The concrete bakes in the sun, the power lines hum and anyone who travels the asphalt strip feels open to attack. It's the stretch of the Washington & Old Dominion Regional Trail from Rt. 28 to Lansdowne, and cyclists call it the Gobi Desert.
Just west of the desert, however, is an oasis: the shaded length of trail from Leesburg to Purcellville is leafy and secluded. But if Dominion Virginia Power extends the transmission lines that already run on the eastern 31 miles of the trail, clearing out a canopy of trees in the process, the desert may overtake the oasis.
"It would be an awful thing to happen," said John Unger, who sometimes rides his yellow Bridgestone bicycle the 26.3 miles from Hamilton to the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, where he is a geophysicist. "It would destroy the trail completely."
Unger has been riding the W&OD Trail for nearly 30 years, since the days when the trail was unpaved and rusted spikes still rested along the old railroad route. He hops on the trail several times a week with his bike in the summer or cross-country skis in the winter.
If the power lines go in, "the whole character would change. It will destroy a natural resource," Unger said.
THE W&OD TRAIL, which stretches over 45 miles and contains 522 acres from the Potomac to the Blue Ridge Mountains, has been a popular venue for jogging, biking and trail riding since it opened in 1974. It also links to more than 90 "connector trails" that act like tributaries, feeding hikers from developed localities like Alexandria and Arlington to the main trail.
Dominion Virginia Power owns the easement along the park and predicts that by 2007 the company will no longer be able to provide reliable service to the area in cases of extreme weather, according to spokesman Jim Norvelle.
"We have a responsibility to make sure we look at the easement as a possible route," Norvelle said. "It is by no means the proposed route."
The possible route through the W&OD Trail would stretch a 230 kilovolt power line over 11 miles, from just east of Leesburg to just east of Purcellville. The transmission line would sit atop 110 foot steel poles placed 450 to 700 feet apart and require 50 feet of clearance on either side.
"The park itself is 100 feet wide," Gary Fenton told the Northern Virginia Regional Commission on June 24. Fenton, the executive director for the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, which owns the W&OD Trail, estimated that 26,000 trees would have to come down over 133 acres. The approximately 125 towers wouldn't be enough to prevent power lines from sagging as much as 85 feet down, keeping any trees that would be replanted to a maximum height of 15 feet.
"JUST BECAUSE [Dominion] has the right doesn’t mean they have to exercise that right," Fenton said. "This trail is a treasure in Virginia, and this segment is the crown jewel."
According to Fenton, Dominion hopes to gain approval for the project from the State Corporation Commission by November after considering public and private input, with services from the new transmission lines beginning by May 2007.
The members of the Northern Virginia Regional Commission, a council of local governments, voted to pass a resolution opposing the extension after Fenton's presentation. While other localities have passed similar resolutions — and it's largely a symbolic measure — this is the first region-wide action, according to NVRC executive director Mark Gibb.
"That sends a powerful message to the decision makers in this process," Gibb said. "It also gets the word out."
OTHER OPTIONS bandied about for the new power lines have been burying the lines, running them along Route 7 or tapping into Allegheny Power's lines. No decision has been made, according to Norvelle, and the process is a complicated one.
"We have to look at what impact the route would have on homes, historic areas, wetlands," he said, "not to mention cost."