Letter to the Editor: A High-Voltage Issue

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Make no mistake: There would be no underground high-voltage line in Loudoun County if it were not for the foresight, perseverance and influence of Del. Joe T. May (R-Loudoun). May got Dominion Virginia Power, the State Corporation Commission and the Virginia Assembly to approve burying a small portion — 1.8 miles — of a new 12-mile-long, 230,000-volt transmission line in western Loudoun.

Loudoun will be one of four sites where burial techniques used successfully for decades around the world will be tested in Virginia.

As with most backroom compromises, there are drawbacks hidden from public view. Here are a few:

• The deal will install the high-voltage line beneath the path of the Washington & Old Dominion Trail used by 2 million hikers, bikers and horse riders every year. They all will be right on top of potentially danx gerous electromagnetic fields just 36 inches below.
• A large number of mature trees along the W&OD trail will be destroyed by Dominion work crews using an 80-foot to 100-foot construction zone to access the path with heavy equipment. The company estimated $222,600 for tree removal.
• Dominion estimated that the 1.8-mile underground line would cost an additional $25 million, a sum passed along to ratepayers. In Arlington County, however, Dominion used cost estimates for an identical 230,000-volt underground line that were much lower.
• One reason Dominion's cost estimates are $8 million higher in Loudoun is that the power company wants to double the size of the underground line compared to Arlington. While Dominion insists the technology — plastic-wrapped copper wire called XLPE — is reliable enough for a single line in Arlington, it has argued than XLPE is too unreliable for use in Loudoun, where a second backup cable must be installed.

There is an option that would really save the trail, keep 2 million users from being exposed to EMF radiation, preserve the W&OD canopy of trees and save ratepayers $8 million. Again, the answer comes from Dominion's project in Arlington.

New overhead high-voltage lines are banned in Arlington, so Dominion was forced underground. The burial site: beneath some of the busiest streets in Northern Virginia, including Fairfax Drive. The high-voltage line for Arlington will be tucked within a 20-foot construction zone.

The same approach would fit easily beneath Dry Mill Valley Road, which parallels the W&OD.

Using the road is just one option that should be considered by Loudoun supervisors at a public hearing on the May compromise.

Such a hearing could also take a look at Dominion's conflicting advice on the health effects of EMF. To Loudoun residents, the radiation from high voltage presented no health threat whatsoever, said an Alabama professor hired by Dominion to testify before the SCC.

But in Arlington, Dominion was far less certain. "Some epidemiological studies have suggested small statistical associations of possible health risks," Dominion said in documents submitted to the SCC. The power company also cited one British study that set off public-health alarm bells in 2005. The Oxford University study, which covered a 30-year period, found that the risk of leukemia increased by 69 percent for children living within 656 feet of the EMF from power lines.

Patrick J. Sloyan Sr., Paeonian Springs

Tagged: Dominion

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