Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 22, 1994 TAG: 9407070090
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Orlando Sentinel
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Thus the argument of states' rights versus federal mandates - which triggered the Civil War 130 years ago - erupted again Tuesday in a packed Capitol Hill hearing room.
Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-Ark., convened the Senate public lands and national monuments subcommittee to discuss the impact on the Manassas battlefields of the proposed 3,000-acre, $650 million Disney's America park and real estate complex 35 miles southwest of Washington.
``I have always felt that one of the measures of a nation's strength is its appreciation and understanding of its history,'' Bumpers said during the five-hour hearing. ``It cannot fully appreciate its history if the ability to walk on the hallowed ground where it occurred has been lost.''
But Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, D-Colo., placing a Mickey Mouse cap next to his nameplate, said Virginia and Prince William County had enough zoning laws, planners and elected officials to make their own decisions and that senators should keep out of local ``Mickey Mouse'' zoning matters.
Opponents of the project have sought for months to make it a national battle of historic preservation versus suburban sprawl and runaway development.
But Disney champions, including Virginia's governor and most legislators, see it as a local matter - not the concern of outsiders, be they historians or senators.
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., whose 1816 Middleburg home once was Confederate leader John Mosby's headquarters, conceded he was ``concerned'' about the impact of a theme park. But he had a larger worry.
``Regardless of my own personal views about this project, the states' rights issue is overriding,'' said Warner, a co-sponsor of Bumpers' 1988 bill to buy 500 acres adjoining the Manassas battlefield to save it from becoming a shopping center.
There are no plans for Congress to buy any of the land on which Disney wants to build the park, hotels, golf courses, a campground, offices and shops.
The proposed complex is four to seven miles from the Manassas battlefields and is expected to draw 6 million visitors a year when it opens in 1998.
Bumpers said several federal agencies have jurisdiction, because the project involves a national battlefield, the widening of Interstate 66 and federal clean air standards.
Assistant Interior Secretary George Frampton conceded that the agency lacks direct jurisdiction, because the theme park would be more than two miles from the Manassas battlefield.
The most enthusiastic pro-Disney witness was Virginia Gov. George Allen, a Republican, who hailed the project as an economic boon that will generate 19,000 jobs (Disney estimates 12,000) and $47 million a year in new taxes.
The sharpest critics were historians, including David McCullough, Harry Truman's biographer and president of the Society of American Historians.
``If one were to search for a surviving segment of historic America worth protecting ... one could hardly do better [than the Disney property],'' he said. ``And by contrast, one could also hardly find a place less appropriate for a huge, sprawling commercial development.''
Walt Disney Co. officials had the last word.
``We stand accused of `vulgarizing' history and plundering sacred ground,'' said Peter Rummell, president of the Disney Design and Development Corp. ``Disney's America will open another window on the past, but it will not block the existing view.''
by CNB