Dominion Energy is planning to put a new transmission line in Northern Virginia.
Rock Ridge High School and Rosa Lee Carter Elementary School in Ashburn sit on land that's valuable to Dominion Energy, which wants to run a high-voltage electric transmission line through it. Because the land is owned by the school division, the Loudoun County School Board has dominion over the property but has been reluctant to vote for infrastructure that supports data centers.
"I'm not quite sure where the school board stands on everything, but given the urgent reliability need for this project, we're sort of disappointed by the continued efforts that could delay this project," says Greg Mathe with Dominion Energy. "And we want the school board to take action on what the SCC gave it responsibility to do."
He says that responsibility is to take some kind of action, but, so far, it's been delay after delay.
David Ramadan is a former Republican delegate who represented Loudoun County in the General Assembly. He's now at George Mason University's Schar School, and he says Loudoun County School Board members are in a bind.
"Any elected official is going to find themselves in a pretty tough situation with their constituents if they vote to approve power lines through the community," Ramadan says.
The name of the transmission line project is called Golden to Mars because it connects the Golden substation in Data Center Ally to the Mars substation near Dulles Airport.
