Dominion To Hold Public Meeting About Transmission Line

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by ARLnow.com November 22, 2010 at 11:07 am 2,852 14 Comments

Arlington is still growing, population-wise, and that larger population is requiring more and more electricity to serve its needs.

To help meet demand, Dominion is planning a major project to run a 3.7 mile underground transmission line from Pentagon City to the power substation at 3245 Wilson Boulevard in Clarendon. The project also proposes to construct a new Radnor Heights power substation on the grounds of Ft. Myer.

The project “will support growth in Arlington County,” says Dominion spokesperson Le-Ha Anderson. But progress will come at a cost — burying the line will be an intensive 18 month process that will result in open-cut trenching and street closures along the proposed route.

“Because this is underground, we’re going to have to dig up the roadways,” Anderson said. “We’re going to do everything we can to minimize traffic and community disruption.”

Dominion is holding a public meeting a week from today to provide information about the project. The meeting will take place from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Nov. 29 at the Lyon Park Community Center (414 North Fillmore Street). The company held a public meeting for the Ft. Myer community last week.

If all goes as planned, construction will begin in January and end in June 2012. The end result, Anderson says, will be worth the temporary hassle.

“We’re improving service reliability to our customers in the Arlington area,” she said.

Flickr pool photo by Alykat

Courthouse Resident

Well with the Rt 50/Courthouse Rd/10th St construction – some of us won’t even notice the added digging and general mess this will create
Westover

It is needed infrastructure. However, Dominion Power should be held responcible to repave the entire stretch of road that they are going to tear up when they are done. Nothing like haveing utility work dig a trench up a freshly repaved road then only fillin what they dug up leaving behind a rough and ugly transition of asphalt in the middle of the street. Remember the fiberoptic craze through out downtown DC in the late 90’s? Let’s not let that happen again!
- jan
  
  You are right!
- cj
  
  Dominion Power did OK with the repaving of Kirkwood Road after running their Clarendon-to-Rosslyn line there. The question is how much VDOT can and will ask of them in terms of improving the looks of 10th Street as they go along.
Thes

Very clever of Dominion to choose a VDOT road (10th Street) as the road to dig on. That means Arlington’s local government will not have very much say in the process. It’s even labeled on their map with the rarely-used “VA-237” name.
- SoCo Resident
  
  Under federal and commonwealth law, utilities can do whatever they want. The County has little say and, since they approved all these total electric buildings, they deserve the disruption. Wait to see how much MORE we will need for electic cars!
Electric Ave.

They should go straight through Arlington Cemetary. That way they can fix the remains buried in the wrong graves. Kill two birds with one stone.
Fairfax Dr

I note that they intend to put a 230Kv line in. How long until they need another one? put another way, is the sizing of this line correct? Finally, are there any overhead power lines that should be buried at the same time?
- ReddyKiloWatt
  
  230kV is pret-ty, pret-ty big as it is. That bad boy will serve the intended sections of Arl town juuuuust fine.
arlington

The question of whether nearby overhead lines should be buried at the same time is a critical one for the community to ask.
Take it down a notch

If they’re starting in January, the plans are probably finalized already.
charlie

It is a state road so the state can do what they want. Why do lapdogs think we always should get zimmies approval?
- Arlington, Northside
  
  Then the state should make sure that the road is returned to the same or better shape when the project is complete. County trucks were plowing 10th street last winter, might just have been to get through to other roads though.
SoCo Resident

Arlnow.com has it a little “not clear” here. According to Dominion’s site, they will run the line from Crystal City around the Cemetery to the “new” Radnor Heights power substation on the grounds of Ft. Myer. This is just off Rt50 and 10th and Courthouse. Then, it will run up 10th St. to Wilson Blvd.

Maybe someone can elighten the discussion on which way the electricity is flowing as it seemed originally (as I read it) they were getting rid of the Wilson Blvd Substation, thus moving it to the Radnor- Rt.50-Ft. Myer location.

I also read years ago that the County had bought the entire triangle on Wilson on which the substation stands across from St. Charles Church for a park. What’s happened to that plan?

But, as a country sitting on so much natural gas, we gotta quit building these all electric buildings!

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