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By MARKSCOLFORO
Arundel Newspapers Staff Writer
CULPEPER — The Virginia Water Control Board held a fact fining hearing on the proposed South Wales development at Culpeper High Monday night, the latest in a year of public hearings on the controversial project.
Many of the speakers' and their arguments have surfaced at previous hearings, but with legal action coming to a head this month, opponents offered some insight into the strategies they might employ.
South Wales Inc. wants to build as many as 2,132 homes on 2,518 acres near Jeffersonton, eight miles from Warrenton on the site of the present South Wales Golf Course.
Road construction and other site work began months ago on the first phase of the development, which consists of 343 homes. No building permits have been issued, and the development is awaiting approval by the SWCB for enlargements to an existing sewage treatment plant.
The development is also tied up in litigation. Two groups of concerned landowners, both represented by Washington, Va. attorney Frank Reynolds, have sued in Culpeper Circuit Court, asking it to repeal actions by the Culpeper Board of Supervisors and by county admistrator Norma Dunwoody.
At the SWCB hearing Monday, Reynolds received a loud round of applause after he asked the water board to delay action on the water treatment plant and provided detailed arguments against it.
The proposed treatment plant would dump almost a million gallons of treated wastewater into the Rappahannock daily.
Before the pending permit was drafted, county administrator Dunwoody sent a letter to the SWCB certifying that the project conforms to Culpeper ordinances. That letter is the subject of pending litigation.
Reynolds attacked Dunwoody’s action, saying that her letter of certification was not that of the governing body — the supervisors — and the project does not conform to local ordinances anyway. Under terms of state law, the governing body must certify the project’s legality before the SWCB can draft a permit.
If the SWCB declines to settle the issue of Dunwoody’s ability to certify that the plant is legal, Reynolds will certainly get to argue the point in front of circuit court Judge Lloyd Sullenberger after a hearing date is set. Attorneys are due in Culpeper Circuit Court on June 19 to set a date for the hearing.
Reynolds has also filed suit asking for the court to overturn the supervisors’ close vote to approve the first phase of South Wales. The county Board of Zoning Appeals has declined to consider the matter, leading to the court action.
The Monday hearing, officiated by SWCB mem
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