Congratulations to Diane Johnson

Many thanks to Brian for letting us know that just last month Glade Spring resident, Diane Johnson, received well-deserved recognition for her work down in Washington County.

Brian's story is a ray of sunshine. We can continue to support and encourage Diane and other activists like her in some small way by keeping up with the work they are doing.

Otherwise, we risk allowing potential hotbeds of vice conditions the quiet space to ferment into so many "Little Chicagos." That metaphor is dramatic overreach only until we recall the networks in Appalachia and Henry County that have come to light so recently.

Diane Johnson, a long-time resident of the Town of Glade Spring, received VCOGGÇÖs Laurence E. Richardson award for open-government contributions by individual citizens. The award honors the memory of a longtime Charlottesville broadcaster and VCOG founding director. Ms. Johnson sought town records involving sale or purchase, without public hearings, of a half-million-dollars worth of town property. She obtained a writ of mandamus requiring the town to produce public records and an injunction requiring proper notice of council meetings. Faced with threat of arrest when video-taping council meetings, she invoked FOIAGÇÖs explicit rules permitting citizens to record public meetings. She also helped teach other Glade Spring citizens about their access rights, helped form a civic club to promote voter registration and is currently planning a FOIA workshop for her town.

Do developers need to worry about ferreting out secrets?  Bounties of useful information are dropped into their laps. Potential buyers with any interest in this little parcel, cattie-corner across I-81 from the infamous truckstop, will find handy up-to-date demographics at their fingertips.

Here's what they can easily learn about the immediate area with a single click on the mouse:
-- median incomes (read wages) range from 29-39% below the state median
-- the population is about 95% white and holding
-- there's available housing
-- people aren't moving in or out
-- the age distribution is not uncomfortably skewed

But a little more digging is required to find out about
-- the suicide rate in Washington County, 60% higher than the rest of the state, although lower than some of the neighboring counties
-- the latest bizarre meth lab debacle over in Damascus, complete with death from natural causes
-- yet another mysterious incident involving a (still) missing person
-- the Damascus streaker caught by Santa Claus, a tale almost lost to posterity because of the meth lab
-- the guy down is Bristol who's afraid they're going to name a street after Boy George

Is there something in the water down there?  Maybe not, but Glade Spring is about halfway between Damascus and Saltville. For tourist purposes it's about halfway between Mt. Rodgers and Clinch Mountain.  Saltville is more in Smyth County than Washington, and it was a Superfund site. 

Here's some more background on George Allen's "environmental record" as facilitated by Becky Dunlop his (then) Natural Resources secretary.

On Saltville from the July 15, 1996 Virginia-Pilot

Gov. George F. Allen's administration has blocked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from listing seven hazardous waste sites on the Superfund cleanup list.

The administration used a little-known federal provision signed into law last summer that prevents the EPA from spending money to list a Superfund site unless it is requested in writing by a governor.

To date, Allen's secretary of natural resources, Becky Norton Dunlop, has requested Superfund status for four sites - all active federal installations - and specifically denied listing for seven sites.

The sites denied Superfund listings include three former military installations, including the former Nansemond Ordnance Depot in Suffolk, two private sites - Beverly Exxon in Staunton and Intercoastal Steel in Chesapeake - and the former town dump in Saltville.

State officials say they are avoiding Superfund on those sites because the program is slow and bureaucratic. They say they're exploring all options for getting the sites cleaned up, and consider the EPA's program a last resort.

"Our overall goal is to get the sites cleaned up," said Erica Dameron, who oversees Superfund for the state Department of Environmental Quality. "We felt we would gain more by not listing these sites."

Virginia is one of six states that have exercised their new power to keep the EPA from including hazardous waste sites in the Superfund program, according to the agency.

While the EPA waits for some indication from the states whether they intend to support a Superfund designation, hundreds of other hazardous waste sites remain in limbo.

``Far fewer sites are being listed,'' said Kevin Wood, EPA's regional listing coordinator in Philadelphia. ``And it's not just in Virginia, it's nationwide.''

The EPA also is holding back on analyzing hazardous waste sites. The agency doesn't want to spend a lot of money studying a site only to have a state block it, said Robert Myers in the EPA's Washington Superfund office.

But there's so much more to Glade Spring. Golden tobacco hangs to cure in the shed behind the abandoned church.  Just beyond stands the parsonage, nicely converted into affordable efficiency apartments.  Some local people call it "percentage apartments" only because they don't know the word parsonage. And just beyond that are the railroad tracks. Some of the older homes were built facing the tracks when Glade Spring was a bustling town with a busy hotel and train station.  Now, in a parking lot not far from the town's center it's not unusual on a Saturday to run across an impromptu bluegrass band.  The grocery store carries homemade caramel pies, and young girls in unfashionably long dresses speed read teen magazines when their mothers are at the other end of the store.

Not too far way is another church, built over a bold creek. Who knows why. Every Saturday a sour-faced man in overalls begrudgingly drops off his even grimmer wife at the Glade Spring laundromat, along with a few children and grandchildren. A few miles away in a steep dark hollow, a home with a low-pitched roof is built into the side of the hill. Several goats graze on the roof.  Maybe that's where they live.

In this context someone down Washington County is working for more openness in government. Congratulations, Diane Johnson. You've got guts and determination. And thank you for putting your heart and stamina to good use.

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