By Toni Milbourne, The Journal
CHARLES TOWN — Jefferson County is tagged to house transmission lines, and locals are fighting the move every step of the way.
To that end, Mary Gee, a Summit Point resident, appeared before the Charles Town City Council Monday evening to educate the council on proposed routes for transmission lines that, if approved, will change the way of life for Jefferson County residents and those in several other states in an effort to provide electricity to run data centers in Loudoun County, Virginia.
Gee spoke of three projects, two of which have been approved by PJM, originally dubbed Pennsylvania-Jersey-Maryland Interconnection. PJM, Gee told council members, is tasked to approve conceptual routes between two substations.
One of those, the Mid-Atlantic Resiliency Link (MARL) project, is a 105-mile line of overhead 500KV transmission lines. The second, Valley Link, is an additional project with 765V transmission lines that has also been approved by PJM. A third, Gee said, is proposed to be approved by September of this year — with all of the projects running through Jefferson County.