I am a major History Dork, and spent much of my highschool years going to the wonderful Hapers Ferry, and this is enraging, its absolutely RIDICULOUS!!
Wednesday Oct 11, 2006 Headline News
Groups demand action over Harpers Ferry excavation
HARPERS FERRY (AP) - Three historic preservation groups are demanding the U.S. Department of the Interior prosecute a developer who dug 45-foot wide trenches in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park without a permit.
Jefferson Utilities Inc. of Charles Town bulldozed two 1,900-foot-long trenches near the School House Ridge Battlefield last month to install utility lines for a planned community nearby. The Civil War Preservation Trust, the National Parks Conservation Association and the National Trust for Historic Preservation contend the work was illegal because it was done while the National Park Service was still considering a permit application.
''If the Harpers Ferry violators are not prosecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law, it will send the message that the NPS will turn a blind eye in the event of similar violations on national park lands throughout the nation,'' James Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Preservation Trust, said Tuesday.
Mike Cassell, a Charles Town lawyer who represents Jefferson Utilities and its owner Lee Snyder, has said that no laws were broken. Snyder bought an easement to build the line before the National Park Service acquired the land, he said, and no historical artifacts were disturbed. But the preservationists say Park Service officials using metal detectors on the disturbed area found artifacts that suggest both historical and archaeological significance.
Harpers Ferry, at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers, changed hands eight times during the Civil War. On Sept. 15, 1862, thousands of Union troops surrendered to Gen. Stonewall Jackson, who had surrounded them at School House Ridge. Joy Oakes, a regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, added, ''Interior officials must send a clear message that such deliberate illegal actions will not be tolerated on lands held in trust for all Americans."
(From WVU Daily Paper)
DOWN WITH THOSE WHO THINK THEY CAN DO WHAT THEY WANT AND RISK THE DESTRUCTION OF HAFE!!!
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