Despite the history of a failed wind farm in Highland County, a local renewable energy firm is on track to build the first one in Virginia. Apex Clean Energy, which has 167 employees in Charlottesville, received a permit from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in March to build Rocky Forge Wind, an array of […]
Miss out on a week of Albemarle County happenings? On August 2 the Board of Supervisors voted to only require a business license for those making at least $25,000 a year, instead of the previous $5,000 threshold. They’ve requested a new entrance for the proposed Hedgerow Park, and will soon ask for public input on […]
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released its final environmental impact statement for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline July 21, and it said the proposed 600-mile, $5.5 billion natural gas pipeline will have a “less than significant” impact on the environment. “The [final environmental impact statement] paints a terrifying picture of a bleak future,” says Ernie Reed, […]
City Council is expected to vote next month on a proposed Woolen Mills historic conservation district that would impose new regulations on about 85 residences and that continues to divide homeowners in the neighborhood. “It’s pretty cut and dry that people don’t want it,” says Eric Hurt, a resident who will live in the historic […]
A former Western Albemarle High School associate principal, teacher and coach denies he molested a 12-year-old student in Louisiana in the early 1980s. The New Orleans Advocate reports his accuser told a New Orleans detective in early 2016 that, while attending Isidore Newman School, she had a crush on teacher Greg Domecq, who allegedly kissed […]
Four Jaunt buses and a townhome were up in flames when the Charlottesville Fire Department received a call for service around 2:40am July 13. Alice Facknitz, who lives in the Carlton Bridge apartment complex behind the Jaunt station and the Linden Town Lofts townhomes, says she woke to what she later learned was the sound […]
Monday morning listeners expecting to hear the news on Virginia Public Radio’s WVTF got music instead July 10. This is a product of “the big switch,” a format change for the network, in which 89.7 FM will only play tunes in Charlottesville. RadioIQ, the public radio group’s all-talk station, will now become its sole news […]
Virginia traffic officials began discussing ways to make U.S. 29—a highway that carries 50,000 vehicles a day—flow more successfully about three decades ago, Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne says. When Governor Terry McAuliffe took office three-and-a-half years ago, he made it a top priority. Today, the governor and his colleague visited Albemarle County for a […]
Clean energy is on the rise, and Reston-based group SolUnesco is planning to build a 70-acre solar farm in Albemarle County, which would be the first of its kind in the area. One local nature enthusiast, however, says these “so-called green energy sources” aren’t as harmless to the environment as many people think. “Although green […]
Last August, locals protested Dominion Virginia Power’s plans to rebuild area transmission lines with a much brighter material than their darker predecessors. Now a state commission has ruled that the power company must chemically darken its structures, and the group of people that worried new lines would stick out like a sore thumb is rejoicing. […]