Piedmont Environmental Council / www.Bayjournal.com
The northern corner of Orange County, Virginia, that borders the Rapidan River use to be the state's center of the gold mining boom. A new development project planned for the 2,600-acre property was submitted but saw immediate delays. The Piedmont Environmental Council initially opposed the development project because it was the largest potential rezoning in the county’s history.
More concerns began to surface as the council’s director of state policy, Dan Holmes, began investigating. He found that the mines on the property had indicated mercury contamination. In a stream near one of the sites, an investigator found a pile of discarded mercury tailings from mining operations. This warranted a testing of the stream water and the flesh of the fish from the stream.
In Virginia, the responsibility of a mine on residential property falls onto the owner, but no such laws exist for Mines that were created 190 years ago. At the end of January, a 55-page document was submitted detailing plans to address the mine if the rezoning is approved by the county’s Board of Supervisors.