ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 25, 1996 TAG: 9606250057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
A FUTURE PARK SITE has given way to a computer chip plant, and development is crowding history from all sides. But the Park Service is trying hard to compromise with landowners.
The expansion of a Civil War battlefield park near the future site of a computer chip plant has been deleted from a new Richmond National Battlefield Park master plan.
Another site where black troops fought during the war, however, will be preserved.
The plan notes that development is encroaching on all sides of sites where Union and Southern forces battled in the weeks before the Confederate capital fell.
Development is encroaching on Richmond-area Civil War battlefields from all sides, the plan notes.
Public opinion, reflected in responses to park newsletters, is ``favorable toward preservation, especially in ... Richmond and Chesterfield and Hanover County.''
But Henrico County officials fiercely opposed preservation plans at Savage Station, a 268-acre property near the tract where Siemens AG and Motorola Inc. will build a semiconductor chip plant. That site was dropped from the master plan.
Park officials said a second site, 254 acres in Varina, should be preserved because 14 black Union troops each won the Medal of Honor for bravery in clashes with Confederate soldiers there in September 1864.
The troops' sacrifices there were so notable, National Park Service historians say, that they helped ensure passage of the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery.
To ease landowners' concerns, the National Park Service said it would buy new property only if the owner consents. The park service also promised to back legislation stripping it of the power to take land against an owner's wishes.
Rep. Thomas Bliley, R-Richmond, has pushed for that legislation. He also wants to freeze the park's boundary to the land it now owns or is scheduled to receive in donations.
Instead of a new $5.5 million visitors center near one of the battlefields, as had been proposed, the plan keeps the main visitors center on Church Hill in Richmond for the time being.
In Hanover, the plan identifies land for preservation at North Anna and Totopotomoy Creek, where Union and Confederate troops fought in May 1864.
The North Anna property is along that river in both Hanover and Caroline counties. The Totopotomoy Creek land is in Hanover County.
Overall, the plan would affect 108 owners of 133 properties. It carries an estimated $13 million price tag for park improvements, not including land purchases.
Park officials said people interested in the master plan may inspect it at the Chimborazo visitors center on Church Hill. They hope to have copies to distribute in about three weeks.
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