University of Virginia Library

(Dis)Gracing Green Springs

The proposed mining operation at Green
Springs in Louisa County should be curtailed
immediately. First the State of Virginia
attempts to build a blockhouse prison there,
now W.R. Grace & Co. of New York has
decided to use Green Springs as a vermiculite
mine.

Both proposals stink. They are two of the
most insidious and asinine ideas for land use
among the many which have stolen from
America much of the history and beauty that
should have been preserved.

The vermiculite operation is especially
galling in light of the Interior Department's
recent support for the preservation of Green
Springs. The authorities who attest to the
aesthetic quality of the area are
unquestionably well-qualified and too
numerous to mention. The fast-buck dealers
and complacent Board of Supervisors should
be universally disdained for their short-sighted
destruction of land which is already too rare.

Grace & Co. can claim that after digging
holes for vermiculite, they can turn them into
lakes or fill them back up. This is a cop-out
which experience has proven all too often to
be nothing but a meaningless pacifier for
distraught citizens. We cannot afford to be
pacified by allegedly pure long-range motives.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions,
and judging by Grace & Co.'s obvious
intentions for Green Springs they are well on
their way along that road.