OUR VIEW: A Dominion power line we can live with

» SUMMARY: The power company has drawn criticism for a large-scale project through this area, but Culpeper residents are more than happy to see
another type of power line go up.

About a month ago — the first night the town lost power — a series of major storms came through the area. Everything in town went dark.

For various reasons, the power went out three more times in 12 days — causing lengthy outages each time — and people naturally started pointing fingers. Dominion Virginia Power took a lot of blame for not being able to pinpoint the problem and doing little in the public’s eye to safeguard against such widespread failures.

Dominion, of course, provides power to town residents and other utilities that serve its environs. Over the past three years, it’s also been a lightning rod for criticism — and a few conspiracy theories, lately — because of its proposal to build a massive, unrelated power line through several Virginia counties, including northern Culpeper. But for now, at least, the latter issue is merely a contextual note to understand town residents’ concerns on the smaller scale.

After the June 16 outage, Dominion announced plans to accelerate construction of a new double-circuit line to replace the town’s temporary main line, the single point of failure that caused so many problems. Crews are working seven days a week to have the line operational by September instead of December. In addition, an aggressive tree-cutting campaign is under way.

As we see it, Dominion — enduring a nightmare public relations scenario — is finally attempting to tackle Culpeper’s outages head on. Speaking for the 15,000 residents of this town, it’s about time.
Let’s put these problems behind us.