A lawsuit has been filed in a bid to halt a transmission line strung along nearly 300-foot-tall towers from crossing the James River near Historic Jamestowne/NPS

The National Parks Conservation Association, claiming that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to conduct due diligence in reviewing a permit application to string power lines along nearly 300-foot tall towers through the James River near Historic Jamestowne, has sued the agency in federal court.

The lawsuit (attached below) claims that the Corps failed to adequately considerate alternatives to the route chosen by Dominion Virginia Power, should have conducted a more rigorous environmental impact statement on the proposal, and turned a blind eye to opposition to the path voiced by other federal entities.

“There is only one Jamestowne, and once development of this magnitude begins, there is no undoing its impacts,” said Theresa Pierno, NPCA's president and CEO. “If we allow this to happen to one of America’s most important historic areas, what’s next for our other national parks? We will continue to fight in court to ensure that reckless development does not destroy this treasured and historic area.”

The Corps earlier this month went against recommendations from the Obama administration's Interior Department and National Park Service, as well as the Council of Environmental Quality, in approving the permit request after reviewing it under a less-stringent environmental assessment.

Dominion Virginia Power maintains that its proposed Surry-Skiffes Creek-Whealton Transmission Line, which would cross the James River between Surry and James City counties with 295-foot-tall towers, is the best way to maintain a healthy power grid in the area.

But groups including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, NPCA, and Preservation Virginia maintain there are less-damaging solutions that wouldn't need to span the river and invade the historic setting. One suggestion, from the Office of Federal Agency Programs for the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, was that the transmission lines be run beneath the river.

NPCA, in its lawsuit, contends that the Corps "did not adequately address" concerns voiced by the Park Service and Interior officials that the proposed, and ultimately approved route, would lead to "significant impacts to irreplaceable historic, cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic resorces."

In evaluating the impacts of the project on the dozens of national park units and historic properties in this region of unparalleled cultural importance for our nation, the Corps minimized the significance of the anticipated impacts by labeling all aesthetic, cultural, historic, and/or recreational impacts as “subjective” and thus insignificant since they are particular to the individual. However, the Corps failed to take a “hard look” at these impacts in the manner required by (the National Environmental Policy Act) because the significance of an impact does not turn on whether there is some level of subjectivity but whether, in fact, the introduction of a massive industrial project is a significant intrusion that negatively impacts the physical environment and the consequent visitor experience in enjoying the primitive landscapes that have been maintained and conserved for decades through conscious and deliberate efforts by Congress, federal agencies, and state agencies. -- NPCA lawsuit.

NPCA officials maintain that as approved the project would "deface Jamestown, Colonial National Historical Park, Colonial Parkway and the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, which collectively protect more than 400 years of our shared American history and which provide an unparalleled experience for learning about the founding of our nation. It would also jeopardize the $1 billion annual travel and tourism industry, which supports local jobs and generates tax revenues that benefit the region and state."

For its part, Dominion Virginia Power has agreed to spend nearly $100 million on mitigation projects that will "support, preserve, and/or enhance the historic character or viewshed of the Jamestown Settlement" and provide additional educational and interpretive programs to seawalls to protect Fort Monroe National Monument from sea level rise and efforts to "ensure that human skeletal remains and associated funerary objects encountered ... (are) treated in accordance with the Regulations Governing Permits for the Archaeological Removal of Human Remains."