THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 13, 1995 TAG: 9505130245
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
Two Southside municipalities filed a legal motion Friday in hopes of derailing the Lake Gaston settlement.
The city of Danville and the town of Clarksville, both located in the Roanoke River Basin that includes the lake, asked a federal district court to make them parties to the lawsuit that led to the settlement, lawyer Patrick M. McSweeney said.
Their goal, according to a news release, is to seek ``the invalidation of the settlement agreement between the City of Virginia Beach and the State of North Carolina.''
Danville and Clarksville officials say the settlement overlooks their concerns.
``We feel like the settlement does not take into account the needs of those of us in the (Roanoke River) basin,'' Danville City Manager A. Ray Griffin Jr. said.
Neither area participated in the negotiations because neither was a party to the original lawsuit, one of a half-dozen that have extended the water battle for more than a dozen years.
Last year, North Carolina sued U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ronald H. Brown after he sided with Virginia Beach in the Gaston dispute.
The case went to U.S. District Court in Washington where a judge suggested the parties resolve their disagreement out of court. Both North Carolina and Virginia Beach agreed to mediate the entire Lake Gaston issue, instead of just the commerce secretary's decision.
Two weeks ago, after more than four months of negotiations, Virginia Beach and North Carolina signed a settlement, part of which now has to be ratified by the Virginia and North Carolina legislatures and the United States Congress. Chesapeake and Norfolk must also agree to sections of the compromise.
McSweeney, lawyer for the Roanoke River Basin Association which has long fought Virginia Beach's attempts to draw water from Lake Gaston, said the agreement violates the Virginia Constitution.
``Only the governor can negotiate with other states, even in settling a lawsuit,'' he said.
Danville and Clarksville did not ask to be party to the original lawsuit, McSweeney said, because they had no idea the settlement would be so broad in scope.
McSweeney, chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, said the settlement fails to provide adequate opportunity for public comment.
``It has to be more than an 800-number where people phone in their comments and they're toted up,'' he said. ``It ought to be an opportunity for thoughtful comment, careful review and balanced public opinion.''
John Bickerman, the Washington lawyer who mediated the dispute, strongly disagreed with that argument.
``I cannot imagine a more open political process than the one that is now underway,'' he said. ``There are ample opportunities for these parties to participate in the political process.''
Bickerman, a lawyer with the firm of Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays and Handler, said he thinks the Southside officials and other settlement opponents have lost sight of the importance of the agreement, which contains provisions that limit the amount of water that can be removed from the Roanoke River basin.
If Virginia Beach gets the expected approval from the final remaining federal agency reviewing the pipeline, it could build the project without need for the settlement.
``Some people may be very misguided in concluding that if they ditch the settlement, they ditch the pipeline. Far from it,'' Bickerman said. ``All they may have succeeded is in losing the protection for the basin.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff map
Proposed pipeline
Area Shown: Danville, Clarksville, Lake Gaston
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON PIPELINE SETTLEMENT LAWSUIT by CNB