reach Jill Palermo at jpalermo@fauquier.com