MT. AIRY, Md. — Standing in a 40-acre field of Christmas trees, Lisa Gaver traced the path of the high-voltage power line that could one day cut through the heart of her family’s farm.

The 500-kilovolt line would skim a parking lot, cross through the woods and over a metal deer fence, before running diagonally across a field of Douglas firs and blue spruces and continuing as far as the eye could see.

Gaver, a seventh-generation farmer, wants no part of what she and other landowners in rural Maryland call an “extension cord” for data centers in Northern Virginia 50 miles away. She figures that the tens of thousands of patrons who descend on the 150-acre farm annually to pick pumpkins, find their perfect Christmas tree and munch on apple cider doughnuts don’t either.

“It’s going to financ

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