Senator Saddam Salim and Delegate Marcus Simon are sticking up for a commonsense approach to large infrastructure projects: Combine parallel infrastructure projects to minimize disruption to Virginia residents!
Washington Gas wants to install a huge transmission main pipeline (the "Pimmit Pipeline") in a zig-zag route through Pimmit Hills from April 2026 through October 2028. This pipeline will not serve the neighborhood, but instead store and carry massive amounts of natural gas through our neighborhood to serve tens of thousands of customers downstream.
Meanwhile, Fairfax County will be widening Route 7 between I-495 and I-66 nearby in the same time frame. As of July 2025, the project is 40% funded and projected to be completed by June 30, 2031.
Local elected officials, FCDOT, and neighborhood leaders have urged Washington Gas since 2012 to route the pipeline around Pimmit Hills along arterial roads. VDOT twice denied Washington Gas a permit to install the pipeline through Pimmit, then changed course in 2019. After five years of delays, Washington Gas's current permit will expire permanently in January 2026.
Senator Salim and Delegate Simon are continuing the fight...
...Please read Sen Salim and Del Simon's 2025 letter to VDOT Commissioner Brich calling for VDOT to make any land use permit for the project contingent upon combining it with the Route 7 widening. They call out the many benefits of a combined approach, and provided more detail and justification in this supporting attachment.
Routing the pipeline through Pimmit Hills is fraught with risk: A massive infrastructure project like this that winds through small neighborhood roads has no comparison in Fairfax County, especially considering that this is a neighborhood undergoing a huge residential construction transition. Many of its homes are still small, 900 square foot "ramblers" originally built in the 1950s, and its aging utility infrastructure is being upgraded. Dranesville District Supervisor James Bierman has tried to get Washington Gas to agree to reasonable accommodations, such as:
- Pledging to put the pipeline underneath all of the sewer laterals and other residential utilities owned by homeowners and updating construction plans to do so.
- Updating any old sewer laterals impacted by the project (some of them more than 50 years old!) so that homeowners will not carry the risk and expense of hiring contractors to dig around this huge pipeline in order to repair or replace their sewer lateral.
- Pledging to give priority to residential construction projects over the Strip 1 construction activity in places where those projects may come in conflict. This seems a fair expectation given that residential projects help improve Pimmit Hills, but the Strip 1 does not. It does not serve gas to Pimmit homes.
...yet Washington Gas has not agreed to these reasonable requests.
Senator Salim and Delegate Simon's letter was accompanied by extensive support for why this approach benefits Fairfax County residents:
- In 2019, Supervisor John Foust, Senator Janet Howell, and Delegate Simon sent a letter to the VDOT Commissioner calling out the changing stories and inconsistencies in Washington Gas's communications about their choice to route this massive pipeline through our neighborhood, and pointing out all of the benefits of combining the two major infrastructure projects--and that was back when the Route 7 widening project was still a barely-funded (less than 2%), far-off project. Times are different now: the Route 7 widening is more than 40% funded, moving forward, and the schedules of the two projects are aligned.
- Also in 2019, Fairfax County DOT sent this letter to VDOT strongly supporting combining the projects and running the pipeline down Magarity to Route 7, pledging that FCDOT could “estimate needed right-of-way and locate a utility strip for the gas transmission line” along Route 7, and that they would work to coordinate the projects if Washington Gas was willing.
- This supporting attachment provides dozens of reasons why aligning the projects would be wise, would reduce the overall impact on Virginia residents and drivers, and would be consistent with VDOT policies, federal agency policies, and the fact that large transmission mains like this are almost always routed down arterial roadways in Fairfax County.
What can you do?
1) Let our local elected officials know how you feel about this project and thank them for championing common-sense infrastructure decisions like combining these two major projects:
- Dranesville District Supervisor James Bierman
- Virginia District 13 Delegate Marcus Simon
- Virginia Senator District 37 Saddam Salim
- If you are not one of their constituents, find your VA legislator or Fairfax District Supervisor:
- VA General Assembly "Who's my legislator?" search
- Fairfax County "Find Your Supervisor" map (enter your address at the top of the map)
2) Purchase a "Stop the Pipeline" yard sign (shown below)
3) Volunteer to help out the PHCA Pipeline Committee by emailing
