page_title: Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park
section_title: Transmission lines
hierarchical_section_title: Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park / Transmission lines
caption_attribution_description: English: W&amp;OD Trail - After the Intersection @ Belmont Ridge Rd in Ashburn, VA going West
context_page_description: The Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park is a linear regional park in Northern Virginia. The park's primary feature is the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Trail, an asphalt-surfaced paved rail trail that runs through densely populated urban and suburban communities as well as through rural areas. Most of the trail travels on top of the rail bed of the former Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, which closed in 1968.
  Although the park is 44.8 miles long, it is only about 100 feet wide. The rail trail is approximately 10 feet wide through much of its length and is a shared use path that is suitable for walking, running, cycling, and roller skating. A crushed bluestone surfaced bridle path travels near the paved trail in the park's most westerly 32 miles.
  NOVA Parks administers and maintains the park and its trails. NOVA Parks keeps most of the parkland surrounding the trails in a natural state. The park authority has placed alongside the paved trail a series of mile markers and a number of interpretative exhibits that describe the historic and natural features of the park.
context_section_description: The W&OD Trail lies beneath a set of electric power transmission lines between its trailhead and the Dominion Virginia Power's Pleasant View Substation in Loudoun County southeast of Leesburg.  The power company removes trees along this section of the trail to protect its lines, at times eliciting protests from members of the public and elected officials in the impacted jurisdictions.  Trees shade much of the remainder of the trail.
  In 2004, Dominion Virginia Power announced plans to extend its transmission lines in Loudoun County above ground from the Pleasant View Substation northwestward along the route of the W&OD Trail. In response, on November 15, 2005, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted a resolution of continued opposition to the installation of the proposed transmission lines along the Trail.
  Citing the impending loss of trees along its trail, the NVRPA asked the public on December 13, 2005, to oppose Dominion Virginia Power's application for the transmission line project in hearings that the State Corporation Commission (SCC) was planning to conduct as part of its review of the project.  During 2005, 2006 and 2007, the NVRPA submitted testimony and briefs to the SCC that opposed the construction of transmission lines along the route of the trail.
  In January 2007, an SCC hearing examiner recommended the construction of an overhead transmission line that would follow a wooded segment of the W&OD Trail between Leesburg and Clark's Gap.  After the SCC ordered the examiner to consider construction of an underground line along that segment of the trail, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted on June 5, 2007, a resolution that supported the location of the line along that segment only if the SCC required Dominion to "install the line underground at a minimum width with the least amount of impact".
  The SCC nevertheless approved on February 15, 2008, a transmission line route that would travel above ground for 1.8 miles (2.9 km) along the same segment of the trail. The Commission's approval order stated that the SCC had adopted the Examiner's recommendation against underground construction "due to both the physical, and the cost to the ratepayers, of the impacts that would result therefrom."
  Less than three weeks later, on March 4 and March 5, 2008, the Senate and the House of Delegates of the Virginia General Assembly unanimously passed emergency legislation that ordered the SCC to approve the underground construction of the line along that segment of the trail as part of a statewide pilot program for the development of such types of transmission lines. Sponsored by Delegate Joe T. May (Republican - Loudoun), the legislation exempted the project from any requirements for further SCC analyses relating to the impacts of the route, including environmental impacts and impacts upon historical resources. The legislation went into effect when Virginia Governor Tim Kaine approved it on April 2, 2008.  Soon afterwards, the power company asked the SCC to approve construction of the underground transmission line in accordance with the terms of the legislation. The SCC approved construction of the underground line on May 28, 2008.
  The NVRPA expected the project to result in a significant loss of trees, as the power company planned to dig trenches on each side of the paved trail while installing duct banks to house its conduits.  Supporting the NVRPA's expectation, Dominion Virginia Power noted that the environmental impacts associated with underground cable installation in suburban and rural areas are significantly greater than are those of overhead line construction. The W&OD Trail closed for a year in the project area while the power company constructed its underground lines.  The trail reopened to the public in November 2010.
caption: Transmission lines over W&OD Trail in Loudoun County (March 2012)
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