The Piedmont News is an email digest of top news stories about conservation, land use, energy, and environmental matters of interest to the region. We hope you’ll share The Piedmont News with someone else who cares about these stories.
This Saturday, Dec. 6 from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.: Come hear about environmental legislative priorities for the 2026 Virginia General Assembly at our General Assembly Preview Watch Party, taking place at PEC’s headquarters in Warrenton and other locations throughout the state. Learn more and register.
Josh Rector |
An owl perches on a wooden fencepost in Upperville, Fauquier County. |
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Virginia Mercury
(December 3, 2025)
“We have a shared future here, and if we don’t address that shared future in a collaborative way, every single one of us will lose,” Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer said Tuesday in Baltimore, where Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and other regional representatives enacted a new, 15-year agreement to reduce pollution, build habitats, and protect the Chesapeake Bay. The 2025 agreement focuses on four main goals and has 21 outcomes the states can strive for over the next 15 years.
WRIC
(December 2, 2025)
Dominion Energy customers will see higher monthly bills in 2026 after state regulators approved a partial rate increase. During the State Corporation Commission’s (SCC) biennial regulatory review of Dominion’s rates, commissioners signed off on an increase that will raise the average residential bill by $11.24 per month in 2026, followed by an additional $2.36 increase in 2027. The SCC also approved [the creation of] a new rate class for high-energy users. “Those are both huge steps,” said Christopher Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council. “Unfortunately, it’s only 60% of the problem and the other 40%, because of the enormous costs that are [involved,] could still fall on the average Virginia resident.”
This television news story features an interview with PEC President, Chris Miller.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(December 1, 2025)
When Julia Mason moved into her new home in Loudoun Meadows six years ago, the view across Quail Ridge Lake was a farm. The same day she arrived, a developer broke ground for a 1-million-square-foot data center for Amazon Web Services that now rises 70 feet directly across from her home near Aldie. That's the new reality in the "ground zero" of data center development in the world. Now, the massive buildings — and what some consider the unsightly electric power facilities to serve them — aren't just crowding "Data Center Alley" in eastern Loudoun. Data centers are rising in semi-rural neighborhoods around Leesburg and along Route 50 from Ashburn to Aldie. They're spreading through neighboring Prince William, pushing into Fauquier County near Remington, the city of Fredericksburg and its surrounding counties, and south to the Richmond area.
Heatmap
(December 1, 2025)
Attempts to quantify the costs of climate change often end up as philosophical exercises in forecasting and quantifying the future. Such projects involve (at least) two difficult tasks: establishing what is the current climate “pathway” we’re on, ... and then deciding how to value the wellbeing of those people who will be born in the decades — or centuries — to come versus those who are alive today. But what about the climate impacts we’re paying for right now? That’s the question explored in a working paper by former Treasury Department officials Kimberley Clausing, an economist at the UCLA, and Catherine Wolfram, an economist at MIT, along with Wolfram’s MIT colleague Christopher Knittel.
Fauquier Now
(December 1, 2025)
The Shenandoah salamander, northern long-eared bat and the rusty patch bumble bee are among the many animals on the federal endangered species list that live in Virginia and could be impacted by proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act by the Trump administration. Last week, the Department of Interior announced plans to roll back portions of the protections for plants and animals. Additionally, the proposal looks to narrow what can be considered critical habitat and would make it easier for development projects such as drilling, mining and logging to be approved.
CNBC
(December 3, 2025)
Data centers that haven’t been built yet are driving up electricity prices and could leave consumers on the hook for expensive power infrastructure if demand projections are wrong. The race to build facilities that provide artificial intelligence has fueled a boom in data centers that train and run large language models, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. The boom has upended a utility industry that grew used to 20 years of no increase in electricity demand. But now, some investors and energy market analysts are questioning whether the AI race has turned into a bubble, one that would prove expensive to unravel as new transmission lines and power plants are built to support those data centers.
Heatmap
(December 3, 2025)
As America’s largest electricity market was deliberating over how to reform the interconnection of data centers, its independent market monitor threw a regulatory grenade into the mix. Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the monitor filed a complaint with federal regulators saying that PJM Interconnection, which spans from Washington, D.C. to Ohio, should simply stop connecting new large data centers that it doesn’t have the capacity to serve reliably.
Culpeper Star-Exponent
(December 2, 2025)
From brilliant butterflies to cranes by moonlit to magnifying raindrops and the spectacular Northern Lights, local residents captured glimpses of the natural beauty of the Virginia Piedmont. The Piedmont Environmental Council recently announced the winners of its 2025 Annual Photo Contest. This year, 115 professional and amateur photographers submitted 650 images from within Albemarle, Clarke, Culpeper, Fauquier, Greene, Loudoun, Madison, Orange, and Rappahannock counties and the City of Charlottesville, according to a release.
This article quotes PEC Multimedia Communications Specialist, Hugh Kenny.
Canary Media
(November 26, 2025)
The Connecticut Green Bank goes beyond grants and loans to directly develop solar for towns and schools — a model other states could follow as energy costs rise. To date, its Solar Marketplace Assistance Program Plus (Solar MAP+) has deployed $145 million in capital on nearly 54 megawatts’ worth of solar projects that are expected to help save a collective $57 million in energy costs, according to bank data shared with Canary Media.
Information Charlottesville
(December 4, 2025)
Charlottesville City Council voted on September 6, 2016 to authorize city staff to apply for funding for a project to improve the intersection of Barracks Road and Emmet Street that would include a ten-foot wide shared-use path up Barracks Road to Rugby Road. According to the city’s website, work on the Barracks / Emmet project did not even begin until the fall of 2021.
C-VILLE Weekly
(December 3, 2025)
After nearly a year of preliminary work, Albemarle County planners revealed, on Dec. 4, the first set of possible routes for a future shared-use path to connect the Blue Ridge Tunnel to Charlottesville via Crozet. Maps depicting some of the alternatives are set up at Western Albemarle High School’s cafeteria. People who attend can ask questions and make comments on the proposed alignments. Initial feedback was given in March at a local conference sponsored by the Piedmont Environmental Council.
This article mentions The Piedmont Environmental Council, which has been involved through its role as convener of the Piedmont Mobility Alliance and supportive of the Three-Notched Trail.
29 News
(December 2, 2025)
On Tuesday, Dec. 2, the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization discussed potential traffic projects to submit to state funding. Potential projects include intersection improvements on Water Street, roundabouts along U.S. 250 on Old Trail, Canterbury, and Boars Head Road, ramp improvements on U.S. 29, and traffic changes along 5th Street.
C-VILLE Weekly
(November 26, 2025)
Albemarle’s urban area lacks public open space with most of the county’s parks in the rural area or on the edge, away from direct transit access. To begin to change that, the county’s Board of Supervisors has invested $1.65 million for urban pocket parks in the current budget. The new AC44 document adopted in October calls for such amenities in community centers, which are to be “focal points for commercial and cultural activities that are accessible by a variety of transportation options.”Albemarle also has a strategic plan that calls for new parks to be developed along transit lines.
Information Charlottesville
(November 25, 2025)
Work has been completed on a $24 million bundle of projects including a roundabout at Hillsdale and Hydraulic. A ribbon-cutting was held on November 13 for a pedestrian bridge across U.S. 29 connecting Stonefield in Albemarle County and the Seminole Square Shopping Center in Charlottesville.
The Winchester Star
(November 23, 2025)
John Regan, president of The Christopher Companies, based in Fairfax County, [recently] detailed his firm's plans for the construction of more than 100 new homes in northeast Berryville to the Berryville Planning Commission. He was joined by executives from Tetra Corp., which is involved in land acquisition for the subdivision (Battletown Run), and Galloway & Company LLC, which conducted a traffic analysis.
Culpeper Star-Exponent
(December 2, 2025)
Before the Carver Food Enterprise Center even had a chance to catch its breath from October, November arrived with a bang, and a few more apples. The very first event of the month in the commercial kitchen in Culpeper County was transforming the extra apples donated by FT Valley Farm into a delicious, no-sugar-added apple pie filling. Some of it went straight into quarts for food pantries, giving families something they can turn into pies, oatmeal bakes, yogurt toppers, or just eat by the spoonful. The rest was frozen for a very special event later in the month.
This article includes several entities that are listed in The Piedmont Environmental Council's Buy Fresh Buy Local Guides 2025-26, available at buylocalpiedmont.org.
Culpeper Times
(November 24, 2025)
The Culpeper Town Council approved new fees for the use of town-owned electric vehicle charging stations during its Nov. 13 meeting, a move officials say will help cover operating costs and encourage turnover at the sites. The Department of Tourism and Economic Development proposed the updates to the town’s fiscal 2026 fine and fee schedule to add charges for the six newly installed EV chargers at Heritage Park.
Fauquier Times
(December 1, 2025)
A farmers’ cooperative that has served generations of southern Fauquier farmers plans to shutter its Morrisville location at the end of December after selling to a real estate investor. As of Nov. 6, Thomas Hugill, a local real estate mogul, bought the Morrisville property, which is 6.25 acres, from the cooperative for $2.6 million — more than twice its latest appraisal. The area is zoned for agricultural use.
Fauquier Now
(December 1, 2025)
Dominion Energy revealed the removal of its proposed alternate routes for the Morrisville to Wishing Star transmission line during a Nov. 19 open house at the Beacon Hall Conference Center on George Mason University’s Science and Technology Campus. Following a handful of community meetings, Dominion held the November event to share changes it had made since the project’s inception.
Charlottesville Community Engagement
(December 3, 2025)
This week, Greene County announced that the Virginia Department of Health has awarded $12 million in grants to cover part of the costs of both a water line as well as an intake and pump station for the future White Run Reservoir. The size of the reservoir will be smaller than originally anticipated with a total storage capacity of 600 million gallons, down from 900 million gallons.
Middleburg Life
(December 3, 2025)
On an appropriately sunny Friday afternoon, more than 70 community members came together at the Piedmont Environmental Council’s Community Farm at Roundabout Meadows to officially “cut the ribbon” on Virginia’s first crop-based agrivoltaics project. PEC, a land conservation organization, advocates for clean energy solutions that respect and preserve the region’s natural resources and rural economy. The agrivoltaics project serves as a demonstration site for farmers, installers, developers, and policymakers to visit and to inform distributed generation policy in Virginia.
This article quotes and features video clips with PEC Senior Energy and Climate Advisor Ashish Kapoor, PEC President Chris Miller and PEC Community Farm Manager Teddy Pitsiokos.
Loudoun Now
(December 3, 2025)
On Tuesday, the last remnants of the gas station and restaurant that William Gilbert opened in 1927 were demolished following a years-long effort to salvage the structure. After the gas station closed in 1982, community efforts focused on preventing large-scale commercial development at the rural crossroads. Today, the lot is part of some 300 acres around the intersection owned by the Piedmont Environmental Council.
This article mentions The Piedmont Environmental Council and quotes PEC's Gilberts Corner Farm and Land Manager, Dana Melby.
Loudoun Now
(December 3, 2025)
County supervisors are finalizing priorities for the 2026 General Assembly session ahead of a Dec. 10 public hearing on the draft legislative agenda. Supervisor Laura A. TeKrony (D-Little River) proposed adding statements of support for legislation promoting state-level tax credits incentivizing accessory solar and battery storage installations and support for net-metering on solar facilities.
Loudoun Now
(November 26, 2025)
It has been five years since the county passed the Unmet Housing Needs Strategy. It is time to evaluate it and increase its effectiveness and lower the cost to the taxpayers. The County gets high marks for its commitment, but the results to date are disappointing.
Fauquier Now
(November 26, 2025)
U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-10th District) will host a series of town hall-style meetings to discuss data centers, power lines, and rising electricity costs affecting his district. The first "District Dialogue" was scheduled for Dec. 4, at 7 p.m. at Stone Hill Middle School in Ashburn.
The Rapidan Register
(December 1, 2025)
Last week, residents voiced concerns about the Aroda-based Mountain View Nursing Home’s sewage situation. The facility is currently undergoing a renewal of its Virginia Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit, [which] is issued by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Last month, James Alexander contacted the Madison County Board of Supervisors opposing the permit renewal.
The Rapidan Register
(November 29, 2025)
Madison County has a new ordinance requiring livestock owners to keep their animals out of the roadway. In October, chief animal control officer Greg Cave said his office has continually dealt with repeat offenders regarding livestock in the roadway. County administrator Jonathon Weakley agreed, stating there are areas in the county where having livestock out creates a danger to motorists.
The Piedmont Journal Recorder
(November 27, 2025)
On Nov. 21, the Shenandoah National Park Trust and DuCard Vineyards co-hosted a Conservation Open House at the Etlan winery. It was part of the trust’s outreach program spearheaded by Beth Mizell, who serves as the trust’s good neighbor program manager. DuCard owner Scott Elliff and Mizell both want to promote conservation along the park’s border of Madison, Rappahannock, and Greene counties.
This video mentions The Piedmont Environmental Council and the Virginia Grassland Bird Initiative, a Piedmont Environmental Council partner initiative with American Farmland Trust, the Smithsonian, Quail Forever, and Shenandoah Valley Conservancy.
Rappahannock News
(December 2, 2025)
Nonprofit Friends of the Rappahannock (FOR) announced in a news release on Tuesday the largest gift in the organization’s 40-year history to advance its mission of protecting and restoring the Rappahannock River. The $1 million gift, made by STACK Infrastructure and Amazon Web Services (AWS), represents a major investment in the long-term health and resilience of the Rappahannock watershed and the communities it sustains, according to the news release.
Culpeper Times
(December 1, 2025)
Rappahannock Electric Cooperative President and CEO John Hewa discussed Virginia’s growing energy demands and infrastructure challenges during his keynote address at the Virginia Chamber of Commerce Infrastructure Forum on Oct. 28, according to a release from Rappahannock Electric Cooperative. Hewa’s remarks focused on the increasing demand for energy driven by Virginia’s economic growth and expanding data center industry.
Rappahannock News
(November 30, 2025)
Rappahannock County Planning Commissioners voted 5-1 last Wednesday to recommend approval of Viewtown resident Chris Parrish’s request to divide a 4.8-acre parcel on Bank Road in Washington into two lots — one of the only areas in the county zoned as general commercial. The Board of Supervisors is expected to take up the application in January.
InsideNoVa
(November 28, 2025)
Prince William planning officials met with community members at Patriot High School Nov. 17 for the official kickoff of the Vint Hill Corridor Small Area Plan. The gathering marked the beginning of a multi-year effort to lead development, transportation and land-use decisions in the Vint Hill corridor, a rapidly growing section of western Prince William County.
Free Lance-Star
(December 4, 2025)
Stafford County officials wanted to revise their new data center ordinance so that the five projects approved before stricter regulations went into place in late October would be able to proceed under previous rules. Instead of saying the five projects would be allowed to continue with their "related" current and future development plans, the revision says those plans must be "directly attributable to the approved project."
Data & Society
(December 3, 2025)
The areas surrounding northern Virginia are increasingly attuned to and activated about data center effects. Well-established networks closely track regional development and can turn people out in the near-thousands to attend local meetings. Yet this is not necessarily a given for communities that are new to the fight.
This article mentions the Piedmont Environmental Council.
The Virginian-Pilot
(December 2, 2025)
A large natural gas project that crosses Chesapeake and Suffolk is officially online, the project’s developers announced last week. The Virginia Reliability Project, initially proposed in 2021, replaced and doubled the size of two sections of the Columbia Gas pipeline between Chesapeake and Petersburg. During the approval process to begin construction, environmental groups opposed the project. They said the pipeline would cut through several miles of the Great Dismal Swamp and run past several schools.
Washington Business Journal
(December 2, 2025)
The former Washington Commanders training facility in Herndon, barely a block away from Fairfax County's new Western High School, will be redeveloped as a pair of data centers. An affiliate of Starwood Capital Group has filed site plans and an initial air permit application for the “Word of Grace Data Center," so named for the Word of Grace Christian Church, which sold the property for $25 million in 2023.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(November 26, 2025)
Dominion Energy can go ahead with a controversial gas-fired power plant on the site of its Chesterfield power station, the State Corporation Commission says. Dominion said it needs the facility because of Virginia's soaring electricity demand. Opponents said it flouts state policy, as expressed in the Virginia Clean Economy Act's mandate that by 2045 Dominion's generating plants emit none of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.
C-VILLE Weekly
(December 3, 2025)
On Wednesday, Dec. 3, the Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors will be asked to adopt a resolution to formally request that the Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC) create a new designation called Virginia’s Piedmont that would cover the same 11 localities as Go Virginia Region 9, a public-private partnership that promotes economic development through various incentives.
29 News
(December 2, 2025)
Virginia lawmakers are grappling with how to address the proliferation of data centers across the Commonwealth, along with the energy challenges and environmental concerns that come with the spread. As the data center capital of the world, Virginia faces a number of issues that members of the General Assembly are once again hoping to address in January. President of the Piedmont Environmental Council, Chris Miller says that, while more and more Virginians are becoming aware of data centers and their risks, there’s still a lack of awareness and even a lack of transparency about what the extent of those impacts are - not only on individual communities, but throughout the Commonwealth as a whole.
This television news story features an interview with PEC President, Chris Miller.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(December 1, 2025)
Data center developers are already drawing a lot of power. And with developers lining up still more projects, pressure is surging on a state grid that already must import power from places where it costs more. Dominion Energy chief executive Bob Blue told Wall Street analysts earlier this year that demand for electricity in Virginia “is accelerating in orders of magnitude, driven by, one, the number of data centers requesting to be connected onto our system; two, the size of each facility; and three, the acceleration of each facility's ramp schedule to reach full capacity."
Bay Journal
(December 1, 2025)
Dominion Energy in May filed a proposal with Virginia’s State Corporation Commission to lower the rate of credit that ratepayers earn by generating their own power — from 14 cents per kilowatt hour to 9.5 cents. Environmentalists are pushing back as some ratepayers rush to install solar panels and lock in the current rate. A public hearing is scheduled for Jan. 20. Dominion’s case could affect the owners of more than 54,000 homes and businesses that are partially powered by solar energy.
This article mentions The Piedmont Environmental Council
The Guardian
(November 30, 2025)
The northern Virginia district hat John McAuliff sought to represent had not elected a Democrat to the house of delegates in decades, so McAuliff would go door to door, informing those who answered his knocks that he was running “to preserve their way of life”. What he talked most about was a specific grievance in line with the focus on affordability many Democrats are taking these days: the deleterious effects of datacenters and their impact on electricity bills.
Prince William Times
(November 30, 2025)
Virginia's environmental regulators are proposing to relax restrictions on what generators data centers can rely on during local outages, prompting concern about increased pollution. The Piedmont Environmental Council, which is raising concerns about the change, urged residents to send comments to the DEQ by Dec. 3. There are roughly 6,000 generators attached to data centers in Northern Virginia, said Julie Bolthouse, land-use director for the Piedmont Environmental Council.
This article mentions The Piedmont Environmental Council and quotes PEC Director of Land Use, Julie Bolthouse.
Morning AgClips
(November 29, 2025)
A powerful partnership among Virginia’s farm and forestry landowners is streamlining valuable land conservation programs. Formerly known as the Office of Farmland Preservation and administered by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the Office of Working Lands Preservation is now housed within the Department of Forestry. The OWL will oversee conservation or succession programs that protect working lands in perpetuity.
The Dirt
(November 18, 2025)
There are more than 20,000 native tree and plant species that provide a range of ecological functions — from habitat for pollinators to stormwater management. To bring more of these beautiful and functional native plants to more people, Uli Lorimer, director of horticulture with the Native Plant Trust, called for applying “ecological horticulture.” This approach involves collecting wild seeds and growing plants from seeds, not cuttings.
As We Move Into The New Year...
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