Golden to Mars: School Board Meets Tonight @ 5:30PM | Rock Ridge HS

Resending yesterday’s email with information about the School Board meeting tonight (Monday, July 13) at Rock Ridge High School.

Several volunteers are organizing a community rally starting at 4:30 PM before the meeting begins.

Please come out, make your voice heard, and support our School Board as it continues to advocate for us!

REPOST OF YESTERDAY’S EMAIL BELOW

As most of you know, the State Corporation Commission's order selected Route 3A for Dominion's Golden to Mars project. We want to be direct about where that leaves us, how this was dropped on the School Board’s lap, and what the School Board can still do in the very few days that remain.

The Loudoun County School Board has scheduled a Special Meeting at Rock Ridge High School tomorrow, Monday, July 13 at 5:30 PM, to take up the Golden to Mars transmission line.

Sign-up for public comment is open now.

Turnout on Monday and participation are important.

The School Board is seeking the input of the community, and delivering that message in a respectful way carries real weight.

Please register, show up if you can, and help the School Board hear that this community stands with it in its efforts to keep the devastating impacts Route 3A would bring on and off school grounds and out of our neighborhoods.

The School Board has been steadfast and should be commended.

Since March 2025 the School Board has held one clear position: high-voltage industrial transmission infrastructure does not belong on school grounds.

It took that position early, it has reaffirmed it repeatedly, and it has never wavered.

As clearly as Dominion has pursued their preferred route, the School Board has been just as clear in defense of its students, its facilities, and the families who surround them. Nothing that follows should be read as criticism of the School Board. The opposite is true.

The School Board has stood with this community from the beginning, and it is now the body with the last meaningful opportunity to protect it.

How we got here - and the bad choices in front of us.

Every other avenue has been pursued: undergrounding, legislation, legal challenge, and good-faith cooperation at every stage. Those avenues are now exhausted. Based on advice from counsel and multiple parties, we conclude the decision has been narrowed to a binary choice between Route 3A and Route 4, and both cross School Board property.

We are told that School and community property will be seized either way, and that people's lives will be severely impacted - all for a project required solely because of private industry build-out.

That is the untenable result of a process and system that never should have forced this decision upon the School Board. But the reality is what it is, and only the School Board can now prevent Route 3A from becoming the default. This is one of the paths we put forward to the School Board when the community offered the donation.

It is our understanding that if an agreement is reached for this project, Dominion will not pursue transmission lines on school property in Loudoun County moving forward and is willing to work with LCPS and the community to mitigate the impacts of this project.

Route 3A is by far the worse of the two:

• It pushes new high-voltage lines toward homes rather than following the existing overhead lines east of Rock Ridge High School.
• It places poles as tall as 185 feet on single-family lots within Loudoun Valley Estates.
• It cuts through Broad Run Stream Valley Park - open space, trees, and trails that families use - and drops a utility corridor into the middle of a public park.
• It forces everyone crossing the Loudoun Reserve Drive bridge to pass beneath the lines.
• It was never an engineering preference. It was introduced by Dominion as leverage, and it will become the operative route by default if no one acts.

Route 4 is the least harmful remaining option:

• It follows the existing power line east of the Rock Ridge fields.
• It keeps the line near the Amazon data center campus to the east and away from parks and neighborhoods.
• Among the remaining overhead routes - all of which cross school property - the SCC found Route 4 impacts the fewest homes and causes the least harm to the community, with the most limited environmental effects.

What we're asking the School Board to do Monday.

Pivoting to Route 4 is not a retreat from the School Board's position. It is the last available mechanism to give effect to that position. The School Board said, and continues to say, that these lines do not belong on school grounds. Route 3A puts them closer to school facilities, through the park, and into residential backyards. Route 4 is the path that most honors the principle the School Board has held since March 2025.

The window closes permanently after July 20, when the SCC loses jurisdiction over this question.

Before then, the School Board still holds real leverage. We respectfully ask it to:

• Act affirmatively - pass a motion authorizing consideration of Route 4 easements and negotiate with Dominion on mitigation terms. No action lets Route 3A become the default.
• Use its leverage now to secure real concessions: a binding commitment that Dominion will pursue no future transmission routes on any other school property; negotiated buffers and screening along Route 4; and Dominion bearing the cost of mitigating the line's effects on school facilities and the surrounding community.
• Move for reconsideration as soon as possible, so the choice - and the terms of whatever is built - remain with the School Board and this community rather than passing to Dominion alone.

A motion authorizing negotiation does not bind the School Board to a final outcome. It preserves its seat at the table. It is understood that the specific terms cannot be finalized by July 13 - but that is exactly the point. The affirmative step must come first, and it must come now.

None of us would call this outcome a win.

There is so much wrong with how this process unfolded - a process set in motion years ago - that almost any outcome was guaranteed to fall short.

The process itself is wrong, and livability in Loudoun County is being destroyed by it.

But what we are left with is the choice in front of us: to ask the body that has stood with us from the start to take the one step the entire community does not want but is still available before the door closes.

We all should remain incredibly grateful to the School Board and their staff - and to every neighbor who has given their time to this effort.

And we ask, respectfully and urgently, that the authority which belongs to the School Board for these next few days be used to protect the students, the families, and the community it has always defended.

The Loudoun County School Board has scheduled a Special Meeting at Rock Ridge High School this Monday, July 13 at 5:30 PM, to take up the Golden to Mars transmission line.

Sign-up for public comment is open now.

How to be heard:

Public comment is in-person only for this meeting. Registration is open and closes at noon on the day of the meeting. Register as an individual speaker here:

https://www.lcps.org/o/lcps/page/citizen-participation

A few things to know:

• Comments should stay focused on the Golden to Mars transmission line project - that is the sole subject of this Special Meeting.
• Time per speaker is set by the Chair and announced beforehand (typically about one minute, not to exceed five).
• If you cannot pre-register, walk-up registration is accepted at the front of the school up to 30 minutes before the meeting; on-site registrants are added to the end of the list.

If you cannot attend, you can still submit written comments to the School Board here:

https://webinter.lcps.org/contactschoolboard/

The livestream will be available on the LCPS website.