Reston residents are becoming increasingly frustrated by the cooling system that serves properties around Lake Anne, saying equipment issues and unresponsive management have forced them to endure intense heat this summer without relief.
Residents who shared their experiences with FFXnow say temperatures in their homes have climbed up to 85 degrees or higher this week after one of the chillers that Reston RELAC uses to cool water from Lake Anne shut down last Friday (June 20).
RELAC will live to cool down residents and businesses near Lake Anne in Reston for at least one more summer.
Reston RELAC President Mark Waddell informed customers on Monday (March 31) that he’s in discussions to transfer ownership of the chilled-water cooling system to a contractor in Maryland, enabling operations to continue after a previously planned hand-off fell through.
Hundreds of residents around Lake Anne in Reston are facing new uncertainty over how they will cool down their homes as the weather heats up.
SpringRELAC, a resident-run nonprofit, announced yesterday (Tuesday) that its authority to operate the central air-conditioning system that provides chilled water from the man-made lake to surrounding properties hasn’t been renewed for the 2025 season.
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).
New Year’s Day will bring a number of new laws and regulations into effect across Virginia.
While legislation passed by the General Assembly and signed by the governor typically has an effective date of the start of the state government’s fiscal year on July 1, some measures are delayed until Jan. 1 each year.
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.
Poplar Heights is officially getting a new water storage tank with a capacity of 1.25 million gallons, despite continued objections from many residents of the single-family Idylwood neighborhood.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday (Oct. 22) — with Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn absent — to approve Fairfax Water’s request for a special exception allowing the facility to replace an existing standpipe tank at 7407 Tower Street that can hold 700,000 gallons of water.
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.
Work on an overhaul of Dominion Energy’s electric transmission line between Vienna and Idylwood is expected to start next month, the utility says.
The project will replace the wires — known as a reconductor — that run parallel to a 3.9-mile section of the Washington & Old Dominion Trail, connecting the Clark substation at 375 Center Street near Caboose Tavern in Vienna and the Idylwood substation at 7701 Shreve Road.
Fairfax County’s leaders agree that natural gas companies need to communicate more with them and the public on major pipeline projects, but they appear divided on how to make that happen.
At a land use committee meeting on May 14, county staff presented the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors with potential options for regulating “high-pressure” pipelines under local streets. The review was specifically prompted by community opposition to a 2-foot-wide pipeline that Washington Gas plans to build through Pimmit Hills.
