Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 21, 1992 TAG: 9202210396
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG LENGTH: Medium
ENVIRONMENTALIST FAILS TO BLOCK FILMING AT FOREST
The U.S. Forest Service has rejected an environmentalist's attempt to block the filming of a major motion picture at an antebellum estate on federal land.New Regency Films representative Scott Elias estimated the project could be worth $10 million to the area's economy, including $2 million to $3 million that will be spent preparing, filming and restoring the property.
In an appeal filed with the regional Forest Service office in Atlanta last month, Mike Jones of Waynesboro said filming a movie in the George Washington National Forest would harm the environment and disrupt biological processes.
Jones said Thursday that he was representing Virginians for Wilderness.
The group is loosely affiliated with Preserve Appalachian Wilderness, a regional organization, but the number of people in the group is unknown because there is no official membership list, Jones said.
The appeal said the Forest Service should have conducted an environmental assessment before issuing a special-use permit to allow the filming of "Sommersby," a movie about a soldier who tries to put his life and home in order after the Civil War.
"It's the cumulative affect of all these special exceptions that we're really after," he said. "Everything starts piling up. If one thing has a little impact, two things have even more. . . . Each piece of this ground is special. We have to watch our step each time we take one."
Forest Service review officer John Alcock said in a decision made public Thursday that George Washington Forest Superintendent George Kelley considered the effects of filming and took sufficient measures to ensure the environment will be protected.
The movie will star Richard Gere and Jodie Foster, and most filming will take place in April at Warwickton, a former plantation with a 144-year-old mansion on the National Register of Historic Places.
Ron and Pam Stidham signed a landmark agreement with the U.S. Forest Service in 1990 to renovate the long-vacant mansion near Hot Springs and turn it into a bed and breakfast inn and working farm.
Renovations to Warwick Mansion and construction of five small structures and facades to resemble a small settlement are well under way, George Washington forest spokesman W. Terry Smith said Thursday.