Don McCown, land use field representative for the Piedmont Environmental Council, will speak to the Lake of the Woods Democratic Club on October 8 about the impact of recent industrial proposals on life in Orange County.
The program will begin at 1:30 p.m. in Classroom 1 of the LOW Community Center. A meet-and-greet session will proceed the presentation at 1 p.m.
McCown joined the Environmental Council in 2022 and is responsible for addressing land use and transportation issues in Orange and Madison counties.
Prior to his present position, he served for more than 20 years in a variety of community service roles, including as a supervisor in Virginia’s magistrate system and as AmeriCorps program director for Habitat for Humanity of North Carolina.
Originally from West Texas, McCown and his family have lived in the Piedmont for more than 15 years. McCown received his B.A. in sociology from the University of Oklahoma and his J.D. from The Catholic University of America.
The Piedmont Environmental Council is a locally based, donor-supported 501(c)(3) nonprofit and an accredited land trust. Its mission, according to its web site, is to “protect and restore the lands and waters of the Virginia Piedmont, while building stronger, more sustainable communities.”
The Council recently urged Virginia’s political leaders to declare a moratorium on data center development in the Commonwealth, saying more time is needed to implement protections for residents and natural resources. The organization is helping to organize a march on Richmond on October 24 to encourage legislators to support the moratorium.
The Council is also actively fighting an unprecedented expansion of high-voltage power lines driven by the boom of data center construction in Northern Virginia. Most notable is a massive 115-mile proposed transmission line — jointly backed by Dominion Energy, Transsource and FirstEnergy Transmission — running from Joshua Falls in Campbell County to a new Yeat substation in Culpeper County. The line would cut a wide swath through the heart of Orange County.
Both these issues have been of considerable concern for property owners in Lake of the Woods.