Dominion upped the ante on its Surry-Skiffes Creek transmission project this week. Because it has not been successful in overcoming opposition to an aerial crossing of the James River, it introduced the blackout boogeyman in the form of a remediation plan for the area, filed with regional grid operator PJM.
The so-called remedial action scheme Dominion prepared and presented this week to PJM Interconnection, the operator of the 13-state electrical grid Virginia is plugged into, would cut power to Hampton, two-thirds of Newport News, Poquoson and eastern York County if there are faults on two of the dozens of components in the Peninsula's high transmission network.
Oh no! Blackouts, you say?
The people of the Tidewater said, "meh."
The people of the Tidewater said, "meh."
They say Dominion's been using scare tactics when it has said there could be as many as 80 days a year in which rolling blackouts are possible. Dominion says that's the number of days when demand is so heavy that faults in the system could force it to cut some customers off in order to avoid a widespread blackout.
"It appears that Dominion Virginia Power would rather continue their campaign to frighten consumers and threaten to close their Yorktown power plants," said James Zinn, a trustee with the Save the James Alliance, who argues that federal law allows the U.S. Department of Energy to order a power plant to operate in an emergency.
Well, gosh, PJM better get to altering its transmission plans in order to avoid emergency, because that's just not acceptable, and it doesn't appear that the opposition is going to fold on this one.
"If nothing else, this is consistent with their continued inflexibility to consider less intrusive alternatives for their construction of towers over the historic James River," he said.
So, what could they do instead? Bury the line underwater? Ya think? Honestly, Dominion, you're behaving like a 5-year old. "I'm gonna hold my breath until I die!" Stop being a pimple on the ass of progress.
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