The State Corporation Commission on Friday announced it has approved a 500-kilovolt power line through Suffolk for Dominion Virginia Power.

The line, which will extend from the Carson power station in Dinwiddie County, will connect with the Suffolk station on Hosier Road. A 230-kilovolt line then will carry power into the Thrasher station in Chesapeake.

The line is needed to ensure continued reliability of electric service in the Hampton Roads and Outer Banks, N.C. areas, according to Dominion. The power company hopes to have it in place by 2011.

The line was first proposed more than a year ago, and residents living near the lines were given the opportunity for public comment. A handful of Suffolk residents came to Suffolk City Council Chambers in September 2007 to voice their displeasure over the lines to the State Corporation Commission, a regulatory agency charged with oversight of economic and business interests.

“My parents sweated blood to work the land,” resident Orville White said at last year’s meeting. The lines will create more unusable land on the White family farm, which already hosts two power line easements for Dominion.

The route for the 500-kilovolt line begins at the substation in Dinwiddie County, then travels approximately southeast until just past the town of Waverly in Sussex County, where it begins to follow U.S. 460 just west of the road.

It continues through Isle of Wight County until it crosses into Suffolk, where it begins to diverge south to miss the populated downtown area. It takes a wide course around downtown until it reaches the substation on Hosier Road. From there, the 230-kilovolt line would carry the power south of downtown and along Route 58 into the Chesapeake substation.

The 60-mile line from Dinwiddie to Suffolk will be strung on 130-foot high, galvanized steel lattice structures. There will be about five poles for every mile the line runs.

Some modifications were made to the final route to accommodate the proposed CenterPoint Intermodal Center on Route 58, among other planned development projects.

More information on the power line project is available by visiting www.dom.com and searching “Carson-Suffolk 500.”