Judge weighs Walmart decision

ORANGE — After listening to more than three hours of legal wrangling Wednesday, a judge will decide whether to throw out a lawsuit opposing a planned Walmart within a cannon’s shot of an endangered Civil War battlefield in Virginia.

Orange County wants Circuit Court Judge Daniel R. Bouton to dismiss a challenge of an Aug. 25 decision to approve the 138,000-square-foot supercenter within one mile of the Wilderness Battlefield.

Bouton did not indicate when he would rule.

Preservationists and some local residents contend the retail center will bring more commerce, traffic and pollution to the gateway of what is considered one of the nation’s most hallowed Civil War sites.

Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and his union counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant, first met in battle at the Wilderness, where 180,000 soldiers fought and 26,000 were killed or injured 146 years ago.

More than 250 historians, celebrities such as actor Robert Duvall and Civil War preservationists have spoken out against the store and its possible impact on the battlefield. The store would be outside the limits of the protected national park but within an area where troops prepared for battle, marched, and died of their injuries.

Walmart and its supporters have said the store would be in a commercial zone that’s already crowded with small retail outlets, and it would provide tax revenues and jobs in this rural county of approximately 15,000.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, along with six residents who live within three miles or less of the Walmart site and a group that maintains a historic estate on the battlefield, argue that the county Board of Supervisors ignored or rejected the assistance of historians and other preservation experts and brushed aside their concerns when it approved the special use permit for Walmart.

Wednesday’s hearing focused primarily on the county’s argument the case has no merit and should be dismissed.

An attorney for the county, Sharon Pandak, questioned whether any of the plaintiffs have legal standing to bring the lawsuit, which would require them to prove they would be harmed by the county’s decision.

She noted, for instance, that many live in subdivisions built upon areas of the Wilderness Battlefield.

Pandak argued that it’s not enough for the plaintiffs to claim they would be harmed because they would be able to see the Walmart once it is built.

The plaintiffs’ lawyer said Pandak was trying to set an unrealistic bar for their claim.

“She argues for a standing that no one could ever meet,” argued Robert D. Rosenbaum, representing the trust and the residents.

The arguments also went into whether a Planning Commission vote was valid, the statutory obligations of supervisors, and estimates of how many vehicles the store would draw daily.

Rosenbaum wants the judge to declare the supervisors’ vote “unlawful and invalid” and to block any further county action on Walmart’s site plan. Construction has not begun at the site.