THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506220031
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
The Lake Gaston brouhaha has brought Virginia full circle from the days, some three decades ago, when rural legislators held the power and controlled the future of the urban centers under the guidance of Harry Byrd Sr.
Unfortunately, one of the rural feudal lords in Hampton Roads decided this fiefdom was in peril and created a big city from the clay of Princess Anne County and the sand of a Virginia beach. Hampton Roads has suffered for it ever since in the form of its spawning mirror images in the cities of Suffolk and Chesapeake.
With the promise of low property taxes, gross amounts of federal money from military installations, the dream of tourist dollars and Norfolk water, the land developers stole City Council and ran amok in uncontrolled growth.
Today, finally facing the fact of life that their free lunch depends on the water of the Roanoke Basin, they preach the gospel of regionalism. The words of university professors, the Council of Civic Organizations of Virginia Beach representing the same ``grass roots'' that voted in grow-at-any-cost city councils and, ultimately, the 800-pound gorilla of a Fortune 500 company simply do not ring true.
Some years ago one of our better governors laid out the future of Virginia along an east/west corridor of a Route 58 expanded to stretch from Hampton Roads to Danville and beyond. He had probably looked closely at the success of North Carolina in bringing high-tech research and industry to the corridor joining Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem.
In other words, the key to success is to take your future to the natural resources that you possess. The Southwestern states feed off the Colorado River and are paying the price for their theft and artificial expansion.
Virginia Beach needs water? Simple: Let the regionalism begin by building desalinization plant(s) and recycling wastewater.
Virginia Beach has a fine regional international airport within its borders. Just don't fight so hard for NAS Oceana; its future also is built on sand.
VICTOR A. BLANDIN
Norfolk, June 16, 1995 by CNB