I write to urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to reject the proposed location of the new Joshua Falls substation in Campbell County. This substation is not a minor rural waypoint along the 765 kV Joshua Falls to Yeat transmission line. It is the intended origin of a major bulk energy distribution corridor...

Head straight to the “June Actions” section, item two: “Submit Comments to PJM.” As you know, PJM—our beloved grid operator/overlord—orchestrates projects in 13 states, Virginia very much included. Whenever one of these ever-morphing schemes (Valley Link, for example) changes shape, it has to crawl back before the PJM board for re-approval. A big piece of that “approval” is deciding whether the project is still “feasible” by the 2029 deadline. And wouldn’t you know it—feasibi

I urge you to watch this 2 minute video as Chris clear and succinctly frames this monstrosity called Valley Link. A telling extract to wet your appetite: "In this place, poised at one of the most pivotal set of decisions in modern American history. Are we going to be a country of self-determination of authentic places or are we simply a landscape for the AI industry?"

Quite the morning at the Culpeper Board of Supervisors meeting. Mike Regan opened with a brutally clear-eyed takedown of the Yeat super substation’s sordid backstory. From Fauquier County’s “complications” that conveniently shoved the project onto Culpeper, to the fresh redesign by Valley Link and Dominion engineers that quietly erased every last scrap of local benefit. He laid it out plain: the thing is being rigged as a giant bulk-energy transfer corridor...

According to a "little birdie" that left a note on my windowsill, the SCC submission is getting shoved back because Valley Link—sorry, Dominion Energy "leadership"—has suddenly realized they’re nowhere near ready for September.

As I so cheerfully noted earlier, ALL Valley Link transmission line routes—every last one—are still very much “on the table.” And yes, the whole glorious menu will be served up to the State Corporation Commission (SCC) later this summer/fall like a bad all-you-can-eat buffet nobody asked for.

Your elected officials actually have the legal authority to kill this abomination dead in its tracks. The parcel isn’t even zoned industrial, so they’d need a special/conditional use permit just to get started. And here’s the delicious part: if your supervisors have the good sense to deny that permit, the State Corporation Commission (SCC) is legally powerless to override them. Virginia Supreme Court already settled that one. Game over, Valley Link.

We may now have “floating” substation questions at both ends of this line, with every county in the middle left holding its breath. This is critically important, as the Culpeper Board of Supervisors has already passed a resolution opposing the Joshua Falls–Yeat line and the siting of Yeat within Culpeper County. Does the Campbell County Board of Supervisors understand that this may involve a new or relocated terminal facility on a separate parcel, with real impacts to their c

A sharp-eyed citizen just dropped this bombshell: has anyone else noticed the Valley Link transmission line doesn’t actually start at the Joshua Falls substation? Not even close. Check the image—it kicks off east of there on lot 9-A-71, a cozy 136-acre spread owned by BTG Pactual OEF Property 2, L.P. (or BTG PACTUAL OEF PROPERTY 2 LP when they’re feeling extra corporate), that oh-so-transparent Delaware limited partnership serving as a handy property-holding vehicle for...

For anyone who’s breathing a sigh of relief thinking they’re no longer in the crosshairs, allow me to ruin your day: the “old” routes didn’t magically vanish into thin air. They’re being bundled up and handed to the State Corporation Commission (SCC) right alongside the new ones. Because nothing says “we care about you” like giving the SCC carte blanche to pick whatever route they feel like—including ones nobody’s even seen yet.

There is rarely a choice of this magnitude, that is all good or all bad. And there will always be the land of unintended consequences in making those choices. This country has always been blessed in many ways, but certainly in the fact that we had more land and other natural resources than we had good ideas to use that land. Our abundance of land and fresh water as a resource is fast turning a corner where every choice will have lasting outcomes in other areas. When we make

Our next Buckingham NO Valley Link Community Meeting is scheduled for Saturday May 30th 3:30-5:00 PM at the Ag Building/Virginia Cooperative Extension Office. 54 Administration Lane Buckingham, VA 23921. Please see the end of this email for Zoom link.

Ever since Dominion unveiled its Valley Link monstrosity back in February, the same glaring question has been on everyone's lips: Why the hell aren't you building these power plants closer to where the actual need is?

Valley Link/Dominion Energy PR Guru Rob Richardson basically said that undergrounding this amount of power has never been done "anywhere in the world". Dominion Energy is LITERALLY planning to do exactly that with the Heritage to Mosby project. Not only can it carry as much or more megawatts (the thing that matters) as the Valley Link overhead 765KV line, but this project is MUCH longer!

What became unmistakably clear this week is that citizens across Virginia remain united around something larger than politics. At the Culpeper Board Meeting, residents from almost every county along the proposed Joshua Falls - Yeat transmission corridor stood together in solidarity with the people of Richardsville and Culpeper County. Farmers, preservationists, property owners, conservation advocates, historians, and ordinary citizens came together around a shared concern: pr

The Valley Link dog-and-pony show, starring Dominion’s crack PR duo Rob Richardson and Lane Carr, was quite the spectacle for the Culpeper Board of Supervisors meeting last night. Full highlight reel and deeper autopsy coming later, but here are the juiciest bits so you don’t have to wait.

Nothing says “community engagement” like a thinly veiled threat wrapped in a cash bribe, am I right?

Valley Link’s PR squad is rolling into the Culpeper Board of Supervisors next Tuesday, May 18th at 6:30 p.m. (302 N Main St) with a glossy PowerPoint on why everyone should just roll over and approve the Yeat Substation. This is a big one. Unclear if they can even file with the State Corporation Commission this summer until Culpeper signs off, so they’re pulling out all the stops. We need bodies packed inside that building and spilling out the doors to make it crystal clear:

Well, now we know why the Orange County Data Center ordinance has no teeth—and we owe a huge debt to one gutsy private citizen, Sarah Regan, for blowing the lid off it. Watch her speech to the Orange County Board of Supervisors tonight. Pay close attention. Spoiler alert: Attorneys for Amazon and the rest of the gang have been handed the keys to the drafting process, essentially dictating which parts of the ordinance are “acceptable” and which aren’t.

“When we’re done, the audience will know more about property rights and eminent domain in Virginia than 99% of the attorneys,” said a representative of the firm. This is a free, non-partisan educational event open to all affected property owners and interested community members.