Lawsuit Aimed At Derailing Digital Gateway Near Manassas Battlefield Dismissed

By

NPT Staff

Published Date

November 1, 2024

The battles at Manassas during the Civil War sprawled across farmlands/Kurt Repanshek file of the Henry House/Kurt Repanshek file

A legal battle against a massive data center proposed to be built next to Manassas National Battlefield Park has been dismissed/Kurt Repanshek file

A lawsuit filed in a bid to stop a massive data center from being built next to Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia has been dismissed by a judge who said it failed to raise substantive questions to merit a trial.

The American Battlefield Trust is pursuing options for appeal after the Circuit Court of Prince William County dismissed the lawsuit against Prince William County and two tech companies planning to develop the world’s largest data center complex on nearly 1,800 acres adjacent to the battlefield.

“While disappointed in today’s decision, the Trust remains undaunted,” American Battlefield Trust President David N. Duncan said following Thursday's ruling. “We’ve experienced setbacks before, and still prevailed. The Manassas Battlefield is too important to allow it to be overwhelmed by the world’s largest data center campus. Mark my words — this fight has only just begun.”

Duncan’s remarks were echoed by attorney and former Virginia state Senator Chap Petersen, who represents the Trust and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Speaking after the ruling, Petersen declared: “This is only the beginning of the process. We will go to the Court of Appeals. This is an important cause, and we are not giving up."

Read about local efforts to block the data center from being built.

The Trust and nine citizens filed the lawsuit in January against the county Board of Supervisors and two tech companies, arguing that there was a lack of required information about the development; inadequate public notice and hearings; unlawful waivers of key analyses; submissions and approvals; failure to consider key environmental and historical facts; and unlawful delegation of rezoning power through failure to identify which of the more than 1,750 acres could be put to what uses.

The Trust is part of a coalition of national, statewide and regional nonprofits that oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway. Earlier in October, several of these organizations, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, Preservation Virginia, the Piedmont Environmental Council, and the Coalition to Protect Prince William County, filed an amicus curiae brief in support the Digital Gateway lawsuit.

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