Neighbors file $15 million lawsuit against Dominion, two contractors over problems at Belcher Solar site; Louisa Town Council faces court challenge over denial of special use permit for duplexes
Engage Louisa is a nonpartisan newsletter that keeps folks informed about Louisa County government. We believe our community is stronger and our government serves us better when we increase transparency, accessibility, and engagement.
This week in county government: public meetings, March 31 through April 5
For the latest information on county meetings including public meetings of boards, commissions, authorities, work groups, and internal county committees, click here. (Note: Louisa County occasionally schedules internal committee/work group meetings after publication time. Check the county’s website for the most updated information).
Tuesday, April 1
Revenue Work Group, Louisa County Office Building, 1 Woolfolk Ave., Louisa, 2 pm.
Louisa County School Board, Central Office Administration Building, 953 Davis Highway, Mineral, 7 pm. (agenda, livestream)
Wednesday, April 2
Tourism Advisory Committee, Public Meeting Room, Louisa County Office Building, 1 Woolfolk Ave., Louisa, 9 am.
Quote of the week
“The storm water runoff was also full of silt and clay, and it muddied the watercourses for days after precipitation events, eventually killing the marine life therein and deprived the plaintiffs from the use and enjoyment of the watercourses, including farming operation.”
-Attorney Graven Craig in a complaint filed on behalf of 10 plaintiffs who are suing Dominion Energy Services Inc., Wood PLC and Timmons Group Inc., alleging they were negligent in designing and constructing the Belcher Solar Project.
Read more about the lawsuit below.
Neighbors file $15 million lawsuit against Dominion, two contractors over problems at Belcher Solar site
Dominion Energy and two contractors are facing a lawsuit over their handling of the design and construction of a troubled solar facility in central Louisa County.
Ten people who own property along Bickley Road and Old Bickley Town Road filed suit in Louisa County Circuit Court in mid-December, alleging Dominion Energy Services, Inc., its affiliate, Virginia Electric and Power Company, Wood PLC, and Timmons Group Inc. were negligent in designing and building the 88-megawatt Belcher Solar Project off Waldrop Church Road.
The plaintiffs contend that stormwater runoff from the facility has caused severe erosion and flooding along Bickley Creek and Stillhouse Run, two watercourses that run through their properties, depriving them of “the use and enjoyment of the watercourses, including farming operation.” The complaint, filed by Graven Craig of the Lousia law firm CraigWilliams, notes that four of the five tracts owned by the plaintiffs are working farms.
The complaint asks the court to award the plaintiffs at least $15 million.
Dominion Energy owns and operates the Belcher facility, which sits on about 900 acres east of Waldrop Church Road and north of Bickley Road, a few miles southwest of the Town of Louisa. The company leases the property from Boyd Cash, LLC. Wood is a Georgia-based company that was contracted to design and construct the project, and Timmons is a Richmond-based engineering firm that also worked on the facility, according to court filings.
In a multi-pronged response, filed on February 10, Dominion, in part, asks the court to dismiss the complaint. In a demurrer, Richard Cromwell, an attorney with McGuireWoods, argues the plaintiffs “fail to state a cause of action and fail to state facts upon which the relief demanded can be granted.”
Specifically, the filing contends that Wood and Timmons were independent contractors and, under Virginia law, Dominion can’t be held liable for any alleged negligent acts on their part.
The company also filed a Motion to Drop and Dismiss all but one of the plaintiffs and/or properties from the suit, contending that because the plaintiffs have interest in five distinct parcels, they can’t jointly sue.
In its response, filed on March 21, Wood denied any negligence, denied being an agent of Dominion and requested dismissal. The company also joined Dominion’s Motion to Drop and Dismiss.
At publication time, Timmons hadn’t responded to the suit.
Plaintiffs allege negligence led to property damage
The Louisa County Board of Supervisors approved a Conditional Use Permit for utility-scale solar development on the Boyd Cash property in 2017, but the roughly year-long construction process didn’t begin until 2020.
The complaint alleges that, shortly after the start of earth moving and construction, the plaintiffs “noticed that during and after precipitation events, even moderate to light rain showers, the watercourses running through their respective properties were overwhelmed…by stormwater runoff.” The runoff eroded the streams’ banks and flooded adjoining pastures, the complaint says.
“The storm water runoff was also full of silt and clay, and it muddied the watercourses for days after precipitation events, eventually killing the marine life therein and deprived the plaintiffs from the use and enjoyment of the watercourses, including farming operation,” the complaint states.
Having never witnessed such problems before, the plaintiffs lodged complaints with Louisa County, per the suit. The filing asserts the defendants were made aware of neighbors’ concerns as early as June 2020 and Dominion “publicly acknowledged the excessive stormwater runoff [and] flooding of plaintiffs' properties was its responsibility and fault.”
Attempts at repair “failed to reduce or otherwise mitigate” the runoff, erosion and flooding, per the complaint.
The complaint contends that both Wood and Timmons acted as Dominion’s agents, and alleges that the companies negligently designed and constructed the project, including its detention ponds, which allowed excessive stormwater runoff to flow into Bickley Creek and Stillhouse Run, damaging the plaintiffs’ properties.
It further argues that the three detention ponds constructed closest to the plaintiffs’ land didn’t function as intended and that the companies removed topsoil on the project site and didn’t replace it, which contributed to the runoff.
Even as the problems persisted, the complaint argues, Dominion allowed Wood and Timmons to continue working on the facility. The complaint also contends that the defendants’ committed “trespass,” physically entering the plaintiffs’ properties without permission by way of the flooding.
The plaintiffs ask the court to enter a $15 million judgement against the defendants plus “their allowable costs expended in this matter, with prejudgment interest from June 1, 2020, and for such other and further relief as the Court may deem appropriate.”
Dominion, Wood request dismissal
In its response, Dominion contends that, regardless of whether there was negligence in designing and constructing the Belcher project, the company isn’t responsible for the actions of Wood or Timmons, neither of whom were acting as its agents.
Dominion’s filing asserts that Wood was an independent contractor hired to design and build the solar array, per a 878-page contract, and, under Virginia law, it can’t be held liable for alleged negligent acts on part of the company.
The filing asserts that Timmons also acted as an independent contractor. In its pleading, Wood states that Timmons served as its independent subcontractor, and, to its knowledge, had no contractual relationship with Dominion.
“It is black-letter Virginia law that a person who hires an independent contractor is not liable for the independent contractor’s alleged negligent acts or omissions,” Dominion says in its filing.
With respect to the trespass claim, Dominion contends that, if any entity physically entered the plaintiffs’ properties, by way of flooding, it would’ve been independent contractors, not Dominion.
Both Dominion and Wood’s filings also contend that only one plaintiff, or set of plaintiffs with ownership in one property, is permitted to bring the suit, arguing that the complaint “asserts claims on behalf of ten different Plaintiffs relating to five distinct properties.”
“The combination of different Plaintiffs with distinct claims constitutes an impermissible misjoinder of Plaintiffs under Virginia law, and, therefore, Dominion moves the Court drop and dismiss all but one of the misjoined Plaintiffs,” Dominion’s filing says.
Concerns about Belcher among local officials
Over the last five years, the Belcher project has occasionally been discussed at Louisa County Board of Supervisors meetings as neighbors voiced concern about damage to their properties and board members sought answers from Dominion.
In June 2021, Sarah Marshall, then an external affairs liaison with the company, addressed the board during the meeting’s public comment, apologizing for poor communication on part of the company regarding stormwater issues at the Belcher site.
Marshall said that significant rainfall earlier in the month had “caused heavy flow and increased turbidity in the water at the Belcher solar facility,” noting that Dominion failed to adequately communicate with residents and the county regarding runoff and related issues with sediment control.
Marshall told the board that Dominion was working to establish vegetation at the site to control erosion and sediment. She noted that the company had run into problems growing grass in some areas and that they were working with a vendor to explore different seed mixes as well as laying sod.
Marshall said the company was also working to decrease water levels in its sediment control ponds, and could install berms and apply flocculation in the ponds, though its permit from the Department of Environmental Quality didn’t require such measures. She added that the company planned to meet one-on-one with impacted landowners.
Marshall’s apology came just three months after the State Water Control Board fined Dominion $50,000 for the unauthorized discharge of sediment into streams and wetlands surrounding Harris Creek, which runs through the northern end of the property. Bickley Creek and Stillhouse Run meander around the project’s southern end before converging and flowing into the South Anna River.
Marshall has provided periodic updates on the project since then, mostly assuring the board that Dominion was progressing in its efforts to establish grass at the site.
Marshall last provided an update on Belcher in early 2024. She said Dominion believed the stormwater management plan it implemented over the last several years had addressed any concerns about runoff, noting the company hadn’t observed any stormwater issues since the spring of 2022.
As part of the plan, Marshall said the company worked to establish vegetation across the site and was in the process of converting wet stormwater detention ponds to dry ponds.
“We believe that we have made all the right efforts, and the project is in a good space, but we are also currently working on confirming that from others who have been potentially impacted,” Marshall said.
In emails to Engage Louisa shortly after Marshall’s presentation, Craig, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said he’d spoken with one of his clients, who checked the creeks after a recent rain, and reported “it is still flooding just as bad” as it has been since Belcher’s construction.
Craig said that Dominion hadn’t made “any attempt to correct or repair the damage created by the Belchers project.”
The fallout from Belcher played a key role in souring supervisors on large-scale solar development. Initially welcoming to the use as a way to raise revenue for county coffers while only minimally impacting services, the board, between 2015 and 2022, approved seven utility-scale solar facilities, covering nearly 5,200 acres. To date, only four of those projects have been constructed.
But as concerns about Belcher intensified, coinciding with a growing resistance to large-scale solar development across rural Virginia, supervisors shifted gears, taking steps to shut the door on solar.
Most recently, the board capped the amount of land that can be used for large-scale solar generation at two percent of the county’s land mass, or 6,343 acres. And, last month, they adopted stringent new rules for utility-scale solar project siting agreements, essentially deals between localities and solar developers to mitigate a project’s impact and provide other compensation. Among other provisions, the rules require owners of new solar facilities to annually pay the county as much as $195,000 for every megawatt of power produced by their projects.
Solar developers said the hefty payments are wildly out of step with industry standards and could act as a moratorium on solar development.
In adopting the requirement, board members made clear that was essentially their goal. Several referenced the problems at Belcher before voting in support of the measure.
Jackson District Supervisor Toni Williams was perhaps the bluntest. He said the county has “had enough” of large-scale solar and took direct aim at Dominion.
“If I was the developer of…the Belcher Solar Facility, the [Department of Environmental Quality] would’ve had me in prison, sir. I would’ve been in prison, and I would be broke and bankrupt, and they would have everything I own. But it wasn’t me. It was Dominion Energy,” Williams said.
Louisa TC faces court challenge over denial of special use permit for duplexes in Tanyard
A recent decision by the Louisa Town Council to deny a special use permit (SUP) that would’ve cleared the way for construction of more multi-family housing in the Tanyard subdivision has drawn a court challenge.
Curtis Moore, Patrick and Judith Hanley, and RTW Construction Company, Inc., the joint owners of two lots on Barnstormer Circle, filed suit in Lousia County Circuit Court on February 18, asking the court to reverse council’s decision to deny their request for an SUP to build two duplexes on their .756-acre property. The suit, which names both the town council and the Town of Lousia as defendants, also asks the court to enjoin the town from taking any action to prohibit the duplexes’ construction.
In a 30-page complaint, the plaintiffs argue council’s decision was “unreasonable, arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory and unconstitutional,” contending that the body denied the SUP because the duplexes would be rental units, not owner-occupied dwellings.
The suit asserts that the dwellings would sit directly across the street from two existing duplexes and that the plaintiffs offered proffers to mitigate any impacts on neighbors, which council failed to consider.
In their March 10 response, attorneys for the town asked the court to dismiss the case. They contend that it’s the purview of council to make land use decisions on behalf of the town, considering a range of factors, and the decision to deny the SUP was reasonable or “at least the matter was fairly debatable.” The filing also asserts that council “complied with the procedural rules in effect at the time.”
Attorney Torrey Williams, a partner in the Louisa law firm CraigWilliams, filed suit on behalf of the property owners. Though he’s not named as a plaintiff, Williams represented the applicants throughout the public approval process and planned to develop the property and rent the duplexes as he does with other properties in the town. RTW Construction, one of the parcels current owners, is owned by Willaims’ father, R.T. “Toni” Williams, Jr., who represents the Jackson District on the Louisa County Board of Supervisors.
According to a land use application submitted to the town, the plaintiffs sought the SUP to subdivide the property into four lots and construct two duplexes, with each lot home to one dwelling. Under Town Code, multi-family dwellings require a SUP in General Residential zoning.
In a proffer statement, the applicants agreed to limit the duplexes to one story and construct the dwellings in a similar style and design as the duplexes across the street. They also agreed to limit the occupants of each dwelling to two vehicles and to plant an evergreen buffer along one of the property’s boundaries if existing vegetation was disturbed during construction.
Following a public hearing at its January 21 meeting, council voted 3-2 to deny the SUP, with at least one council member questioning Williams about plans to rent the duplexes, according to The Central Virginian.
Six Tanyard residents spoke in opposition to the proposal, per the paper, contending that rental units would lower their property values, characterizing the duplexes as a commercial venture, not a residential use, and arguing the project didn’t mesh with the character of their neighborhood, which is mostly comprised of owner-occupied, single-family homes.
In their complaint, the plaintiffs contend that council’s decision was “impermissibly based on the plaintiff’s intended use as rental units instead of owner-occupied units.” The complaint argues that both rental units and owner-occupied homes are considered residential uses and therefore permitted in Residential General zoning, noting that numerous dwellings occupied by renters already exist in Tanyard.
“The prevailing reasons stated publicly by the members of the Town Council in opposition to the project were that the properties would be rented to tenants as opposed to resided in by owner occupiers,” the complaint says.
The plaintiffs further argue that their property is across the street from two duplexes to which it is “similarly situated,” noting the existing duplexes were approved by the town and the dwellings would share the end of a cul-de-sac and receive the same services from the town.
“The demonstrated use of the subject parcels is indistinguishable from the parcels known as 201, 203, 205 and 207 Barnstormer Circle, Louisa Virginia 23093, which is directly across the street from the subject property,” the complaint states.
The plaintiffs ask the court to issue an order granting the special use permit and enjoin the town “from taking any action that would disallow the Plaintiffs the ability to build the two duplexes on the subject property, award the Plaintiffs their attorney fees and costs expended herein and such further relief” the court deems appropriate.
The town responded to the complaint by filing a demurrer, contending that the plaintiffs don’t have a cause of action to bring the suit and requesting dismissal. In the six-page filing, the town’s attorneys contend that the legislative record demonstrates that council “acted reasonably, or at least that the matter was fairly debatable.”
The filing argues that, when a governing body makes the decision to grant or deny a special use permit, it’s a legislative action that, when challenged, courts review under the “fairly debatable” standard. The standard essentially holds that a decision is “fairly debatable” if the “evidence offered in support of the opposing views would lead objective and reasonable persons to reach different conclusions.”
The filing argues that the legislative record demonstrates that “factors and interests identified by Plaintiffs’ SUP application and issues discussed at the January 21, 2025 Town Council Meeting” were considered by council in making its decision, noting it’s the body’s prerogative to consider an SUP’s impact on the character of a neighborhood, and it’s expected that members will consider the views of their constituents.
“In this case, the Legislative Record demonstrates that objective and reasonable persons could reach different conclusions regarding whether to deny Plaintiffs’ SUP application,” the filing says. “Indeed, the Legislative Record establishes that the Town Council’s decision was fairly debatable.”
The towns’ attorneys also argue that the plaintiffs’ property is not “similarly situated” to the dwellings across the street.
“Plaintiff’s proposal—in contrast to the existing duplexes—did not involve the construction of individual residences on individual lots in a manner consistent with the existing neighborhood uses,” the filing says.
At publication time, the plaintiffs hadn’t responded to the demurrer and a hearing date hadn’t been set.
The lawsuit comes as the Town of Louisa is poised for significant residential growth, especially at its eastern end near Tanyard. Over the last three years, council has approved about 475 new dwellings—mostly apartments and townhomes—across three developments straddling Jefferson Highway (Route 33). One of those projects—a 20-acre planned unit development featuring 159 townhomes—is slated for development by one of Williams’ companies.
Council’s decisions to approve the projects has rankled some neighbors, who’ve expressed concern about the pace of residential growth. Tanyard residents have led the opposition, arguing at town meetings that adding hundreds of dwellings along the Route 33 corridor will clog traffic, exacerbate problems with stormwater runoff, which, they say, contributes to routine flooding in their neighborhood, and spoil the community’s small-town charm.
Last November, Tanyard residents and other town voters made their voice heard at the ballot box, electing two new council members and ousting a two-term incumbent who’d consistently supported more residential growth. The new members took their seats in January, just prior to considering the plaintiffs’ SUP application.
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You may not realize that Amazon used to have panels on many of their bui’dings as did Walmart. They both are no longer doing so because of the many fire issues they have had.
I don't blame the county people too much for anything EXCEPT believing that the developers will say and do most ANYTHING to get their permits/leases.
Until grassroots groups like Protect OrangevVA and MANY others across the state started educating the Planning and Supervisors, they only had the "snake oil sphiels" to go by.
Another place to put blame is the General Assembly and the last two Governors. They created the horrid VCEA which has mandated this garbage, wanting VA to be just like CA (how's it working on the left coast?).
Utility scale solar doesn't work, is inefficient, degrade far faster than previously thought. The developers just want to break ground so they can collect their 30% "incentive." Hopefully, that is on the way out and once it's gone, the developers will be also. And GOOD RIDDENCE.
From all accounts this seems an issue that stems from a complete lack of planning and execution by both the county and Dominion Power.
Instead of attempting to litigate Dominion and it's shady contractors into paying for damages caused as a result of gross negligence and adjudication of responsibility by their contractor's subcontractors the county government officials and agencies involved should also be held mutually responsible for their lack of foresight and proper planning in the installation of solar generation facilities within the county.
A simple county building permit ordinance requirement created in collaboration with Dominion Power which would require any and all waterfront structures located on Lake Anna as well as the new Amazon Data Centers to pay for and install solar panels on their rooves would alleviate the need for the county to convert land from agricultural usage to that of solar generation "farms" thereby removing the issue of storm water runoff from such facilities.
Furthermore it seems as though the Commonwealth as a whole would benefit greatly from elected representatives in the respective legislative houses from examination and adjudication of the existing state statutes which govern the liability of contractor's responsibility for any work performed by subcontractors they employ to complete works done under the scope of their contracts with employers.
These kinds of legal loophole issues are what our elected representatives in both houses of the Commonwealth's legislative branches should be rectifying and amending rather than searching for new legislative bills to construct and pass through providing further hardships on citizens of the Commonwealth.
Had Dominion and the county agencies and boards explored with industry professionals the most reasonable and efficient way of institution of solar generation facilities within the county perhaps we would see the monstrous Lake Anna yacht club boathouse rooves covered in solar panels which would alleviate the issue of storm water runoff into county water systems from solar generation facilities construction on converted agricultural farmlands.
I guess that would just make too much common sense. I hope voters remember these shortcomings and lack of prudent planning in the coming November elections.