Carbon Footprint of Northern Virginia

Loudoun County—followed by Prince William County—has undermined the climate progress made by the rest of Northern Virginia. MWCOG’s Mid-Course Review shows that most neighboring jurisdictions reduced greenhouse-gas emissions between 2005 and 2023, while emissions rose sharply in the two counties that approved the region’s largest concentrations of hyperscale data centers. The operating facilities already built, together with the enormous additional load in the development pipeline, are not merely local land-use decisions: they are reshaping electricity demand across Virginia and the wider PJM grid. Unless that growth is constrained or matched with additional carbon-free generation, storage, transmission, and enforceable clean-energy requirements, Virginia cannot remain on the decarbonization trajectory established by the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), and PJM’s transition away from fossil generation will be delayed.

Two Counties Reversed the Regional Climate Trend

From 2005 to 2023, Arlington and Fairfax counties cut gross emissions by 33% and 27%, respectively. Those gains were offset by Prince William County’s 19% increase and, above all, Loudoun County’s extraordinary 130% increase. Net emissions rose even faster in Loudoun and Prince William because development also removed forests and other carbon-sequestering land. The result is a stark regional inequity: communities that reduced energy use and emissions are seeing their progress eroded by data-center approvals concentrated in two Northern Virginia jurisdictions.

Loudoun County Created the Region’s Largest Carbon Load

Loudoun County is the principal source of the regional divergence. Its transformation into the world’s largest data-center market drove a 130% increase in gross emissions and a 145% increase in net emissions from 2005 to 2023, despite the region’s adopted climate targets. Loudoun’s land-use approvals converted what had been a manageable regional emissions-reduction challenge into a rapidly expanding electricity-demand problem that reaches far beyond the county’s borders.

·         Local approvals produced a permanent industrial load: The pandemic temporarily reduced transportation and office emissions, but data centers operate continuously. Loudoun’s community-wide emissions had already risen 54% by 2020 compared with 2005; by 2023, the accelerating data-center buildout had pushed the gross increase to 130%. This was not a short-lived post-COVID rebound. It was the predictable result of approving a new class of round-the-clock industrial electricity demand.

• Sector Concentrations: Because MWCOG applies a location-based electricity emissions factor, the electricity consumed inside the county maps directly to Loudoun’s inventory. Commercial grid electricity consumption within the Built Environment sector constitutes the vast majority of Loudoun's footprint, outstripping the combined emissions of the residential and transportation sectors.
• Carbon Sequestration Deficit: In 2020, Loudoun's forest canopy sequestered 430,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent, offsetting roughly 7% of total emissions. However, ongoing land grading and industrial expansions have driven the county’s net emissions increase (+145%) higher than its gross increase (+130%), highlighting the loss of natural carbon sinks of the tree canopy.

Prince William County Copied Loudoun’s Example

Prince William County then followed Loudoun’s development model, approving major data-center corridors and adding another rapidly growing block of continuous industrial demand. This all took place right after the PWBOCS voted to approve climate goals for the County. By 2023, the county’s gross emissions were 19% above the 2005 baseline and net emissions were 22% higher. Instead of helping counterbalance Loudoun’s extraordinary increase, Prince William compounded it—further weakening the region’s ability to meet its collective climate commitments.

• The Multi-Year Trajectory: PWC's community-wide emissions grew from 4.16 million metric tons of CO2  equivalent in 2005 to 4.96 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent in 2018—a 19% increase prior to the pandemic. While per-capita emissions initially dropped 10% due to rapid population growth outstripping emissions pacing (+32% population vs +19% emissions), the post-lockdown industrial expansion stabilized the footprint at a persistent 19% gross and 22% net increase by 2023. Since that time data centers continued to come on line.
• Sector Breakdown Trends: Historically, PWC’s emissions were led by energy consumption (residential and commercial) at 54% and transportation at 38%. Post-lockdown data shows commercial grid consumption increasing its share of the pie, driven by the expansion of data center corridors along Route 234 and the Innovation Park tech zone.
• Canopy Degradation: PWC’s forest canopy provides net sequestration of more than 368,000 million tons of CO2 equivalent annually. Similar to Loudoun, massive land-use changes for new industrial campuses and right-of-way transmission lines have widened the gap between gross (+19%) and net (+22%) emission baselines.

The Consequence: Virginia and PJM Cannot Decarbonize on Schedule Under the Current Load-Growth Path

The consequences now extend well beyond county boundaries. The VCEA requires Dominion Energy to move toward 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045, but the data centers already operating—and the much larger pipeline under construction or approved in Loudoun and Prince William—are causing electricity demand to grow faster than clean generation and transmission can be added. Under that trajectory, new renewable resources must first chase new data-center load rather than displace existing fossil generation. The practical effect is to postpone coal and gas retirements, increase pressure for new gas-fired resources and imports, and make the statutory VCEA timetable increasingly difficult if impossible to achieve.

1.      Virginia’s problem becomes PJM’s problem: Dominion is part of the multi-state PJM system. When Northern Virginia’s continuous data-center load exceeds the pace at which Virginia can add carbon-free supply, PJM must commit additional generation somewhere in the regional fleet. Because marginal and reliability resources remain heavily dependent on natural gas and coal, local approvals in Loudoun and Prince William can prolong fossil generation and associated transmission investments across multiple states.

The approved pipeline locks in the conflict: This is no longer a question of whether individual facilities can purchase renewable-energy credits or claim annual clean-energy matching. The grid must supply these campuses every hour of every day. Unless data-center growth is tied to deliverable, additional, round-the-clock carbon-free power—and unless projects can be curtailed when that supply is unavailable—the approved pipeline will keep raising the amount of generation PJM must serve before it can retire fossil resources. On the present path, Loudoun and Prince William Board of County Supervisors have placed both Virginia’s VCEA schedule and PJM-wide decarbonization out of reach without major policy intervention.

EO 22 Changes the Conversation—Not Virginia’s Data Center Trajectory

Bottom line: Executive Order 22 marks an important change in how Virginia talks about data centers. For the first time, the Commonwealth formally acknowledges that rapid growth imposes statewide costs on the electric grid, water resources, communities, ratepayers, and the environment. But the order does not stop, cap, or materially slow development already in the pipeline. It changes the policy framework—not the trajectory.

 What EO 22 Changes Now

• EO 22 shifts Virginia away from unqualified promotion of data centers and toward greater transparency, coordination, and accountability. Its principal immediate actions are to:
• end most state-agency nondisclosure agreements that conceal project incentives, resource demands, and community impacts;
• withdraw certain discretionary state assistance, expedited permitting, and site-readiness support from new projects of 25 megawatts or more;
• centralize state data center policy under the Office of the Chief Energy Officer; and
• direct agencies to study noise, backup generation, water use, emissions, grid reliability, cost allocation, workforce benefits, and community protections.

What EO 22 Does Not Change

EO 22 is not a moratorium and contains no statewide limit on data center capacity, square footage, or power demand. It does not revoke entitlements, cancel approved site plans, rescind vested rights, prevent local approvals, or direct Dominion Energy or PJM to deny service to entitled projects. Losing state assistance may add cost or delay, but it is unlikely to deter a hyperscale developer from a Northern Virginia site that already has zoning approval, fiber access, and a path to power.
Why the Approved Pipeline Matters

Loudoun County reports 233 data center buildings built or under construction,  and covering more than 56 million square feet, another 35.7 million square feet approved but not yet built—potentially about 115 additional buildings—and 20.7 million square feet still under review. Not every approved project will be constructed, but the pipeline is large enough to sustain years of construction, substations, transmission lines, generators, and additional water and power demand even if new approvals slowed sharply.

Prince William County has also accumulated substantial approved and pending capacity. Its September 2026 zoning amendment limits future expansion of the Data Center Opportunity Zone, but it preserves several pathways for properties and projects already in the development process. The amendment narrows future growth without eliminating the existing pipeline, and landowners have a deadline of December 21, 2026, to finalize their by-right status before it is eliminated. Other than the thousands of acres still in the overlay district, Prince William County has as of October 2026 :  64 completed data centers, 25 projects under construction,  53 approved awaiting groundbreaking, and 15 active land-use applications currently under staff and agency review. The completed data centers account for 13.4 million square feet and currently under construction are an additional 8 million square feet. 

A Policy Pivot, Not Yet a Growth-Control Policy

Virginia has actively recruited data centers since 2009 through tax incentives, economic-development assistance, and permissive local land-use policies. EO 22 breaks with the assumption that growth should be encouraged without first accounting for cumulative costs. That is a political and administrative shift.

Yet most of the order’s stronger provisions remain studies, planning tools, voluntary standards, agency recommendations, or proposals for future legislation. Transparency and coordination can improve decision-making, but they do not themselves constrain development. The order may affect projects not yet entitled; it is unlikely to produce a visible near-term decline in construction in Loudoun or Prince William.

What Would Bend the Curve

EO 22 will become a true growth-control policy only if it leads to enforceable measures: mandatory discretionary review of large facilities; cumulative regional impact analysis; binding limits tied to available power, water, air-quality, and watershed capacity; full assignment of infrastructure costs to the projects that cause them; authority to defer new utility connections where capacity is inadequate; tighter local zoning; limits on extensions or expansions under old entitlements; and reconsideration of tax incentives that continue to encourage growth.

Conclusion: EO 22 changes Virginia’s conversation by recognizing that data center growth carries statewide costs and requires statewide oversight. But the approved and entitled pipeline will continue to drive construction for years. Unless the order is followed by binding legislation, regulation, utility decisions, and stronger local land-use controls, Virginia will have changed its posture without changing its path.

Are Electric Vehicles Always Better for the Planet?

J. Elliott Campbell, Roland Geyer, The climate benefits of retiring a fully operational internal combustion engine vehicle.Science393,591-595(2026).DOI:10.1126/science.adv5441

Idris M, Garniwa I, Soesilo TE, Utomo SW, Asyari MZ. Environmental impacts of internal combustion engine vs electric vehicle: Life-cycle assessment review. International Journal of Technology. 2025 May 1;16(3):882-913.

Recent research by J. Elliott Campbell and Roland Geyer examines the climate consequences of retiring a fully operational internal-combustion-engine vehicle and replacing it with an electric vehicle. Their life-cycle analysis concludes that the greenhouse-gas benefits of switching can begin on the first day of the gasoline vehicle’s life. Even when a conventional vehicle is retired relatively early, the avoided operating emissions generally outweigh the emissions associated with producing the replacement EV. Cost, accessibility, driving needs, and other practical considerations still shape individual decisions, but from a climate perspective, the study finds that it is almost never too soon to switch. The full article is linked above.

That climate advantage, however, is not the whole environmental story. My husband remains concerned about batteries, which is one reason I still do not own an EV.

A comprehensive life-cycle assessment (LCA) reveals a genuine trade-off: EVs usually perform far better on greenhouse-gas emissions, especially during use, but their batteries can impose heavier burdens during mineral extraction, refining, and manufacturing. The result is not a simple contest between a “clean” vehicle and a “dirty” one. It is a comparison of impacts that occur in different places, at different times, and through different environmental pathways.

Raw Materials and Manufacturing
This first stage creates the sharpest contrast between the two vehicle types. Manufacturing an EV—particularly its battery—generally requires more energy and a broader range of minerals than manufacturing a conventional vehicle. Those upstream impacts are concentrated near mines, refineries, processing facilities, and battery plants rather than along the road where the vehicle is driven.

The Battery Footprint
Lithium extraction from brines can consume or displace large volumes of water in arid regions, while hard-rock mining requires crushing, concentration, and chemical processing. Nickel and cobalt production can also generate acidic, metal-laden tailings. Without strong controls, these wastes can threaten nearby soils, surface waters, and groundwater.

Battery production also adds substantial factory energy demand. The environmental cost varies with battery size, chemistry, manufacturing efficiency, and the electricity mix used throughout the supply chain.

Driving and Energy Use
Once the vehicles are on the road, the comparison shifts. A gasoline vehicle continues to burn fuel and emit carbon dioxide throughout its operating life. An EV has no tailpipe emissions, but its indirect emissions depend on how the electricity used for charging is generated.

Carbon payback: The cleaner the grid and the more efficiently the EV is driven, the faster it offsets the additional emissions from battery manufacturing. Even on a relatively fossil-fuel-heavy grid, an EV can achieve lower lifetime climate emissions; on a renewable-heavy grid, the advantage grows substantially.

 Non-exhaust particulate pollution: EVs eliminate tailpipe pollution, but their greater weight can increase tire wear. Regenerative braking may reduce conventional brake wear, so the net particulate effect depends on vehicle weight, tire design, driving conditions, and braking technology.

End of Life: Disposal, Reuse, and Recycling

A mature conventional-vehicle system:   Steel, iron, aluminum, and many other components from internal-combustion vehicles already flow through established recycling markets.

An emerging battery-recycling system: EV batteries may be reused for stationary storage before recycling. Modern processes can recover high shares of valuable materials, but collection systems, processing capacity, economics, and environmental controls are still developing. Poorly managed or damaged batteries can create fire and contamination risks.

So, Should I Replace My Car?

This research complicates the decision to keep or replace my 12-year-old vehicle. It has fewer than 54,000 miles, runs well, and avoiding unnecessary consumption matters to me. Yet, if the question is strictly which choice produces fewer future greenhouse-gas emissions, the evidence favors switching to an EV—even before an older gasoline vehicle reaches the end of its mechanical life.

The broader lesson is that “better for the planet” depends on which impacts we count. EVs offer a powerful climate advantage, but that advantage should not excuse the environmental costs of mining, water use, industrial waste, and battery production. The best path is not simply more EVs; it is cleaner electricity, smaller and longer-lasting vehicles, responsible mineral sourcing, effective battery reuse and recycling, and fewer unnecessary miles driven. My husband and I will probably continue debating batteries and self-driving technology and delay purchasing a new vehicle for a while longer. Meanwhile, I am encouraged by the next generation of higher-output solar panels now entering production, because cleaner electricity makes every EV mile more beneficial.

The Hidden Ledger of Northern Virginia's Data Center Boom

According to the latest promotional inserts from Virginia Connects, data center revenues have allowed the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors this io drop the nominal tax rate (while the property value has continued to climb) to the lowest in the region while increasing the size of the county government. This organization is a promotional partnership formed by major tech giants (including Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and CloudHQ) alongside local chambers of commerce, real estate developers, and labor unions. But this is not money without consequences. The cloud is not ephemeral. It is made of concrete, steel, copper, and industrial backup generators. It is a sprawling physical footprint of windowless server halls, roaring cooling towers, and high-voltage electrical substations cutting across the countryside.

Northern Virginia claims itself as the global capital of digital infrastructure. To local county governments, data centers are an unprecedented financial engine; to local communities, they represent a severe ecological and economic crisis. To understand the true cost of our digital society, we must look past our glowing screens and balance a heavy ledger: the localized tax windfalls versus the physical, environmental, and financial costs exported across our region.

 The Local Promise: Municipal Windfalls and Reduced Tax Rates

There is no denying the immediate municipal benefits the data center industry has brought to counties like Loudoun and Prince William67. The personal property taxes assessed on high-value computer servers have flooded local municipal coffers, allowing supervisors to fund state-of-the-art public schools, expand libraries, build parks, and support public services—all while lowering residential real estate tax rates.

Furthermore, data center construction has generated thousands of high-paying trade jobs in grading, structural steel, and electrical engineering, driving over $24 billion in corporate capital investment in Virginia in FY23 alone67. Once operational, however, these massive industrial campuses require minimal permanent staffing, averaging just 28 direct permanent jobs per facility.

While the first 25 to 50 data centers operated as good corporate citizens within existing utility capacity, hyper-scale expansion has crossed a critical marginal cost inflection point3more_horiz. The cost of building new, capital-intensive infrastructure to feed this exponential growth now far eclipses any cost-sharing benefits, shifting immense costs onto everyday residents.

 Hidden Cost #1: Regressive Electricity Rates and Socialized Transmission

Data centers demand a continuous, flat, 24/7 electrical load910. Meeting this non-stop demand has forced local utilities like Dominion Energy to double down on expensive spot-market power purchases (jumping from 14% to 23%), driving utility fuel expenses up 88% over five years to $4.35 billion—a cost passed 100% directly to residential consumers.

Surging demand also triggered severe capacity shortfalls across the 13-state PJM regional grid, causing wholesale capacity prices to spike by over 1,000% since 20241314. In the July 2026 capacity auction, data centers accounted for $6.3 billion (38%) of the total $16.4 billion procurement cost.

To move this power, grid operators approved a $11.8 billion regional transmission expansion, adding to the $2.8 billion Virginia ratepayers have already paid for data-center-driven lines since 2021. Under PJM cost-allocation rules, 50% of the cost for extra-high-voltage (500kV+) lines (like the 115-mile Valley Link line) is socialized across the entire 13-state footprint. Consequently, everyday Virginia households are seeing actual residential electricity rates surge to 17.22¢/kWh—a 43.5% increase over a flat-demand baseline of ~12.0¢/kWh—with average monthly household bills projected to reach $195.

Hidden Cost #2: Water Depletion, Impervious Sprawl, and Reservoir Threats

Cooling high-density AI servers requires millions of gallons of water20more_horiz. A single hyperscale facility can consume 450,000 to 5 million gallons per day, with evaporative cooling systems permanently evaporating over 50% of that public water rather than returning it to local systems20more_horiz. Regional water experts warn that data center water draw from the Potomac River Basin is projected to grow from 8% to 25% by 2035 and could exceed 33% by 2050 during dry summer droughts22more_horiz. In rural areas, heavy pumping drops water tables in fractured-rock aquifers, causing private wells to fail25more_horiz.

Data from ICPRB forecast

When mature forests (which naturally absorb 90%–100% of rainfall) are clear-cut and covered with concrete, 80% of rainfall is instantly converted into high-velocity stormwater runoff27more_horiz. Standard stormwater ponds fail to restore natural hydrology or recharge aquifers3132. Instead, this rapid runoff causes flash flooding, stream erosion, and washes massive loads of construction silt directly into major drinking water sources, including the Occoquan Reservoir (which supplies drinking water to 1 million Northern Virginia residents)2930. To build larger intake pipes, storage facilities, and treatment plants, municipal water authorities issue bonds repaid through higher local water rates levied on residents.

 Hidden Cost #3: Toxic Diesel Pollution and Derailed Clean Energy Goals

Because wind and solar are intermittent and cannot supply 24/7 flat baseline power, utilities are delaying fossil fuel plant retirements and planning 8 GW of new natural gas generation, directly derailing state clean energy targets like the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA).

To avoid server downtime during grid strain, data center campuses house arrays of 250 to 300 industrial diesel generators per site. State guidance allows facilities to operate these engines during non-emergency "grid stress events"39. Activating these generators simultaneously in "Data Center Alley" during a multi-day emergency could release 9,000 tons of nitrogen oxides —representing roughly half of Northern Virginia's entire annual air emissions budget.

These health risks were highlighted when the Virginia DEQ issued a record $2.5 million fine against Microsoft after its Leesburg facility ran 62 backup engines for 168 hours following a substation failure, burning 1.2 million gallons of fuel and emitting over 102 tons of NOx and fine particulate matter directly downwind of neighborhoods and schools.

 Hidden Cost #4: Visual Blight and Industrial Noise

The physical footprint of these "internet factories" permanently alters the landscape. Sprawling, windowless concrete-and-steel structures surrounded by heavy security fencing replace farmland and rural buffers, creating a stark, prison-like industrial aesthetic.

The surrounding countryside is increasingly bisected by towering 500-kV and 765-kV steel transmission towers and substations cutting across rural communities that receive zero municipal tax benefits910. Meanwhile, neighboring homeowners endure persistent, low-frequency hums from cooling towers and generator testing. 

Loudoun County Tax Promise	Exported Regional & Community Reality
Lower Real Estate Tax Rates: High-value server personal property taxes fund municipal coffers.	Higher Electricity Bills: Residential rates up 43.5% (17.22¢/kWh) to subsidize grid buildouts and spot gas.
Expanded Public Services: State-of-the-art schools, libraries, and parks.	Water Rate Hikes & Infrastructure Debt: Municipal utility debt to build larger treatment/intake capacity.
Short-Term Construction Jobs: Generates high-paying trade jobs during buildout.	Watershed & Aquifer Failure: Evaporates millions of gallons daily; runoff silts drinking reservoirs for 1M residents.
Corporate Investment Capital: Exceeded $24 billion in FY23 alone.	Toxic Air & Visual Blight: 9,000 tons of {NO} generator capacity, concrete campuses, and high-voltage towers.

Recognizing the heavy physical ledger of the data center boom is not about opposing technology—it is about recognizing that Northern Virginia has reached its physical limits4546. To protect shared public resources, state and local leaders must pause unconstrained approvals and force data center developers to cover their full capital and environmental costs.

Virginia’s Infrastructure Report Card

 Excerpted from a ASCE press release and the undying full report:

The Virginia section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released the 2026 Report Card for Virginia’s Infrastructure today, assigning the Commonwealth’s infrastructure a grade of ‘C’. That grade is unchanged from the 2022 Virginia report card and matches the grade on ASCE’s 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. A ‘C’ grade means Virginia’s infrastructure is in mediocre condition and requires attention. The report covers 13 categories of infrastructure: bridges, broadband, dams, drinking water, energy, public parks, rail, roads, schools, solid waste, stormwater, transit, and wastewater.  

Four infrastructure categories (bridges, rail, roads, solid waste, and stormwater) saw grades increase, while only two categories (dams and schools) saw grades drop compared to the 2022 report card. Additionally, 11 of the 13 infrastructure categories received an equal or higher grade than their national counterparts. Only Virginia’s energy and rail infrastructure had grades lower than the national category grades.  

The report finds that infrastructure systems that have received consistent, reliable, dedicated funding sources are showing steady improvement and are seeing additional benefits from short-term investment programs like the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). However, with funding from the IIJA expiring in September, future improvements are in jeopardy if investment reverts to pre IIJA levels. Additionally, the report card found infrastructure sectors where funding has been inconsistent are not improving and face challenges in the future.  

“Infrastructure investment works and leads to better economic outcomes for Virginia families and businesses,” said John Harman, P.E., Chair of the 2026 Report Card for Virginia’s Infrastructure. “This report card reveals the consequences of decades of underinvestment, along with the improvements Virginians are seeing because of recent investment by federal, state, and local leaders. Safe, reliable, modern infrastructure is key to attracting people, businesses, and jobs to the Commonwealth.”   

This is the first time ASCE has released a grade for Virginia’s energy, which came in at a ‘D’, lower than the national energy grade of ‘D+’. Energy use in Virginia is forecast to double by the year 2039, in large part because of data centers and other facilities with high energy demands. Virginia’s electric infrastructure faces a looming capacity crisis; the Commonwealth is the nation’s largest importer of out-of-state electricity with 36% of energy consumed in Virginia generated in other states. Additionally, 56% of electricity consumed in the state is for commercial use, compared to 35% nationally. While energy providers have ambitious plans to build new modern energy generation, transmission, and distribution facilities, demand is forecast to grow much faster than current expansion plans. 

Bridges is one of two categories to receive a ‘B+’ on the 2026 report card, an increase from a ‘B’ in 2022.  Only 3.1% of the state’s more than 13,000 bridges are in poor condition, which is substantially lower than the national average of 6.8%. While there has been progress to keep bridges in good or fair condition, many of the state’s bridges are near or approaching the end of their design life. The report card found 58% of bridges are more than 50 years old. Additionally, the number of bridges and culverts that have weight restrictions grew between 2021 and 2025, with 1,443 posted for weight restrictions in 2025, compared to 1,116 in 2021.  

Roads in Virginia improved to a ‘C’ on the 2026 report card, up from a ‘C-’ in 2022. The state’s busiest highways are well maintained, with 91% of interstate highways and 82% of high-volume primary roads in fair, good, or excellent condition. High volume secondary roads also saw substantial improvements over the last few years, with 82% in fair or better condition in 2024, compared with 60% in 2020. Despite this progress, there are still 40,000 lane miles of highway in Virginia in poor or worse conditions, primarily on roads with lower traffic volume. Traffic volume across Virginia has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, and urban commuters lose approximately 39 hours of productivity per year due to traffic congestion.  

Virginia’s water infrastructure received higher grades than the national report card. Drinking water received a ‘C+’, compared to the national ‘C-’ grade, and the state’s stormwater grade of ‘C’ is a whole letter grade higher than the national average of ‘D’. While these systems are performing better than their national counterparts, funding sources for water infrastructure are not keeping up with demand, and many drinking water lines installed decades ago need rehabilitation or replacement. The state has more than $30 billion in stormwater infrastructure needs, driven by growth, flooding concerns, and climate adaptation needs due to increasing severe weather events and tidal flooding in coastal areas. 

Two million residents, or 22% of Virginia’s population, rely on well water. There has not been a significant increase in the number of applications for new wells since 2020 remaining at 10-11 thousand per year. Nine to twelve percent of the total wells constructed each year are to replace an existing water supply well. While Virginia’s largest water provider is Fairfax Water, provids170 million gallons of water per day (MGD) to over 2.2 million people. The plant capacity is 345 MGD. What is not distributed by Fairfax Water is sold to other water authorities including Prince William Water and several city systems.

Virginia’s dam system includes about 2,712 dams, most of them small and privately owned. A substantial share of dams lacks clear documentation, including missing ownership, purpose, hazard classification, and condition, which makes it harder to manage risk, understand accountability, and prioritize maintenance.

The report card includes five recommendations to raise Virginia’s infrastructure grade, they include:  

• Investment: Increased investment is needed to meet growing demands driven by population growth and more intense storm events. Targeted funding will help ensure infrastructure can continue to operate safely and reliably under increasing stress. 
• Resilience: Recent storms have demonstrated Virginia’s resilience while highlighting the need for the state to prepare for future events, including updating emergency action plans for all departments and municipalities.
• Safety: Strengthening dam inspection programs and adopting comprehensive roadway safety strategies will be essential to reducing risks and improving public safety statewide. Additional funding for dam inspection programs and repair programs is essential.
• Capacity: Added capacity for aging water-related infrastructure is critical, especially as population growth continues. Many systems are past their design life cycle and need upgrades, which will help to address water quality, flooding, and erosion concerns. Source water protection becomes more important.
• Technology: Relying on improving technologies such as green infrastructure and artificial intelligence (AI) will help to stretch limited funding and ensure investments are made efficiently.

The report card is a public service to inform citizens and policymakers about the infrastructure needs in Virginia. Civil engineers use their to condense complicated data into an easy-to-understand analysis of Virginia’s infrastructure network. ASCE state report cards are modeled after the Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, which is released once every four years. 

 

Will there be Health Impacts from Data Center Driven Transmission Lines

Having been at a couple of public meetings where people voiced significant concerns about living so near high voltage transmissions lines. I decided to take a look at the various studied. I found that the potential health impacts of living near high-voltage transmission lines remain one of the most heavily studied yet highly debated topics in public health. High-voltage lines emit extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMFs). The scientific consensus from major global health organizations that includes the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Cancer Institute—is that there is no conclusive evidence proving that low-level EMFs from power lines cause adverse health effects. 

However, because science cannot definitively "prove a negative," does not mean it has no impact. There are specific areas of uncertainty and debate persist within the scientific community:

1. The Childhood Leukemia Debate

The primary source of ongoing caution stems from statistical population studies.

• The "Possible" Classification: The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) (a branch of the WHO) classifies ELF magnetic fields as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" (Group 2B).
• The Statistical Link: This classification was triggered by a persistent, tough weak statistical association showing a roughly 50% increase in childhood leukemia rates for children living very close to high-voltage lines (typically within 50 to 200 meters) where magnetic field exposure chronically exceeded 0.3 to 0.4 microtesla (3 to 4 milligauss).
• The Caveat: Controlled laboratory and animal studies have consistently failed to find a biological mechanism showing how these low-energy, non-ionizing waves could actually mutate DNA or cause cancer. Many scientists suspect the statistical link could be due to other uncontrolled factors.

2. Emerging Areas of Research (Neurological & Cellular)

While federal health agencies maintain that general exposure is safe, independent environmental health groups highlight recent, peer-reviewed epidemiology indicating other potential risks from chronic, long-term exposure:

• Dementia and Alzheimer's: Some recent epidemiological studies have noted a higher statistical correlation between long-term, high-exposure proximity to power line fields and an increased risk of degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's disease.
• Cellular Stress: A branch of biophysical research suggests that chronic exposure to strong magnetic fields might induce low-level oxidative stress or disrupt cellular melatonin production, though this is not universally accepted as a proven clinical outcome. 
• The Continuous Exposure Divide: Unlike workplace environments where workers experience high-level but temporary EMF exposure, residential proximity is unceasing. This creates distinct neurological concerns regarding chronic sleep architecture disruption and sustained stress markers.
• The Nocebo Effect and Somatic Distress: In public health, the fear of an environmental hazard can cause as much physical illness as a biological toxin. The psychological burden of looking at a 150-foot steel tower, paired with hearing the low-frequency acoustic hum that high-voltage lines emit during humid Virginia summers, creates a state of constant autonomic nervous system arousal. This anxiety frequently manifests as very real somatic symptoms—such as tension headaches, chronic fatigue, and insomnia—independent of whether physical radiation is penetrating the home.

3. Confirmed Short-Term Secondary Effects

Beyond radiation concerns, high-voltage lines (particularly massive 500-kV and 765-kV lines) carry verified physical side effects:

• Audible Noise Pollution: The continuous electrical ionization of surrounding air (known as corona discharge) produces a constant humming or crackling noise, particularly in humid, rainy, or foggy weather. Chronic exposure to industrial hums can disrupt sleep and increase stress.
• Micro-Shocks: Walking directly underneath massive lines while touching ungrounded metal objects (like a metal ladder, fence, or vehicle) can cause a harmless but startling static electric zap due to induced voltage.

 4. How Distance Changes Exposure

The physics of EMFs provide a built-in safety shield: magnetic field strength drops off drastically with distance.

• Directly beneath a 500-kV transmission line, magnetic fields can measure up to 100 milligauss.
• Moving just 200 to 300 feet away causes the field strength to plummet rapidly, usually falling back into the ambient background levels (1 to 2 milligauss) routinely emitted by standard household appliances like microwaves, blenders, and hair dryers. 

So, we really do not know. I personally, go with the cautious group and prefer not to live within a distance that I can see or hear the power lines. 

Who Pays When Northern Virginia Data Centers Need More Power?

Northern Virginia’s data center boom is forcing Dominion Energy and regional grid operators to plan tens of gigawatts of new electricity supply and hundreds of miles of ultra-high-voltage transmission corridors. The burden does not stop at the data center campuses: new lines will cut across rural counties, farms, historic landscapes, and residential backyards, leaving many communities to absorb the disruption without sharing in the tax benefits.

The resulting infrastructure expansion has triggered widespread pushback over cost allocation, private property takings, and degraded viewsheds. Public unease with data centers and AI is growing because the promised local tax windfalls are concentrated in a few counties, while the transmission corridors, condemnation fights, and ratepayer risks are spread across a much larger region. The costs are becoming increasingly apparent to all while the benefits seem to be concentrated among the few.

The core conflict is not whether Northern Virginia needs more electricity. It is whether the communities enabling that growth—through land, viewsheds, eminent-domain risk, and higher utility bills—should bear costs created primarily by data center expansion elsewhere.

The Power Demand Driving the Grid Buildout

Dominion Energy's contracted queue for large data center loads stands at over 45 to 50 Gigawatts (GW) across Virginia. By comparison, Dominion’s entire legacy peak summer customer demand historically sat near 25 GW.

Loudoun County’s data centers currently consume roughly 6 GW and are projected to reach 10 to 12 GW at full buildout. Neighboring Prince William County is planning for an additional 5 to 7.2 GW across projects. There are proposals for other data center campuses in the county on hundreds of acres that are still scheduled to come before the county board of supervisors.

While Prince William's total approved capacity (~7.2 GW) does not technically exceed Loudoun’s ultimate ceiling (~12.3 GW) following the deaths of Digital Gateway and Dulles Cloud South, the velocity and localized concentration of Prince William's approved pipeline create an infrastructure bottleneck that is in many ways more severe than Loudoun’s.  

Loudoun County's data centers grew incrementally over 25 years alongside pre-existing high-voltage paths near Dulles Airport. Prince William’s 5-7.2 GW pipeline is trying to scale up over a compressed timeframe in areas completely lacking the heavy transmission infrastructure required to feed it.

Like Loudoun, Prince William is moving to eliminate "by-right" data center zoning overlays, but they cannot retroactively cancel projects that already hold site-plan approvals. Massive industrial parks in Innovation Park, Bristow, and along Route 234 are already locked into the grid queue. Because both counties are trying to double their power requirements simultaneously, the regional grid operator, PJM, is facing an absolute power crunch.

The localized demand requires importing power from hundreds of miles away, turning rural pass-through counties into utility transmission highways. These pass-through counties get the ugly and a portion of the bill without receiving any of the taxes. Powering this queue requires capacity roughly equivalent to dozens of new nuclear reactors or large natural-gas generation complexes, forcing the grid to import bulk power from western coal and nuclear generation across the Appalachian and Piedmont regions.

 Miles of Lines and Tower

To import bulk electricity from external generators into the Northern Virginia bottleneck, regional grid operator PJM and Dominion Energy have proposed construction on hundreds of miles of new and rebuilt transmission lines. 

Over 500 miles of high-voltage transmission projects are planned, including:

• Valley Link (Joshua Falls to Yeat): A roughly 115-mile, $1 billion mega-project originating near Lynchburg (Campbell County) and running north to Culpeper County.
• Valley North & Regional Ties: Upwards of 250 to 400 miles of regional ties planned across northwest Virginia and West Virginia.
• Morrisville to Wishing Star: A 36.5-mile line linking southern Fauquier County, through Prince William, directly into Loudoun’s Ashburn/Arcola cluster.
• Intra-County Connectors: Shorter 5-to-15-mile high-voltage segments, such as the contentious Golden-to-Mars line in eastern Loudoun. 

 Line Types and Voltage:

• 765 kV Lines: Operating at the highest commercial transmission voltage in North America, these massive bulk lines act as an "interstate electric superhighway".
• 500 kV & 230 kV Lines: Heavy-duty feeder corridors designed to distribute power from regional hubs straight into individual data center clusters.

The physical profile of these high voltage lines have alienated all the passthrough counties and even the neighbors of the data centers who are benefiting from the tax windfall.

Physical Profile:

• Structures stand between 110 and 185 feet tall (the Statue of Liberty stands at about 150 feet- and this is hundreds of miles of these).
• Galvanized steel lattice towers or massive engineered monopoles.
• Cleared swaths cut between 100 to 200 feet wide, requiring clear-cutting of timber and complete removal of permanent structures like community amenities and woodlands.

Counties Traversed and Whose Land Is Impacted

The transmission corridors cut across several rural and suburban counties that house little or no data center infrastructure. Nobody signed up for what this impact will be:

• Campbell, Amherst, Nelson, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Buckingham, Lousia, Orange, Culpeper, Spotsylvania, Fauquier, Rappahannock, Clark and Frederick will all have these power high voltage power lines traversing through them.
• In eastern Loudoun and western Prince William, Dominion is relying on eminent domain and condemnation to expand corridors, resulting in 185-foot towers installed within tens of feet of residential homes and taking up to one-third of individual suburban yards (e.g., in Loudoun Valley Estates where homeowners are concerned about their property values and quality of life).
• In Central Virginia and the Piedmont, routes cross generational family farms, vineyards, conservation easements, and historic Civil War battlefields, converting all this rural acreage into utility corridors. 

Who Pays: Cost Allocation vs. Local Ratepayer Burden

Historically, transmission and grid expansion costs were bundled into Dominion's general rate base, meaning all residential and small-business customers across Virginia paid for them via monthly transmission riders:

Regulators warned that without reforms, typical residential utility bills could increase by double digits over the decade to service hundreds of billions in capital grid upgrades. Counties outside Loudoun and Prince William do not receive the computer-equipment tax windfalls that fund Loudoun’s municipal budget and lower its local real estate taxes. Instead, these pass-through counties face only a loosing equation: 

• Permanent visual degradation across their scenic viewsheds.
• Loss of taxable agricultural or residential land value within transmission paths.
• Electricity transmission riders added to their monthly electric bills to maintain the grid.

Following fierce advocacy from rural coalitions (like the Piedmont Environmental Council and the Coalition to Protect Prince William County) there has been a regulatory shift and a directive from state leadership. The Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) issued an order mandating that Dominion directly assign the full capital cost of transmission lines and substations built exclusively to serve large data centers directly to those data center operators, rather than spreading those specific costs onto ordinary residential ratepayers.

This mandate does leave a loophole. The SCC’s direct-assignment mandate strictly applies to lines exclusively built for specific facilities. High-level, multi-billion-dollar regional bulk lines (like the 765 kV Valley Link project) are often classified as "regional grid reliability" projects by PJM, leaving a substantial portion of the broader interstate transmission cost still subject to regional ratepayer cost-sharing.

Dominion explicitly projects $7.59 billion in dedicated electric transmission lines slated to come online through 2031. According to filings with the SCC  68% of that $7.59 billion—roughly $5.16 billion—is driven exclusively or concurrently by data center growth. If the full queue of 70,000 Megawatts of data center demand comes online, Dominion estimates it will need to build an additional 230 localized substations costing between $6 billion and $12 billion. Electricity is about to get a lot more expensive in Virginia.