Mining Operation Expansion Sought Near Cedar Creek

By Deborah Fitts

MIDDLETOWN, Va. — A proposal for a major quarrying operation on the Cedar Creek Battlefield has preservationists up in arms and officials at adjoining Belle Grove Plantation and the brand-new national battlefield park fearing the worst.

Cleveland-based Oglebay-Norton Minerals(O-N), also known locally by its Middletown subsidiary Chemstone, has applied to Frederick County to rezone 639 acres immediately adjacent to the new Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park. If the Board of Supervisors approves the application as it stood at presstime in August, O-N would be allowed to mine anywhere on the tract.

Nearly all of the 639 acres is part of the core battlefield of Cedar Creek, where, on Oct. 19, 1864, troops under Confederate Gen. Jubal Early and federal cavalryman Phil Sheridan clashed in the battle that secured the Shenandoah Valley for the Union.

O-N purchased the property several years ago from Chemstone, which operated a quarry for decades on 50 acres adjacent to Belle Grove, but left the 639 acres in farming use.

O-N, however, is eyeing the valuable, high-quality limestone underlying the parcel. The company’s Web site says the Middletown plant produces “high calcium chemical limestone feedstock for a variety of industrial applications.” The company, which was founded in 1854, mines, processes and distributes minerals and aggregates for industrial use.

“A mining operation on a battlefield is the worst possible thing,” said Jim Campi, spokesman for the Civil War Preservation Trust. “Cedar Creek’s National Park Service status should be enhanced to make it one of the top tourist destinations in Virginia, and instead you’ve got this proposal to mine the core battlefield. We could not be more opposed to that.”

Campi said in early August that the Trust was “still trying to determine our strategy” to oppose the mining. But he vowed that the nationwide organization would help local preservation groups in their fight against the proposal.

Among those groups is the nonprofit Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation, headquartered at historic Belle Grove on the battlefield. Executive Director Suzanne Chilson said Belle Grove and the battlefield have suffered for years from the visual impact of the Chemstone quarry directly behind the 1797 mansion, where a soaring pile of waste and industrial machinery dominate the view.

If O-N’s application is approved, Chilson expressed concern for future living history at Cedar Creek, where a major October reenactment on the rolling terrain has been a staple of the living-history calendar. In July the foundation hosted the 145th Manassas event, drawing more than 7,000 reenactors, according to Chilson.

Three thousand of them signed a petition opposing the mining application. Collecting those signatures — and selling T-shirts and raffle tickets — at a booth during the July 21-23 event was Preserve Frederick, a grassroots group formed in March to fight O-N’s proposal.

Julie Clevenger, spokesman for Preserve Frederick, said her 400-member Winchester-based organization was “desperately trying to grab attention” at the national level to help bring pressure to bear on local officials. She said fans of the battlefield should envision a series of quarries two-and-a-half miles long, bordering the boundary of the new national park.

“The battlefield will be lined with quarries,” Clevenger said, with all the accompanying industrial equipment, piles of dirt and truck traffic.

The Frederick County Planning Commission has recommended against approval of the rezoning, citing O-N’s failure to address a wide range of possible adverse impacts on historic resources, traffic, groundwater and the like. County officials said O-N is now reworking the plan, which is expected to come before the Board of Supervisors this fall.

The rezoning could profoundly affect the new Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, whose nearly 3,500 acres are bordered by O-N’s property. Park Superintendent Diann Jacox expressed reluctance to oppose the application, however.

“What we’ve done so far is identify the specific issues the project raises,” Jacox said. “We’re certainly concerned about visual impacts,” especially given the fact that the present quarry near Belle Grove is visible for more than a mile.

Jacox also expressed concern about possible water draw-down on adjacent properties, which she said could drive farmers out of business and open the land up for more development.

Jacox asked the National Park Service’s Geological Resources Division to review O-N’s application. In a letter to the county in March, Carol McCoy, chief of the division’s Planning, Evaluation & Permits Branch, cited the legislation creating the park, which pointed to the park’s “nationally significant Civil War landscape and antebellum plantation,” together with “panoramic views of the mountains, natural areas and waterways … an inspiring setting of great natural beauty.”

McCoy said O-N’s application and impact analysis “do not fully address the likely impacts” of the mining “on these valuable and unique resources.”

Among issues that McCoy said O-N failed to address adequately were dust, increased truck traffic (for a total of 1,308 daily trips through Middletown), noise and vibration, blasting, night lighting, impact on ground and surface waters, and impact on adjacent property values.

Preserve Frederick’s Clevenger said that one of the most alarming aspects of the proposal, which first came before the county in December, is what her group sees as a “back-door deal” between O-N and the Frederick County Sanitation Authority. The Authority, a separate governmental entity within the county, has a 70-year lease with O-N to use its quarry pits as a water source.

Frederick has been hit with the same fast-growth craze that is rapidly transforming neighboring Loudoun County, Clevenger noted, and Frederick doesn’t have sufficient water to serve all the development expected in the coming years.

Eager to take advantage of quarry holes that O-N would excavate, the Authority, by the terms of the lease, is funding the entire cost of O-N’s rezoning application. Wellington Jones, engineer-director of the Authority, told Civil War News that the cost to date was “about $60,000.” The Authority is supported by customer water and sewer fees rather than taxpayer dollars.

Rezoning critics are expressing fears that the Authority plans to pull water from an aquifer underlying the O-N property. But Jones said, “We don’t have any plans to drill on that property — at least not at this point.” He acknowledged that there are plans, however, to divert water from Cedar Creek itself. But he said, “We try not to adversely affect people” by drawing the stream down too much.

Michael Ruddy, the county’s deputy planning director, said county officials were sensitive to historic sites like the Cedar Creek battlefield and had been “proactive” in recent years to recognize such resources. He said that water withdrawal would not be a problem for the battlefield, but the visual impact of the mining equipment and piles of waste could significantly impact the viewsheds.

“The initial application didn’t have any consideration of these impacts,” Ruddy said. “The message the county sent to them is, ‘How could this fit in?’ We’re hoping they will show us how it can happen; maybe it can’t. The ball is in the applicant’s court.”

Preserve Frederick is seeking donations to continue their efforts. More information on the group is available online at Shenandoahvalleynetwork.org, or by writing to Preserve Frederick, P.O. Box 562, Middletown, VA 22645.  The Web site at www.geocities.com/saveMiddletown/now includes photos of the present plant and heavy trucks, a map, talking points and contact information for local officials.

Those wishing to send comments on the rezoning application to county officials may mail them care of Michael Ruddy, Frederick County Planning Commission, 107 No. Kent St., 2nd Floor, Winchester, VA 22601.

Clevenger said Preserve Frederick is planning to present the 3,000 reenactor signatures to the Board of Supervisors when the seven-member panel holds a hearing on the rezoning application. She said reenactors from the 2nd Virginia and possibly the 4th Virginia regiment will be on hand to drive the point home.