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Power company, preservationists face off over proposed towers across the James River

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JAMES CITY — Virginia’s largest electricity provider will face off against James City County and preservationists this week in a battle over proposed new electrical towers crossing one of the nation’s most historic waterways.

The battleground is the Virginia Supreme Court, with oral arguments set for Tuesday in Richmond.

At issue: Dominion Virginia Power wants to build a 500-kilovolt transmission line across about three miles of the James River, with 295-foot towers carrying the electricity from Surry County to James City County and beyond.

Dominion calls the project “critical to the region’s electrical reliability,” saying the line will service hundreds of thousands of customers — many on the Peninsula — and lessen the chances of future “cascading” power outages from Northern Virginia to North Carolina.

“We are hopeful to get a decision soon so that we can begin constructing these lines and the associated switching station to keep the lights on in the Hampton Roads area,” Dominion spokesman Robert Richardson said.

But opponents assert the steel towers — nearly as tall as the Statute of Liberty — will hurt local tourism and forever mar the pristine vistas the first English settlers saw when they sailed the waterway before arriving at Jamestown more than 400 years ago.

“The whole expanse of the river in this segment is evocative of the scene that John Smith saw the day he sailed up the river for the first time in May 1607,” said Margaret Nelson Fowler, a founding member of Save the James Alliance, a group fighting the proposal. “It has remained pretty much undeveloped in this section of the river ever since.”

“This is virtually pristine,” the Kingsmill resident said while gazing at a river sunset recently. “It’s not perfect, but it’s close. And once you begin that kind of industrialization, you open up this whole expanse for true, modern incursions that are not currently here.”

Meanwhile, as the state process nears completion, the federal approval process is just getting started. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must also sign off on the project, with the extent of that review depending on how much scrutiny the Corps decides is needed.

Are new lines needed?

The immediate need for the power line, Dominion contends, is based in part on federal regulations.

The company will soon shut down several coal-burning power plants — including part of the Yorktown Power Station — because of stringent new environmental rules. But without a new transmission line feeding the Peninsula, Dominion says it could soon violate industry reliability standards.

With steady growth in the region’s power usage in recent decades, Dominion once thought a new transmission line would be needed by 2019. But because of the shutdowns at Yorktown and a Chesapeake power station, the company says the line is needed sooner.

In January 2012, Dominion told the State Corporation Commission (SCC) that it needed the new line by the summer of 2015 to “maintain reliable service to approximately 280,000 customers” on and near the Peninsula.

And though the company won a state extension to keep Yorktown’s coal-fired operations going until April 2016, a possible federal extension to April 2017 is no sure thing, Dominion spokeswoman Bonita Harris said. “That’s a big ‘if,'” she said.

At hearings before the SCC, Dominion’s proposal for the new towers was strongly opposed by James City County, Save the James Alliance and the James River Association, all of which contend Dominion hasn’t considered viable alternatives.

Those opponents got influential backing from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the College of William and Mary, and Preservation Virginia, which owns the original fort settlement site at Historic Jamestowne.

A strong sentiment at public hearings has been that if the new transmission line is needed, Dominion should spend the extra money to bury it under the river.

The company says installing the tower line over the James would cost about $56 million, and says it’s not technologically viable to bury a 500-kilovolt line under the riverbed.

While it’s possible to bury two 230-kilovolt lines under the river, Dominion estimates that would cost more than $300 million, add years and complexity to the project, and sharply reduce the amount of electricity that can be carried.

Dominion contends it would be “difficult to justify” the extra costs to customers to bury the lines “in response to purely aesthetic concerns of a few (James City County) and Williamsburg residents.”

Moreover, the company says that below-river lines are more difficult to repair, and that burying them would require the excavation of 36,000 cubic yards of river bottom, creating environmental issues.

The project’s opponents, for their part, contend Dominion is exaggerating the price tag of burying the lines. They also say the extra costs, if spread out over decades and millions of customers, would be negligible on a customer’s monthly power bill.

“If the transmission lines are erected as proposed, the unique historical vistas will be lost forever,” said Stanley Samorajczyk, a trustee for Carter’s Grove, at an SCC hearing. “Preserving them justifies any additional cost because the value of these historic vistas — both for the citizens of the commonwealth and of the nation — is only going to increase with the passage of time.”

SCC grants approval

The SCC sided with Dominion in November 2013, granting approval to build the new line from Surry to James City. Under the plan, the voltage would get downgraded at a proposed switching center at Skiffes Creek, then wend 22 miles through an existing Dominion route to York, Newport News and Hampton.

In signing off on the project, the SCC found that Dominion would face “significant reliability risks” without the line, particularly in the event of an “extreme system condition.” It also said the project’s impact to “scenic assets, historic districts and resources” is “reasonable.”

The towers would be seen from Carter’s Grove, the historic plantation, as well as from the Kingsmill residential development. They would also be seen from a short stretch of the Colonial Parkway and the northeastern tip of Jamestown Island, called Black Point.

But the SCC asserts that the towers — to stand several miles from both the parkway and Jamestown Island — would “blend in” with their surroundings and be out of view of most historic attractions.

“From most of the Colonial Parkway, and the areas of Jamestown Island that are the focus of most public interest, such as the visitor’s center, fort, settlement, and archaeological digs, the (power line) will not be seen,” SCC hearing officer Alexander F. Skirpan Jr. wrote in a report urging the project’s approval.

While the towers will mar the view at Carter’s Grove, the SCC pointed out the historic home is now privately owned. The SCC also said there’s already substantial industrial and recreational development nearby.

“Visible already from the part of the James River where the (power line) would cross are, among other things, the Surry Nuclear Power Station, a resort community with a marina and riverfront golf course, the Ghost Fleet, theme park rides, water towers and a sewage treatment plant,” the SCC said.

Local homes, businesses and military installations, the SCC added, “depend on the same reliable electric grid to maintain the quality of life, health, safety and prosperity to which our commonwealth and our nation are accustomed.”

Even as James City is opposing the project, the SCC said the county also envisions “a major conference and recreational center” being built nearby. “The record demonstrates that this portion of the James River mixes progress with history.”

Growing opposition

But James City County, Save the James Alliance and the James River Association, represented by Richmond lawyer Andrew McRoberts, appealed the SCC’s decision to the Virginia Supreme Court, asking for a reversal.

For one thing, they contend the SCC got it wrong on the project’s historical impact.

They say the commission listened to Dominion’s “lay” witnesses, ignoring “world-renowned” experts who said the project would have severe negative repercussions. “The evidence of adverse impacts … was overwhelming and compelling,” McRoberts wrote in a court filing.

For another, the opponents assert the SCC went beyond its legal authority in granting a permit for the switching station at Skiffes Creek, which they say should be a James City County zoning decision.

And opposition to the towers appears to be growing.

Two powerful nonprofits, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Parks Conservation Association, are opposing the project at the federal level, joining the groups who fought it in the state process.

“When you get in a boat and you take a trip down that section of the river, you really get to experience it the way that John Smith and the first English colonists did,” said Sharee Williamson, associate general counsel for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in Washington, D.C.

“There are just some places that are too important and too integral to our shared history to think that building industrial architecture of that kind would be appropriate,” she said. “And this is one of those special places. … They need to find a river crossing in a less sensitive place.”

Both the Colonial Parkway and Jamestown Island are part of a national park, Williamson pointed out. And though Jamestown’s Black Point might not get many visitors, she said, “if you do go out to Black Point, this will be a permanent intrusion on the historic experience of that place.”

Williamson also contends the towers would “devastate” the view from Carter’s Grove, saying she doesn’t find “particularly persuasive” the SCC’s argument that the view from the plantation home is less important now that it’s in private hands.

“It’s a national historic landmark, and that doesn’t change no matter who owns it,” she said. “It is one of the most significant pieces of Georgian architecture in the United States. It’s gone in and out of private and public ownership over its history, and it’s likely to again.”

Of the existing on-shore developments cited by the SCC, Williamson said they are mostly buffered by trees and hardly seen from the river. “It’s true that those things are there, but they’re not very visible at all,” she said. “You’re not going to be able to screen those transmission lines with trees.”

Because of Federal Aviation Administration rules, she said, lights will blink from the towers all night long.

“It’s going to be fairly dramatic,” Williamson said. “Once you get something that’s very large and dramatic in scale that crosses the river, the next project that comes along will just be bigger. It sets a very bad precedent.”

But Dominion, for its part, contends it took such concerns into account and chose “the least impactful and most economical” route it could.

“Dominion is sensitive to the historical and environmental concerns of the area,” Harris said. “That’s important to us, too. … We considered all the viable alternatives, but only our proposal solves in a timely manner all the problems associated with providing reliable power to the region.”

‘Transmission line’?

One of the biggest legal battles at Tuesday’s hearing will be over the definition of a “transmission line.” That is, is the proposed Skiffes Creek Switching Station — where the voltage will be downgraded after it makes landfall — part of that line?

The entire project could hinge on the high court’s answer. That’s because while the SCC has authority under law to decide where transmission lines go, it’s up to local governments to decide where to put “electric utility facilities.”

In this case, the SCC included the switching station in its permit, saying it’s as “integral” to the transmission line as the towers.

But James City County and other opponents contend the permit was improper, saying Webster’s dictionary, state law and basic physics say transmission lines and switching stations are two different things.

If the high court agrees, the county could deny a permit for the station — and possibly kill the project.

Dujardin can be reached by phone at 757-247-4749757-247-4749

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