The storms passing through the D.C. area this evening (Friday) have claimed two lives as a result of trees falling on cars, police say.
Frye Road has been closed between Manor Drive and Pole Road in Woodlawn after a tree fell on a car, killing a woman, according to the Fairfax County Police Department.
After weeks of negotiations and public complaints, Dominion Energy has agreed to reassess plans to clear nearly all trees near its power lines in the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Railroad Regional Park.
However, the pause won’t bring relief to Vienna and Dunn Loring, where the utility will finish clearing trees and brush along a 4-mile section of trail in conjunction with a transmission line replacement between its Clark and Idylwood substations, Dominion Senior Vice President of Electric Transmission Joseph Woomer said yesterday in a letter to the Northern Virginia Regional Parks Authority (NOVA Parks).
The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (NOVA Parks) is turning up the pressure on Dominion Energy to end widespread tree clearings along the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail.
At the regional agency’s request, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 9-0 to approve a resolution on Tuesday (March 18) urging Dominion to halt reported plans to cut down any tree along the 45-mile-long trail that might someday interfere with its overhead power lines.
Some tree trimmings and removals were expected when Dominion Energy initated a project last year to replace electrical lines in the Vienna section of the Washington and Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail, but the extent of the clearings has taken local residents, elected officials and even the agency that owns the trail by surprise.
Starting in November, the utility began cutting down trees and vegetation along a 4-mile stretch of the trail from Vienna to Dunn Loring at a much more “aggressive” scale than it has in the past, according to Paul Gilbert, executive director of the Northern Virginia Regional Parks Authority (NOVA Parks).
Fairfax County is proposing new zoning regulations for utility substations that could limit where they can be built and impose stricter standards on projects near residential neighborhoods.
The draft amendments, discussed at a Board of Supervisors Land Use Policy Committee meeting on Tuesday (Jan. 28), aim to address community concerns about the noise and industrial appearance of substations, while accommodating the region’s growing energy needs, zoning administrative staff said.
Nearly a third of Virginia’s data centers are located within 200 feet of residential areas, with Fairfax County leading the state, according to a new report released Monday (Dec. 9) by the Virginia Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC).
Assessing the impact of data centers throughout Virginia, the JLARC report found that 55% of Fairfax County’s 20 data centers are within 200 feet of residential zones, and 70% are within 500 feet.
A nearly 3-mile stretch of the Washington & Old Dominion Trail has been out of commission this week, but pedestrians and bicyclists should be able to return soon.
Dominion Energy closed the trail from Mill Street NE in Vienna to Sandburg Street in Dunn Loring on Monday, Nov. 11 as part of its ongoing project to replace electric power lines between the Clark and Idylwood substations.
A Dominion Energy worker was injured by an electrical transformer explosion that occurred this morning (Monday) outside the Mars headquarters building in McLean.
Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department units were first dispatched to 6885 Elm Street around 10 a.m. Additional responders were sent to the scene minutes later after a firefighter reported concern about the building catching fire, according to scanner traffic.
The regional electric grid that supplies power to Virginia during times of extreme weather announced a 1,400% increase in some electric costs after its most recent capacity auction. But Dominion officials were quick to assure customers that they would not see an increase in their bills before the end of next year.
PJM Interconnection, which oversees the electric grid serving several mid-Atlantic states, including Virginia, announced the increase for its capacity market. Dominion buys electricity off of capacity markets during peak, or emergency, demands.
In a bid to cut energy costs by tens of thousands of dollars, the Fairfax County School Board finalized a deal with a local solar developer last month to outfit nine elementary schools across the county with 250-kilowatt (kW) solar panels.
The solar Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) comes years after the school board approved a series of much larger solar projects that were halted after Dominion Energy introduced new interconnection rules that substantially increased project costs, rendering the projects economically unfeasible.
