Rountree: Power lines would turn our Shire into Mordor | Opinion | loudountimes.com
The western reaches of the Washington, D.C., area again may host the first battles of what may become a far larger struggle. Different issues seem at play than in 1861, but this new showdown boils down as always to greed, power, control and who will pay what price.
The promise of transformative technology is taking quantum leaps. Proximity to federal government growth from punch cards to cloud computing created the data center industry, which Loudoun County — and now Prince William County — welcomed with open arms.
This gigabyte gold rush, with its lure of easy revenues, has now unleashed forces that may soon overwhelm our once attractive area. We live in leafy green homes with trees, parks, scenic vistas — yes, bucolic bliss — but this Shire may soon be destroyed.
Yes, our Shire is sinking into some desolate hellscape of the future where all the data centers multiply, and all the needed power lines will be strung in every open space — along rivers, creeks, wetlands, roadways, through our parks and over our homes.
These data centers will need billions of dollars from ratepayers to build the power lines. In effect we will subsidize the whole planet’s internet and pay to ruin our own area!
In addition, most of the power they consume will come from fossil fuels, undoing decades of efforts to clean our air.
Slam on the brakes!
Residents need to inform themselves. We need to encourage our local, state and federal lawmakers to use taxes, zoning law, utility oversight and environmental regulations to incentive data centers to build elsewhere, force data center companies to pay for new energy infrastructure and require them to use renewable energy. Governments should push them to become cleaner and spread out to other areas that have more power supply.
We can start by telling the energy suppliers like Dominion Energy to route the power lines where we choose — not the other way around for their convenience. The proposed Route 7 transmission lines are massive, intrusive and out of place. Call and e-mail your elected leaders and tell them simply: “NO Towers on 7”. Also go to notowerson7.com and sign the petition.
Tell them to put the proposed lines on the Dulles Greenway to Data Center Alley. Tell them to slow down the data center expansion and not let all of Route 7 become another data center industrial concrete eyesore. Are we trying to make Loudoun into Newark on the Potomac?
Larry Rountree
Lansdowne