Why can’t Valley Link use existing corridors?

TO THE EDITOR:

My name is Marie Jones, I am a resident of Louisa County, Va, and on behalf of my family, I am submitting our comments opposing the proposed Valley Link 765 kV electric 115-mile transmission line; more specifically the Orange Line, which will have an immediate and direct impact to our community, to my family, and future generations. This line will be positioned on several parcels of family land, which includes a family burial ground with family members born circa 1870. Another section of this same line will be just feet away from my front door (plans for this home are currently underway at the time of this opposition). Our residential area (Peach Grove and Goldmine Road) will feel the impact of both proposed Orange and Blue transmission line.

Other impacts related to having a huge 160 foot structure directly on my property has the potential of serious health risk (some reports of leukemia as a result of the electrical field radiation from the power lines); noise pollution, property devaluation, loss of animal habitat, land forestry destruction, etc.

Please explain why the existing corridor cannot be used for this project? The footprint and the infrastructure already exist. Why destroy family legacies, loss of land and ability to have generational wealth? There must be other alternatives to consider, to keep up with the need for more energy, support the growth, and reliance on data centers and artificial intelligence (AI).

MARIE E. JONES & FAMILY
Louisa

Tell General

Assembly “no” to transmission line/ data centers

TO THE EDITOR:

The General Assembly needs to know we don’t want the 765kV line, or more data centers. If the General Assembly continues to throw open the doors to the tech industries’ data centers, within a few years most of rural Virginia will face the same challenges as the 9 counties in the path of the proposed 765-kV powerline project. The “need” for this proposal to bring coal and gas generated power from West Virginia and Ohio up through the heart of our area is the data center boom in Northern Virginia and if built it will not only disfigure these 9 counties but will be a piece of a larger plan to spread data centers across the rural parts of the state.

It is time to remind our elected officials in the General Assembly and our Governor that although they may get contributions from the utility and tech companies, it is our votes that put them in office, and they are there to serve us. Because the General Assembly failed to pass a budget, they will reconvene in April. There are bills before them which would remove the sales tax exemptions data centers currently enjoy, and that would require the corporations, rather than all Virginians, to pay the full cost of the generation, transmission, and storage of the massive amounts of electricity they demand. Just about every Delegate representing a rural area voted to continue these policies that attract data centers to Virginia. Virginia is currently second in the WORLD in the number of data centers. We do not need to attract more. Please let your Delegate and Senator know that you want a budget that reins in the giveaways to this industry and takes the burden of supplying their electricity off of the average Virginian. Enough is enough.

Abigail.Spanberger@governor.virgina.gov 804-786-2211 Senators: All emails follow a pattern“senator(last name)@senate.virginia.gov (for example, “senatorciphers@senate.virginia. gov”) phone numbers have a pattern also, 804-698-75(number of their district) Sen. Ciphers would be 804-698-7510 Delegates also have consistent addresses, “del(first initial and last name) @house. virginia. gov (Del. Tom Garrett is deltgarrett@house.virginia.gov Phone number pattern is 804-698-10(district number) For Tom Garrett this would be 804-698-1056 Thank you for your attention, SELENE DEIKE Louisa

Fair and temporary vote lie

TO THE EDITOR,

There are three types of lies according to the old saying. There are “lies, damn lies, and statistics.” For the Democrats on TV commercials, I will go with “damn lies.” Dems tell us to vote yes and it is a “temporary measure” to “level the playing field.” Tell us how going from six Democrats and five Republicans in Virginia to ten Democrats for five years until 2030 is a “temporary measure.” If they then gain control again, we will have “temporary” ten-year periods forever. What a lie. One of the biggest liars tells us we must vote yes. This is the same man who told us, “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” and “Obama care will save the average family $2,500 per year.” I have seen no savings only paying for other’s insurance through more taxes and higher insurance premiums. In the liar category, this one took top prize and still holds it today. Our truthful governor said on August 25, 2025 “I have no plans to redistrict Virginia.” Previously she said “…Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates. Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority.” Now on TV, she supports it and signed off on the referendum. In one of the most biased worded Constitutional amendments that spouts these lies one would think it is a great thing. In other words, they think taking four Congressional seats that represent Republican majorities is “fair and honest elections.” The Democrat controlled Congressional districts of the six New England states of Connecticut (5), Maine (2), Massachusetts (9), New Hampshire (2), Rhode Island (2), and Vermont (1) vote forty percent (40%) Republican. Yet out of these 21 Congressional seats there is not one single Republican! And Virginia Democrats want to lecture us on gerrymandering which was born in Massachusetts? The liar that gets my goat the most is the shaven head guy (James Abrenio) who states he was on the 2020 redistricting committee. He was clearly a Democrat hack, and that explains why he couldn’t get the job done. The Supreme Court of Virginia had to take over (and gerrymandered both Green Springs and Patrick Henry one districts in with Charlottesville and Albemarle for state elections, with which we have nothing in common). A judge has already ruled this is an illegal referendum. The Virginia Supreme Court that certainly leans liberal refused to take up the case until after the illegal vote. No real surprise there, and no one in this fiasco can obey laws they created and the Dems supported in 2020. If you don’t vote no, then you will find yourself represented by liberal Fairfax and Arlington Congressmen who don’t care what rural Virginia thinks. All I hear is “we must save our democracy.” There is no democracy in America but a Representative Republic that only a no vote by April 21 can save. “Vote early and often” as the old Chicago Democrat saying goes.

JERRY HARLOW
Zion