Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 17, 1993 TAG: 9308170078
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CAROLYN CLICK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COVINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Abandoned by the railroad, haunted by a lingering recession, the region that runs along the bumpy shoulder of the Alleghany Mountains is laid low and looking for work.
So even though he is mayor of the city of Clifton Forge, Wright traveled across the line to neighboring Alleghany County last week to put in his two cents' worth on a proposed $3.5 million birthing center for pregnant federal prisoners.
Backers say the controversial center proposed by a group of private investors called Greenbrier Medical Group Inc. will generate 65 jobs and $1.5 million in tax base for the financially strapped county. Wright believes the region is in no position to dicker.
"Our young people are leaving every day, and we're getting older every day," Wright said. "We're going to be in the position of [saying], `The last one out turn out the lights.' "
It is no coincidence that the drama over a detention facility is being played out, once again, in a rural Virginia locality.
When there are prisons to be built, or landfills and medical waste incinerators proposed, officials routinely turn to areas where the land is plentiful and the tax base low.
And citizens who have chosen to make their homes in those localities find themselves facing a Hobson's choice: this or nothing at all.
For Alleghany County, the search for work has become Job 1.
And once again, proponents of economic development are pitted against citizens who will be the facility's neighbors and who must live with the consequences of a breakdown in security.
Although the Alleghany Highlands is home to the prosperous Westvaco paper mill and a few small scattered industries, the General Assembly was concerned enough about the region's health this year to authorize a regional development authority to spur economic progress.
Even so, when projects like the birthing center come along, raising issues of security and quality of life for the region, supervisors say they have to take a second look.
"We want to make sure that we are not doing something here that will backfire," said board Chairman Clarence Farmer.
"We're an area that is really losing, particularly in jobs," he said. "And it makes it tough when you have to depend on one [industry]."
County Attorney Wayne Heslip said officials wrestle daily with balancing economic development and the interests of the citizens.
"I know the supervisors are struggling with the idea of promoting economic developing and jobs for young people, but to do it without destroying what they have.
"A lot of it depends on how the project is operated," he said. "I don't think everyone has a comfort level yet." John Moeser, a professor of urban studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said Alleghany County is not alone in facing what experts are now calling "environmental justice."
Although many rural Virginia communities are vying for state prison facilities, others are balking at endorsing huge landfill and hazardous-waste projects simply because they are perceived as good for the economy.
"You've got two different phenomena," Moeser said. "Localities are seeking out what other localities are not because the former doesn't have a choice."
And, he said, some localities are discovering that public officials may endorse a project that the citizens are adamantly against.
Even Glynn Loope, director of the Alleghany Highlands Economic Development Authority, left himself some breathing room in endorsing the birthing center concept.
While he enthusiastically embraced the proposal as a sound one, he added, "There is not a signed contract between the federal government and Greenbrief Medical. I think that before the county makes its final decision, they need to hear from the federal Bureau of Prisons."
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.