CALL TO ACTION!!
Recent events over the last two weeks are significant, and the pace of new SCC orders and Dominion Power motions in the last 24 hours have been dizzying.
In a nutshell, the SCC Commissioners suspended their final order directing Carver Road as their selected route; Dominion is spinning and lashing out at every one: from our Board of County Supervisors, to Somerset Community, the Coalition, and even the Carver Road community – because the energy monopoly is now on the ropes! The latest order from the SCC gives Dominion 3 weeks to respond to the critical Need question. With the suspension of the SCC final order selecting the Carver Rd. route, and the SCC now granting a new pleading schedule, all 5 routes in Dominion’s application (Railroad, Carver, Madison, I-66 Overhead, I-66 Hybrid) could essentially be back on the table! It’s about time Dominion and Amazon look in the mirror to see who is responsible for this debacle. There is nowhere they can turn and escape opposition – EXCEPT for the Hybrid route option.
A new development in the community effort is that the County voted to donate $30,000 to the Coalition, demonstrating their support of our mission to protect our community. (See all the latest communications from the SCC, Dominion, and multiple recent news articles on our website: www.protectpwc.org.)
Dominion Power is playing a nasty game, but who would expect less. They clearly are not accustomed to such an effective and sustained opposition. Their usual tactic, to pit community against community, is not working; we simply refuse to play their game. They are sending out messages that somehow other parties are to blame for THEIR poor route choices. We will not fall for that tired ole ploy. THIS community will continue to stand together.
We began our mission with a simple message “I-66 and partially buried – and Amazon pays.” We believe the evidence revealed in the June SCC hearing in Richmond completely supported our mission statement.
With new evidence obtained in a parallel effort by the Coalition, we believe there is new reason to challenge the need for the entire project. Read our motion for reconsideration and attached affidavits: http://www.protectpwc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Coalition-Motion-for-Reconsideration-4-affidavits-filed-071317.pdf; http://www.protectpwc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Coalition-Grymes-affidavit-071317.pdf.
We concur with Dominion’s own Greg Mathe in his written statement, when asked if there is a need for this project if there are no data centers: “Since the area is growing, there could be a need at some point, but the immediacy of the new infrastructure would no longer be there. New transmission facilities would still be useful to Dominion’s and NOVEC’s distribution operations to serve the native growth, but as of today that growth alone is not enough of a driver to necessitate new electric transmission facilities in our five-year planning horizon.”
We want to remind our community, we are all in this fight together! Dominion falsely believes they can scare us into submission by threatening new routes for this power line, as if they are the victims?! Dominion thinks we will fall for their deflection of blaming everyone but themselves, and their customer Amazon.
Stay strong, do not be fooled by their cheap ploys to divide our community. We haven’t invested thousands and thousands of hours to be intimidated now! While we can never match all the financial resources of a Dominion Power and an Amazon, what we do have can’t be bought. We have community. If we continue to stand together, we believe we will prevail. Remember our successes thus far! At every turn Dominion Power and Amazon have had to face the Coalition, of and for this community – at town halls, at public hearings, in the General Assembly, at the SCC Hearing, at the Army Corps of Engineers, and perhaps, ultimately, at the Supreme Court.
Now is the time to re-energize.
Carver Road residents have organized a protest at Dominion Energy’s facility in Herndon this Saturday, July 29 at 11 AM (3072 Centreville Rd., Herndon – sidewalk in front of the building. Park across the street).
EVERYONE, from all neighborhoods in the affected Haymarket and Gainesville area, needs to show up en masse, with home-made signs calling out Amazon and Dominion, and truly demonstrate we are NOT giving up and our resolve is unwavering. Dominion Power and Amazon will not decimate our community without a fight. Wear Red shirts or your Coalition T-shirts!