According to Fredericksburg.com, the Supreme Court of Virginia has sided with Caroline County’s Board of Supervisors in a lawsuit involving Vulcan Materials Co.’s planned mining project on Albert Wachtmeister’s 541-acre Black Marsh Farms property in the Skinker’s Neck area of Caroline.
Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr. issued an opinion affirming a 2012 ruling by Circuit Judge Joseph Ellis, who ruled that Friends of the Rappahannock and a group of concerned citizens and landowners did not have legal standing to contest the Board of Supervisors’ 2011 decision to grant Vulcan a special-exception permit to mine sand and some gravel at the riverfront property.
The decision clears the way for the mining operation to proceed, said Hirschler Fleischer attorney Charlie Payne, who represented Vulcan in the case along with law partner John Walk. It’s unclear when the operation will begin.
Earlier this spring Caroline Circuit Court Judge Harry T. Taliaferro III also sided with the defendants in another lawsuit involving a nearby mining operation. That case involved a special-exception permit issued to the Snead family, the defendants, for the Clark’s Cut II mining operation on the north side of U.S. 17 along the Rappahannock River.