(April 2006) NEW MARKET, Va. - A grassroots effort to keep Interstate-81 from gobbling up Civil War battlefields in the Shenandoah Valley may be gathering steam.

STAR Solutions, a consortium of builders led by Halliburton, is proposing a public-private partnership with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) to double the size of the four-lane interstate, even widening it to 10 lanes or more in some places, and adding tolls. The highway runs through seven of the 10 battlefields in the Shenandoah Valley National Historic District.

"Widening would have a tremendous impact," said Howard Kittell, executive director of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation. For instance, he said, the highway is already within 200 feet of the Bushong House at New Market battlefield, an "icon" of Shenandoah Valley history.

The proposed expansion would not only obliterate existing battlefield acreage, Kittell said, but it would dramatically increase the visual and noise pollution of the super-highway, and its notorious truck traffic would likely increase.

According to VDOT, I-81 is one of the top eight trucking routes in the country. Its traffic counts have tripled in 20 years to a total of 60,000 vehicles daily in the Roanoke and Winchester areas. I-81 stretches 327 miles through Virginia but extends through six states, from Tennessee to New York. The STAR proposal addresses only Virginia.

The Valley foundation, along with several communities and nonprofit organizations, has adopted a "reasonable solutions" proposal to improve I-81. Instead of a major widening, the plan calls for spot improvements such as climbing lanes and redesigned exits; use of the median rather than gobbling up additional right-of-way, and funding for land acquisition to mitigate the impact of the highway on battlefields.

The "reasonable solutions" proposal was spearheaded by Megan Gallagher, director of the Shenandoah Valley Network, a group that works in seven counties to promote land preservation and sensible land-use planning.

"We are very optimistic," said Gallagher. Local governments are realizing that the proposed highway is "hopelessly oversized" and would have "tremendous impact" on nearby communities, battlefields and farmland, she said. Local residents are opposed to tolls, and local communities fear that vehicles attempting to avoid the tolls will flood parallel roads like Route 11, the old Valley Pike.

Gallagher noted that opponents of the highway plan had blocked the consortium's efforts last summer to secure $800 million in federal funding towards the highway expansion, which is estimated to cost $13.6 billion. A total of $100 million was appropriated instead, aimed at easing truck congestion.

"One hundred million dollars does not build a $13.6 billion truckway," Gallagher said. "We are very optimistic. Everybody talks about our alternative."

Gallagher was undaunted by the recent failure of proposed legislation in the state General Assembly that would have called for scaled-down improvements along the lines of the "reasonable solutions."

"There were enough countervailing forces to prevent it from getting out of committee," she said. "So that door has closed. It's back to working with VDOT." Gallagher said an ace in the hole for opponents of the expanded highway is that there is no money to build it.

Public hearings on an environmental impact statement addressing the STAR Solutions plan, issued by VDOT, were expected in March.

Our email address is: mail@civilwarnews.com