Dominion Energy and its failure to communicate with affected property holders about the Kraken Loop

Along with others in our community, I did not hear about the Kraken Loop project until the morning of November 10, when a friend texted my husband with a picture of the project passing through our farm. We immediately began searching for information, and discovered that Dominion Energy was attempting to act on an easement it seized through eminent domain in 1969. We’d received no communication from Dominion on the issue at all.

The November 10 Online Meeting

After learning Dominion had an online meeting scheduled in just three hours, which I listened to as I worked on restoring our farmhouse. I learned that the primary reason for the Kraken extension was to provide power to data centers in other parts of Virginia. The presenter also mentioned “hospitals” and “neighbors”, but as someone on Novec power, obviously the Kraken will deliver zero power to me. I also learned from the presenter that lines of this type had been buried in California, but that information was not expanded on.

During that meeting, the presenter seemed to reference slides that were not displayed on the mobile WebEx app. He also took a “break” to “review questions”. I tried to submit a question, but the WebEx mobile app did not have a method for doing so or the presenter had the feature turned off. The presenter answered three “questions” that he did not say came from members of the community and he did not name anyone who had asked these “questions” and then ended the call.

I was unable to ask questions, received no contact information for who to contact with questions, and could not see any of the slides the presenter seemed to be using, which only increased my confusion.

The November 12 Community Meeting

On November 12, I attended the Dominion public meeting at Stafford Courthouse. I stayed in the lobby to collect email addresses from attendees, and others from the event told me that there were no chairs set up and no presentation. Dominion had printed large format versions of the deceptive images from their website and posted them around the room, just like a children’s science fair.

Dominion told attendees that it would not hold any large group meetings where the community could ask questions and hear answers as those meetings are “not productive”. They informed attendees they would be happy to meet with individuals in their homes to answer questions, but they informed questioners there would be no county-wide meeting.

Attendees also told me that some Dominion employees told them it was impossible to bury 500kV lines, which is false. When challenged, the admitted it was possible but expensive. Information coming out of the meeting was incorrect and contradictory.

Dominion is required by the SCC to engage with the public regarding the Kraken, but it is refusing to meet with Staffordians in a group setting, did not present information publicly at the in person meeting it did hold prevented community members who did attend from hearing others questions and the answers they received, refused to do a public Q&A, did not answer all (any?) community questions in its online meeting, and information it did provide was contradictory or wrong.

The Broken Website

On or about November 18, Dominion changed the name of the project from Kraken Loop to the North Anna-Kraken Loop. This intentional change altered the URLs for Dominion’s website, which meant that all of the links that community members had shared with each other, the links to the project from newspapers, the QR code in its printed announcement letter, and all of the Google links stopped working. The only way to find the correct link was to search the Dominion website for a list of all its projects, find the area of Virginia that applied to the project, open that section, and then scroll down to find the project from an alphabetical list, which was no longer on the list as the Kraken Loop. If you didn’t keep searching, you’d not be able to find a link to the project much deeper down the list, now called the North Anna-Kraken.

Beginning November 18, numerous members of the community reached out to Dominion asking for them to correct the 404 error by adding a redirect to the new project page. I personally sent a message to their web team on November 21 and was ignored. As a web designer myself, I know that a redirect takes about 30 seconds to set up, and the effect is immediate. Dominion failed to correct the broken links until November 26, long after the public meetings were finished.

This meant that community members — especially those in Caroline County, which held its in person meeting on November 20 — could not access information on the project online at all, and those of us seeking information online could not get it from Dominion.

Dominion is required by the SCC to notify community members about the project, and it failed to keep its sources of information accessible to the public.

Failure to notify public officials

At least one Stafford County supervisor told us that he’d heard nothing about the Kraken Loop until notified by concerned members of the public. Dominion is required by the SCC to notify public officials, including the board of supervisors, about its plans to build in their jurisdictions, and it did not.

Failure to publish easements online, deceptive imaging

Although it already had all of the information on the easements it was trying to utilize, Dominion did not publish that information to GeoVoice showing exactly how the Kraken would affect us until at least November 20 — long after its meeting with affected Stafford citizens.

In addition, Dominion published artist’s rendition on its website that did not accurately represent the effect of the Kraken on home owners. Instead of showing what a 120 foot clear cut path will look like, Dominion Energy is published this image:

This image shows a cute little power pole tucked between some adorable bushes — hardly noticeable. But this is what the right of way actually looks like:

All of the area between those purple lines will be clear cut to make space for the Kraken. This homeowner will loose all of the trees separating their home from their backyard neighbors, and those neighbors will now have a straight line view directly into their neighbor’s pool.

In the case of Autumn Ridge park, Dominion published images of the parking lot and street instead of showing how the Kraken would loom over the children’s play area.

These deceptive, minimizing images are the images Dominion printed in large format and displayed on the walls at its November 2025 public meetings in Fauquier, Stafford, Louisa, and Caroline counties.

Why this matters

The SCC requires Dominion to follow these steps to get a new transmission line approved. It failed at each of the points in the “Community Outreach” section of the flow chart:

What you can do: File a complaint with the SCC today

If you

• did not receive a letter about the Kraken,
• had trouble getting information from Dominion about the Kraken,
• attended a meeting and received incorrect or confusion information,
• saw Dominion’s deceptive images at the meeting or on the website,
• clicked on a broken link, or
• are a public official who was not notified about the Kraken,

you can file a utilities complaint with the SCC online or in writing or by phone.

Dominion is required to respond to every complaint.

We need Dominion to SLOW DOWN, provide us with ACCURATE INFORMATION, and RESPOND QUICKLY when notified of communication issues. They have not done so, and now we must reach out to the SCC (State Corporation Commission) to work on our behalf.

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jenny

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