ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 16, 1997 TAG: 9702170042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
Virginia Beach won another legal victory when a judge told Lake Gaston pipeline opponents that they had not been injured by a Virginia law supporting the project.
The complainants in the lawsuit included property owners along Smith Mountain Lake, Rep. Virgil Goode, D-Rocky Mount, and 11 state lawmakers.
Retired Judge Park Lemmond, ruling for the Richmond Circuit Court, said Friday that the legislators and landowners on a lake in Southside Virginia were not harmed by the law.
He said he would consider allowing a third set of complainants - landowners along the Roanoke River - to keep the lawsuit alive if they did a better job of proving that they would suffer if Virginia Beach is allowed to draw from Lake Gaston.
Virginia Beach counsel George Somerville said the city never felt threatened by the lawsuit because it does not need the state law to win approval for the 76-mile pipeline.
``It always feels good to win, but I think there was a lot less at stake in this case,'' Somerville said.
Virginia has been trying for 14 years to tap Lake Gaston on the North Carolina-Virginia border. It has been challenged by North Carolina and opponents in Southside Virginia.
Construction of the pipeline, which would also serve Chesapeake and perhaps Franklin and Isle of Wight County, is about 85 percent complete.
Goode, who lent his name to the case against Virginia Beach, said he doesn't know what the complainants will do next, except continue to fight the pipeline.
``I'm still optimistic that either through state court or federal court that the pipeline can be stopped,'' Goode said. ``I still think we're on the right side of the issue.''
Goode and the other Southside legislators alleged that a 1992 state law supporting the pipeline was inappropriately adopted and unconstitutional, and that they were therefore ``injured by a distortion of the process by which a bill becomes law in Virginia.''
The other legislators involved in the lawsuit are: state Sens. Charles Hawkins, R-Chatham, Richard Holland, D-Isle of Wight, and Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth; and Dels. Ward Armstrong, D-Henry County, William Bennett, D-Halifax County, Whitt Clement, D-Danville, Joyce Crouch, R-Lynchburg, Allen Dudley, R-Rocky Mount, Lacey Putney, I-Bedford, Roscoe Reynolds, D-Henry County, and Frank Ruff, R-Mecklenburg County.
The third set of complainants includes landowners along the Roanoke River in Virginia and North Carolina, who argued that the legislation would allow water to be taken from the river and would therefore deprive them of taking the same water.
Any of the complainants could appeal the judge's ruling to the Virginia Supreme Court.
LENGTH: Medium: 60 linesby CNB