Photo: WINA/Rappahannock Electric Cooperative
CHARLOTTESVILLE (WINA) – Crews from all three major power companies serving our central Virginia area are busy this morning restoring power to more than 1000 customers combined who lost it during Tuesday afternoon’s severe storms. While most of the activity is east of town, some 300 remained without electricity in Charlottesville as of 9am along the 5th Street and Elliott Avenue corridor because of downed limbs and at least one broken utility pole.
The majority of those without electricity, however, in large line north from Louisa County south through Fluvanna and Goochland counties and into Buckingham County. Fluvanna County’s sheriff reported at least 50 trees down blocking roads in the county, and wind gusts between 60-to-70mph were reported by various weather spotters in Louisa County… with a gust of 73 reported in Mineral.
The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress
Morally, Nelson County landowners are spot-on: Their property rights, surrendered under threat of eminent domain, should be returned to them.
Following approval of corporate plans to build a 600-mile natural gas pipeline from West Virginia, through much of Virginia, and into North Carolina, developers were given the right to exercise eminent domain to acquire land for the project.
Eminent domain is the process by which governments or private entities can take private land for public purposes. The public purpose in this instance was supplying homes and businesses deemed in need of greater access to energy sources. (However, as opponents noted at the time, at least some of the gas was slated for export, not local use.)
The natural gas storage report from the EIA for the week ending April 23rd indicated that the amount of natural gas held in underground storage in the US rose by 15 billion cubic feet to 1,898 billion cubic feet by the end of the week, which left our gas supplies 302 billion cubic feet, or 13.7% below the 2,200 billion cubic feet that were in storage on April 23rd of last year, and 40 billion cubic feet, or 2.1% below the five-year average of 1,938 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have been in storage as of the 23rd of April in recent years..the 15 billion cubic feet that were added to US natural gas storage this week was more than the average forecast of a 9 billion cubic foot addition from an S&P Global Platts survey of analysts, but measured well below the average addition of 67 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have typically been injected into natural gas storage during the same week over the past 5 years, as well as well below the 66 billion cubic feet added to natur
Virginiaâs fourth branch of government is in the process of making decisions that will affect not only your electric bill but also potentially what types of jobs are in Southwest Virginia.
That fourth branch of government is the nickname often applied to the State Corporation Commission, the panel that regulates utilities. For a long time, perhaps even since the agencyâs founding in 1902, the SCC was considered a friendly venue for those utilities. Now the Democratic majority in the General Assembly has installed two new judges on the three-judge panel, so weâll see what this remade SCC has in store.