Although the formal comment period has expired, Preservation Piedmont has added our voice to the chorus of citizens and organizations requesting that the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers deny a permit for or alternatively, at a minimum, complete a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the effects of the proposed Green Ridge Recycling and Disposal
Facility in Cumberland County on the area’s historical and natural resources and the people living nearby.
The Green Ridge Facility would be one of the largest such facilities in Virginia, serving
communities within 500 miles, many outside Virginia. Despite its application to build a
mega-landfill, the company has neither demonstrated the need for this facility nor
conducted a study of its many impacts, including those on the Pine Grove Rosenwald
School, across the street from the proposed landfill, and the surrounding African
American community.
The Pine Grove Rosenwald School is the only African American cultural resource in
Cumberland County listed on the National Register of Historic Places as well as on the
Virginia Landmarks Register. One of a rapidly diminishing number of Rosenwald
schools in Virginia and the South, Pine Grove is also the heart of a community
established and populated by descendants of the formerly enslaved. These families
have created a rural landscape reflecting the values, agricultural economy, and the
social lives of the many people who supported and were sustained by the Pine Grove
Rosenwald School.
The historic cemeteries, natural springs, roads and paths, farms, former stores, and
other landscape features and components reflect and represent rural life in this
significant rural African American community in the segregated Jim Crow Era of the late
19th and early 20th centuries.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed Pine Grove School as one of
America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places for 2021. This designation followed
Preservation Virginia’s designation of the Pine Grove School Community as one of the
state’s most endangered historic places in 2020.
The Rosenwald School project originated in a partnership between educator Booker T.
Washington and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, part owner and leader of Sears
Roebuck, to help create schools for Black children throughout the South in the early 20th
Century. Based on Washington’s designs and seed money from the Rosenwald Fund,
the local community built Pine Grove School in 1917, and it remained in operation until
1964. The former school serves now as an important community gathering place.
The Green Ridge disposal area would cover 238 acres, accepting up to 5,000 tons of
waste per day. The project threatens the many streams and wetlands in the area as
well as 44 private drinking water wells within 500 feet of the proposed facility.
Under the Clean Water Act, the Corps must determine “the least environmentally
damaging practicable alternative” and that it is “in the public interest” to issue a Section
404 permit under the Act.
We request that the permit be denied. However, at a minimum, if the permit is not
denied at the outset, then the Corps should require a full EIS, including a
comprehensive review of the proposed need for the facility, study of alternative
locations, and the potentially severe impacts on the Pine Grove School and resources,
including drinking water, associated with the historic African American community.
Click the link below to join the National Trust for Historic Preservation's petition or write to the Army Corp at:
Mr. Steven Vanderploeg
Norfolk District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
9100 Arboretum Parkway, Suite 235 BY EMAIL
Richmond, VA 23235
steven.a.vanderploeg@usace.army.mil