Friends participating in the 2024 Bluemont Fair

Once again in 2024 Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains will be participating in the 54^th annual Bluemont Fair.

Bring your family and friends and spend the day wandering through this wonderful 200-year-old village nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains.

Browse artisan crafts and enjoy local wine, beer, and music while experiencing the history and traditions.  Grab a bite to eat or attend an archaeology demonstration while the children enjoy free games in the Children’s Fair or visit the petting zoo.  Breathe in some mountain air, have fun, learn something new, and start checking off that holiday gift list, for less than the price of a movie. General admission is $10 per person and kids 9 and under get in free.

Come by our booth – say hi! and learn a little about what we are doing to help protect and celebrate this world class natural wonder in our midst.
We will see you on September 21 & 22, 2024 for the 54th Bluemont Fair!

Children 9 and under are free
10 am – 5 pm each day
Parking is free

Friends Annual meeting will be October 12^th

Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains will host our annual meeting on Saturday, October 12^th.

This year our meeting will be in a wonderful, picturesque and rustic setting. George Ohrstrom, the recipient of our 2023 “Friend of the Mountain” award has invited Friends to have our meeting at Camden, his farm in Clarke County near Boyce, Virginia.

Over the past several years George has hosted many events at Camden including annual meetings of the Clarke County Conservation Easement Authority.

Catering will be provided by Jordan Springs Market BBQ of Stephenson, Va. Jordan Springs has been labeled as “Best Pork BBQ” by Northern Virginia Magazine.  Virginia is for Lovers rates it as one of the top “Mom and Pop” restaurants in the state.

For the first time, Friends will be hosting our annual event in Clarke County. It’s a chance for all our Loudoun members to see this special landscape in full autumn colors. Clarke has preserved a quarter of all its land through conservation easements.

Admission will be $75 per person.

We will be providing more information on entertainment and speakers soon.

Plan on joining us for a wonderful celebration of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

 The Waterford Foundation Relinquishes Leadership of LTLA

The Waterford Foundation has been the lead organization in the formation and operation of the Loudoun Transmission Line Alliance (LTLA). Since early 2024 Abigail Zurfluh, Historic Preservation Director of the Foundation, has provided a great deal of the staff support for LTLA.

Abigail was featured in the May 16^th edition of Happenings Around the Blue Ridge.

The Waterford Foundation, under the leadership of its board president, Susan Manch, led the citizens’ campaign, affected organizations joined together to form the Loudoun Transmission Line Alliance (LTLA), to reject the PJM initiative to build a 500kV transmission line from West Virginia, across the Blue Ridge and bucolic and historic landscapes in Loudoun County to supply power to data centers in central and eastern Loudoun County.

This line, designated the Mid-Atlantic Resiliency Link (MARL), was to be built in two segments, the one from a substation located east of Short Hill Mountain, creating a new transmission corridor crossing rural landscapes and historic properties from this substation northward to supply power to data centers in eastern and central Loudoun, clustered around Ashburn. The other segment was proposed to follow westward from this substation along the corridor used by an existing 138kV line that leads across the Blue Ridge into West Virginia.

The LTLA, of which Friends of Blue Ridge Mountains is a member, has been surprisingly successful in convincing PJM that it would not be prudent to pursue further its plan to build a new transmission line corridor across the many small specialty farms, conservation easement lands, and properties of special historical significance which cover much of western Loudoun County.  Rather, PJM now proposes to upgrade existing transmission lines in Loudoun County to supply the Ashburn data center complex, but to move ahead with its proposed new line across Short Hill Mtn and the Blue Ridge to the west.

Several LTLA organizations met at the Waterford Old School on September 4^th to review this new development, be apprised of remaining transmission line challenges anticipated in the near- and longer-term future, and to discuss what organizational changes are indicated for LTLA’s member organizations to meet these challenges.

In preparation for this meeting Ms. Maunch announced that the Waterford Foundation needs to relinquish its leadership staffing role for LTLA and encouraged “an environmental organization” to take on this role.  She stressed the concern that using its limited staff resources to combat transmission line proliferation in Loudoun County took too much away from the Foundation pursuing its original mission.  But Ms. Maunch also emphasized Waterford Foundation’s intention to remain as an active member of whatever form of alliance that LTLA might take, and to share in the necessary work that organizations must undertake to support LTLA in achieving its objectives.

Organizations represented at the meeting were appreciative of the contribution that the Waterford Foundation has made in this early phase of dealing with the MARL challenge.  In light of the major transmission line challenges, both near and longer term,  being driven by accelerating data center growth in Loudoun, attendees at the meeting agreed to keep LTLA as a functioning alliance, albeit modified in form, and to assemble a steering committee to chart a path forward, including managing the citizens’ concerns with MARL’s western segment that would cross over Short Hill Mtn, through the Valley Between the Hills and Sweet Run SP, cross over the Blue Ridge and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, the Shenandoah River, and thence westward across the Shenandoah Valley and the Allegheny Mtns to a coal-fired power plant in West Virginia.

Friends of Blue Ridge Mountains remains committed to protecting the Blue Ridge from all ill-advised developments, including further inappropriately sited transmission line corridors.

PEC sponsoring an effort to support the Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act of 2024

Congress has not enacted any federal legislation to address how data centers impact our physical world. According to the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) “Data centers have a staggering impact on our communities and the environment. These buildings consume massive amounts of energy 24/7, and that demand is already threatening the reliability of our electric grid infrastructure in many parts of the country. Meeting this growing demand also makes averting the worst of climate change more difficult by spurring new fossil fuel generation. In addition to energy, these buildings can require large quantities of fresh water for cooling to keep servers up and running.”

In Loudoun and surrounding counties, we have the world’s highest concentration of data centers.   The current fight about the location of the 500-kiloVolt (kV) transmission line, the MidAtlantic Resiliency Link (MARL) is a clear example of the types of problems we are going to be facing for many years to come. The Data Center driven demand for power is resulting in delays in the retirement of coal power facilities, new natural gas plants, and is derailing the State’s efforts to remove carbon from our air. 

The human and environmental costs of the data center industry will worsen with the rise of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence applications.

Sen. Markey (D – Ma) Sen. Heinrich (D – NM), Rep. Eshoo (D – CA), and Rep. Beyer (D – Va), have introduced the Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act of 2024, directing various government agencies to conduct a comprehensive study on AI’s environmental impacts, identify standards needed to measure those impacts, and create a voluntary framework for AI developers to report the full range of their environmental impacts.

This is a link to the form established by PEC to send a message to congress supporting this act.

 PJM Board prohibits “greenfield” construction of Transmission Line

At its August 7^th meeting, the PJM Board approved a change in the scope for the Regional Transmission Expansion Plan (RTEP) that effectively prohibits the “greenfield” construction of the 500-kiloVolt (kV) transmission line, the MidAtlantic Resiliency Link (MARL), across western Loudoun County. The construction of MARL must use existing rights-of-way.

This ruling is certainly a “victory” in the sense that the PJM has adopted the position that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, the Loudoun Transmission Line Alliance (LTLA), and hundreds of Loudoun County citizens and organizations have been advocating for months.

The LTLA is hosting a “Thank You and Next Steps” Community Gathering to celebrate PJM ruling. It will be on October 26th from 2-5pm at the Waterford Old School. There will be food and games, plus information about partnering organizations and what’s coming next for the LTLA. For more information and questions, please reach out to transmisionlines@waterfordfoundation.org.

While fully recognizing the importance of the PJM ruling, we at Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains are somewhat muted in our celebration.
The PJM ruling does not remove the ongoing threat that the MARL poses for western Loudoun. Rebuilding the present 138kV line to make it into a 500kV line will do substantial damage to the existing corridor.

The corridor will be widened, thousands of trees will be cut down with the associated impact on air quality and storm water run-off.  Trees remove massive amounts of CO² from the atmosphere and are a major tool in reducing greenhouse gases. Trees generate significant amounts of oxygen and of course help keep Goose Creek and all other streams and waterways throughout Northern Virginia clean.

One acre of Blue Ridge mountain forest can absorb 4.5 to 40.7 tons of carbon dioxide and produce four tons of oxygen in a year. The capture is enough to offset the annual carbon emissions produced by driving a car 26,000 miles.

The existing corridor which will be widened runs westward from the Daub substation across Short Hill Mtn, bisecting Sweet Run State Park, and further impinges on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.

There remains a great deal that can and must be done to protect the Blue Ridge Mountains from the threat of constructing massive new transmission lines regardless of whether they are built on “greenfields” or existing corridors.

For one thing we must continue to oppose the US Department of Energy’s proposed designation of a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) impacting the Blue Ridge Mountains. On June 24^th, Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains submitted a formal statement of concerns to the US Department of Energy regarding the NIETC designation. NIETC designation unlocks significant federal financing incentives and permitting tools to encourage the construction of transmission lines. Financing includes direct loans and public-private partnerships through the Transmission Facilitation Program, and Federal siting and permitting authority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Because of the NIETC designation, the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) will have the authority to override Loudoun’s carefully developed zoning regulations, historic designations, and conservation easements restricting the placement of transmission lines. Furthermore, if the Virginia SCC were to deny a proposed transmission route through Western Loudoun, an applicant could still apply to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to override the SCC decision.

Over the coming months Friends will continue to initiate a number of steps to protect the Blue Ridge Mountains from the threats from the increasing demand for power and associated construction of massive transmission lines. We will keep our readers informed.