Roles joins fight against Dominion Power
Brent Finnegan -- May 10th, 2007
Admittedly, not Harrisonburg news, but I can’t help myself…
In March I wrote about Dominion Power’s plans to build a 500 kilovolt line through Rappahannock County, and the fight to stop it. So far, Dominion’s opposition hasn’t had much luck. A month ago Rappahannock BoS members, in an effort to build a legal case against Dominion, “contacted several possible consultants that the county might have hired as experts on the case, but found that all of them either had been hired by Dominion already, or that some third-party contracting with Dominion had hired them.” (from The Rappahannock Voice)
The line is slated to cut through Mark Obenshain’s and Todd Gilbert’s districts. So far Gilbert has joined the fight. I have yet to read about actions Obenshain has taken against it.
Obenshain’s opponent, Maxine Roles, announced yesterday that she will testify before the Department of Energy’s Public Hearing in Arlington. Roles states that Obenshain “supported the hybrid energy regulation legislation that was custom crafted and promoted by Dominion’s many corporate lobbyists during the 2007 General Assembly Session,” and that “he abandoned the protections proposed by alternative House Bills, even though he listed himself as a co-patron, and he failed to support proposals for conservation and land condemnation restrictions that were introduced by Delegate Athey apparently help protect the district and its residents.”
According to the press release, “[Roles] is already troubled by the idea that Virginia citizens are only being afforded this one opportunity to present their concerns to the DOE and that more public hearings are not being conducted in the Shenandoah Valley which stands to be so negatively impacted by the decisions made.” Roles alleges, “the major purpose of this particular proposal is to utilize cheaper and dirtier power producing sources from West Virginia and Ohio.”
Here in Harrisonburg, the Electric Commission buys its power from Dominion, which uses coal to generate the largest percentage of energy for the state.
So to participate in this discussion and add to the dialogue I must either travel or hope that my elected representative will represent Valley Values
quoting Roles “he abandoned the protections proposed by alternative House Bills, even though he listed himself as a co-patron, and he failed to support proposals for conservation and land condemnation restrictions that were introduced by Delegate Athey apparently help protect the district and its residents.”
So basically, I don’t have a say. Excellent,
A great website for information on the issue is at http://whosedominion.org
I hadn’t seen that website before. Dominion has done a lot of old-school dirty political maneuvering throughout this whole ordeal, managing to piss off conservatives like Gilbert, as well as the Gore-type environmentalists.