I would hope this will be reported to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) – they oversee stormwater issues. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) should also be contacted. Such stormwater blowouts (without permits) are possibly a violation of Virginia stormwater regulations which require adequate erosion and sediment control.

It’s one thing to be screwed by greedy developers and landowners. It’s quite another for a “steward” of preservation to let that screw happen on his watch. I look forward to what the CWT has to say about this and will look for any news in The Civil War News. (I hope someone has filled in the folks at that periodical about all this.)

I fired off one email. If there’s anything else a poor sap like me can do, I’ll be obliged to help.

As a former 12-year board member of the BSF, where I served as the BSF’s chief spokesperson during the preservation battles of the 1990’s, I am shocked by the abandonment of their core mission to protect the Brandy Station battlefield. Over the past weekend, I contacted BSF President Joe McKinney and urged him to take action and join the preservation forces opposing the Troilo construction. His response involved explaining his belief that this issue had been blown out of proportion and how the BSF could not interfere with Mr. Troilo’s private property rights. He also complained about being mistreated by this blog.

I drove out and visited the site on Sunday morning and was appalled at the destruction I saw. How could anyone, who leads a preservation organization, not be sickened by the mess Troilo’s bulldozers inflicted on this verdant historic hillside? Angry and upset, I wrote a lengthy, impassioned letter to Joe McKinney requesting he and the BSF to step-up and oppose the destruction on Fleetwood Hill. I urged the BSF to make a public statement opposing this construction project. The McKinney and BSF response so far…only silence!!! Not one public word.

Todd Berkoff and I, along with several others, are members of the so-called “BSF Board in Exile.” We did resign upon Joe McKinney’s back-door appointment to the BSF presidency because we feared McKinney is not a true preservationist and would not fight to preserve this important battlefield. Less than one month later, Joe McKinney and the BSF leadership proved us correct – sadly.

Simply put, as an ardent preservationist, I believe Joe McKinney and the BSF leadership cannot be trusted to preserve and protect this hallowed battlefield. Their silence on this issue conveys a level of complicity in Troilo’s destruction efforts on historic south Fleetwood Hill. Their appeasement – if not outright support – of Tony Troilo’s so-called “property rights” and his wishes to destroy a key part of Fleetwood Hill should reverberate throughout the preservation community. We should not tolerate it.

I am relieved the Corps stepped in and stopped Troilo. He will now be required to remediate the destruction he caused – at his own expense. Special thanks to my long-time friend Clark B. Hall, the former president of the BSF, who led this preservation fight as the BSF sat on the sidelines. Bud and I have fought many developers and threats to this battlefield over the years. He is a man of true principles. Something Joe McKinney and the BSF leadership seem not to possess.

I agree that in some cases development can be rolled back, and partial recovery is an option. That may occur in specific cases, for example tree line restorations, clearing of lightly modified grounds, OR that old car dealership along Carlisle Road at Gettysburg.

But at the same time preservation groups shouldn’t just hide from contention by citing “reversible changes” as a long term policy. In my mind, that’s the point the organization stops being a preservation group and starts becoming an advocate for developers.