On Tuesday November 26th the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) issued its Final Order approving a 500 kV line that crosses the James River near Williamsburg, Virginia… This application was extremely controversial from its inception3. At 500 kV this line is very large, more typical of an inter-state transmission line than a 7.4 mile intra-state regional reliability solution.
Historic & Scenic Landscapes
The Piedmont’s beautiful vistas also present some of America’s most historic terrain.
Honoring Local History
“This part of northern Virginia has soaked up more of the blood, sweat and tears of American history than any other part of the country.” –Late Yale historian C. Vann Woodward
The Journey Through Hallowed Ground
PEC is proud to be a part of The Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to raising national awareness of the unparalleled history in the region.
Tools to Preserve Rural Land
Many tools are available to preserve rural land, from private land conservation to Purchase of Development Rights programs, land use taxation, zoning provisions and more.
1,000 Acres of Jefferson County Preserved
Members of the Carter family acted together in 2009 to protect nearly 1,000 acres of land in Albemarle County that has been in their family since 1730. The Carters’ ancestors were neighbors to the Jeffersons, with a plantation about seven miles from Monticello, and the 1792 home, Redlands, suggests a Jeffersonian influence. The house was built by Martin Thacker, who also built Monticello, and its plan resembles Thomas Jefferson’s unbuilt design for the Virginia governor’s mansion.
Wolftown Farm with Historic Round Barn Protected
Joyce Gentry lives on the land where she lived as a child-a farm in Wolftown in Madison County, toward the foothills of the mountains, that has been in her family for generations. Mrs. Gentry, a retired math teacher, says, “I’ve lived on farms my whole life.” Her son and daughter-in-law Brad and Amy Gentry now raise beef cattle on the family farm-a 145 acre spread with a horizon full of mountain views.
Mrs. Gentry’s strong ties to the land motivated her to protect it with a conservation easement last year. “I’m trying to keep the countryside like it is,” she says.
Unison Historic District Offers a Window to the Civil War
The village of Unison in western Loudoun, as if charmed in some way to keep from changing, is a quiet hamlet of well-kept old buildings, with many farmhouses, barns and churches that measure their age in centuries. They are settled into a landscape of farm fields and stone walls, where the curving hills and stands of trees give way, in their own rhythm, to views of the calm blue line of mountains on the western horizon.
It’s the roads in Unison that historians get most excited about, says Mitch Diamond of the Unison Preservation Society, which is leading efforts to list this area as a historic district on the state and national registers of historic places.
Victory at Wilderness Battlefield
In a dramatic win for historic preservation, after three years of controversy, Walmart has dropped its plans to build a Supercenter at the edge of Wilderness Battlefield in Orange County. On the first day of a court case contesting Orange County’s decision to approve the big-box store, Walmart made a surprise announcement — that it had reversed its course, deciding not to build on the historic property but to preserve it.