Communities Agree to Route for Rollins Ford Power Lines

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The Vint Hill and Rollins Ford communities came together and agreed to Dominion Power plan C.1-1c as the best route for power lines to run through properties along Vint Hill Road Tuesday evening at a public hearing in front of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors (BOCS).

Previously, when Dominion Power sought approval from the BOCS to purchase the Right of Way to construct their multi-pronged, high-voltage electrical transmission lines to run through the up-coming Vint Hill Park and nearby properties, they were met with community opposition. Rural property owners along Vint Hill Road rejected routes that would run power lines through their property, and thus favored plan C.1-1c as the least objectionable plan.

However, residents of the Gainesville subdivision Morris Farms, located along south Rollins Ford Road, disapproved of plan C.1-1c, believing it would come too close to their community and disrupt their idyllic view.

Wanting to please residents, representatives from Dominion Power agreed to offer new alternatives that would take the residents' concerns into consideration. Because the public hearing needed to be advertised in advance, the BOCS rescheduled the public hearing for June 3.

Working with Dominion Power and Brentsville District Supervisor Wally Covington (R) and his staff, the Rollins Ford and Vint Hill communities came to a compromise with all parties agreeing to a new alternative, plan C.1-1c.

Deborah Johnson, Regional Manager of Local and State Affairs for Dominion Power, spoke before the Board saying that Dominion moved the route slightly southwest to provide more “view shed” for residents in the subdivision of Morris Farms and “worked with those who would be directly by the change as well.”

She said her company was “very pleased” to have reached a consensus among citizens.

Vint Hill landowner Jay Yankey was the only speaker at the public hearing held before the Board of County Supervisors at the McCoart Building Tuesday evening. He endorsed the route on behalf of residents, saying that while no one is happy about having power lines, plan C.1-1c is the best route being offered.

“The land owners that it directly impacts and worked together, and we were in agreement,” Yankey said.

Yankey said both Covington’s office and the Dominion Power personnel facilitated the agreement as they organized citizens' meetings. Covington expressed his pleasure with the results of those meetings.

“I sit here surprised that this came together as well as it did,” Supervisor Covington said.

According to Yankey, the advantages of C.1-1c is that is works with the topography to conceal the power lines as much as possible, using valleys and tree lines; it cuts through large tracks of lands, so as to affect few property owners; and it shifts away from Morris Farms, to have less of an effect on their view shed.

“This option kind of split the difference,” said Yankey, so it was neither too close to the subdivisions, nor did it affect too many people living in Prince William’s Rural Crescent.

He said they worked with the topography and the valley along Broad Run to try to hide the lines as much as possible.

“The ideal solution would be to not have a power line,” said Yankey, "but this is the best we could come up with.”

Yankey said while one of the previous routes did cut through his property, new alternative plan C.1-1c does not.

Following Dominion’s presentation and a statement from Covington, the Board voted seven out of eight in favor of granting Dominion Power the Right of Way utility easement through Rollins Ford Park at the price of $1.8 million; the motion passed. Neabsco Supervisor John Jenkins (D) abstained from the vote, saying he owned stock in Dominion Power.

While Dominion chose to reach out to community members, those stakeholders would not likely have been able to block its approval. At the April 1 meeting at which the BOCS discussed the power lines, Johnson explained that the final approval of the lines rests with the State Corporation Commission.

Covington said it was unfortunate the power lines could not be buried. Currently, the state is looking into options for burying more large power lines in the future, but currently to do so would cost the county $19 million dollars. When that sum was presented to the supervisors at their April 1 meeting, they rejected the option as being way too costly.

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