Dominion Energy is planning to take down more trees near its power lines along the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail — this time, with the consent of NOVA Parks.
Starting next Monday (Oct. 20), the power company will begin “selective” pruning and removals of trees and other vegetation on a 2.6-mile section of the trail between its Clark substation in Vienna and the Hunter substation in Wolf Trap, just outside Reston.
The chainsaws have gone quiet, but the fight to preserve trees along the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail isn’t over yet.
A number of elected officials, nonprofits and community organizations plan to renew pressure on Dominion Energy over its approach to tree clearings with a rally tomorrow (Saturday) in Vienna.
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
RICHMOND—Bren Pointe residents in Fairfax County are closer to seeing steel transmission towers rise just outside their townhomes after Virginia’s regulators approved a new electricity line to serve a single planned commercial data center.
Despite objections to one of the projects from nearby residents, the Fairfax County Planning Commission at its July 9 meeting approved Dominion Energy’s requests for two new electrical substations to support future data centers in the Dulles area.
A 300-megawatt Towerview substation will be wedged between Sully Road (Route 28) and Park Center Road in the Floris neighborhood, just east of Dulles International Airport. Dominion will lease the site from the owner of the Dulles Gateway data center, which is being constructed immediately to its south.
Pedestrians and cyclists who frequent the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail will need to find an alternative route through the Dunn Loring area this week.
The trail closed yesterday (Monday) between Gallows Road in Dunn Loring and Shreve Road in Idylwood to give crews room to install a new electric transmission line as part of Dominion Energy’s Clark-Idylwood reconductor project. The closure will remain in place on Friday (July 11).
More than 2,000 properties in Fairfax County, most of them in McLean, are currently without power, as the D.C. region suffers through a potentially prolonged heat wave.
According to its outage map, Dominion Energy has 2,132 customers in Fairfax County without power, as of 3:25 p.m. The largest outages appear to be centered around downtown McLean, where crews are assessing the damage to the affected electrical infrastructure.
A popular summer camp in Lake Barcroft remains closed days after a storm took out its electricity last Thursday (June 19).
Though Dominion Energy has restored power to nearly all of the 70,000-plus affected residents and businesses, a handful of customers are still dealing with outages — including Congressional Camp, which shared on Friday (June 20) that the storm had taken out a transformer for its 40-acre campus at 3229 Sleepy Hollow Road.
Thousands of people in Fairfax County are still without electricity after a quick but powerful storm swept through the D.C. area yesterday (Thursday).
While some major outages were addressed last night, Dominion Energy still has 163 projects affecting 10,356 customers in Fairfax County to address, as of 10:40 a.m., according to its outage map.
After reevaluating plans to clear more trees throughout the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail corridor in the spring, Dominion Energy is revving up its chainsaw once more.
The utility shared yesterday (Thursday) that its forestry team has “identified several areas” along the 45-mile trail in Fairfax, Arlington and Loudoun counties where tree removals will be necessary to preserve the electrical grid.
Dominion Energy appears to be open to addressing the damage done by its extensive tree clearings along the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail in Vienna and Dunn Loring.
The utility confirmed its interest in a new agreement to govern vegetation management for parts of the trail that overlap with its power lines less than 24 hours before NOVA Parks Executive Director Paul Gilbert gave an update on the situation to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and Vienna Town Council.
