If the North Anna – Kraken Loop can not be moved, Towering Concerns will work with Dominion to mitigate the negative effects of the project.
Proposals
- Burying the lines for some or all of the route
- A landowner’s fund to replace cut greenery and provide a protective green screen to affected homes and schools that will mitigate noise and exposure to EMF radiation
- Working with the community to place poles in less obtrusive locations
- Painting the poles so they are less noticeable in the skyline
- Creating signage to commemorate historic areas affected by the project
- Creating wildlife habitats along the route within the easement
More reading
Yes. In 2013 the city of Chino Hills, California, stopped construction on 500 kV lines in their city, forced already placed poles to be removed, and after a six year fight got a ruling from the California Public Utilities requiring the 500 kV line to be buried in their city.
Read more about this in our forum post on the history of the Chino Hills, CA, 500 kV undergrounding project.
We don’t know for sure, but we do know the California Utility company, Edison, project vastly overestimated the cost of undergrounding the Chino Hills power line. They estimated “undergrounding a single line at a cost of $300 million to $473 million, undergrounding a double-circuit line at a cost from $703 million to $1 billion.” When the California Public Utilities Commission published its study, it estimated the actual undergrounding cost to be $224 million dollars.
Read more details in our forum post “How much does it actalluy cost to bury a 500 kV power line?“
It’s unclear. Dominion Energy customers in Virginia are already seeing cost increases due to power construction for data center demand. However, in January 2025 the Trump administration has expressed a desire that PJM force data centers themselves to pay for the cost of new power plants created to power AI. Dominion Energy is part of the PJM network, and we may also see a push from the administration to force data centers to pay for power lines like the Kraken that are being primarily driven to provide power to data centers in Loudon County, as Dominion Energy rep Bob Richardson noted in his online meeting on October 10, 2025.
It’s unclear whether those who are on NOVEC power will see any increase directly related to Kraken Loop construction.
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) prohibits borrowers from qualifying for mortgages and refinancing their homes with FHA loans to residential properties that are located within the fall zone of high voltage transmission lines. If your property falls within the 335ft easement, you should request a report from Dominion, which includes detailed specs about where the pole is designed to fail. Read more about the engineered fall distance here.
