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WARRENTON--The recent defeat of the proposed Town of Chancel- lorsville Town of Chancellorsville gave some indication of the local opposition and national outrage over development of the Mullins farm portion of the Chancellorsville battlefield.
Mr. Mullins has turned a deaf ear to any reasonable offer for the purchase and protection of the property, instead making it well known that he intends to proceed with the by-right development of a 273-acre portion of that property.
To proceed as planned, he needs only an Army Corps of Engineers permit for the crossing of six streams that would be disturbed during development. This leaves the Army Corps' permitting process as the only avenue for public comment regarding the complete denigration of a treasured piece of our collective national history.
Unfortunately, it appears that the Army Corps seems to have followed Mr. Mullins' lead in turning a blind eye on the destruction of hallowed ground, and has terminated consultations with interested parties that may have led to an agreeable compromise.
The historic value of the 790-acre Mullins farm is immeasurable. Almost the entire 273-acre parcel known as the Ashley-Orrock tract lies within the county's Chancellorsville Battlefield Historic District. Due to its role in the Chancellorsville campaign and its importance as a contributing property to the Historic District, the site is eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
If allowed to continue on its present course, the Army Corps will permit these stream crossings, beginning the piecemeal development of the entire 790 acres of the Mullins farm--forever altering this historic landscape and destroying undocumented historic resources in the process.
The Army Corps has insisted on a narrowly defined permit area of the six stream crossings that are necessary for the development to take place within the Ashley-Orrock Tract. By limiting the scope in this manner, the agency is ignoring the federal Historic Preservation Act's requirements of a broader view of the permit area when historic resources are concerned.
The currently defined permit area allows the Corps to proceed without taking into account that the development is contingent on the six stream crossings and any destruction of historic resources would be in direct result of the issuance of the permit in question. With the limited permit area, the Corps can continue to reject the need for a full archeological survey and field investigation that would be one of the best methods for determining the significance of the property.
It is undeniable that development of this portion of the battlefield will result in hastened development surrounding and within the Historic District. Mr. Mullins has made quite clear his intentions to develop the entire 790-acre farm.
The Army Corps of Engineers should not be allowed to limit itself to the six stream crossings, nor the Ashley-Orrock tract, but should commit to including the entire 790-acre tract as a part of its study area. This is supported by the agency's own admission (in a December 2002 letter), in which it agreed that issuance of a permit for the Ashley-Orrock tract will result in adverse effects to the battlefield, including physical destruction of historic properties. The federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has gone one step further, stating the project will "harm historic properties well into the future."
A vast coalition of historic preservation groups has repeatedly tried to work with Mr. Mullins to reach an agreement on the purchase and protection of the 790-acre farm, to no avail.
We must now put our faith in the Army Corps with regard to its approach to this permit and in Mr. Mullins' conscience if there is any hope of protecting the 790-acre tract. I sincerely hope the Army Corps and Mr. Mullins will reach the conclusion that: 1) A full archeological survey and field investigation must be conducted in order to catalogue historic resources of the property before mitigation alternatives can be discussed; 2) Reinitiating the consulting process is the only way to ensure public concerns are to be fully captured; and 3) Piecemeal development of the property will result in the destruction of historic resources, degradation of the integrity of the battlefield and skirting of the true intent of the Historic Preservation Act of 1996.
Perhaps Gerda Lerner said it best: "The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events."
The loss of this hallowed ground would result in careless abandonment of our very history. What went before will be lost, removing the possibility to imagine the thunder of cavalry and the cries of our past. The sites of encampments will be replaced with single-family homes, the ghosts of cavalry with the harsh reality of automobiles. The only memory that will survive is where we have failed.
DANIEL HOLMES is special-projects coordinator of the Piedmont Environmental Council.