rawdog

So far in 2025, Virginia has not experienced much severe weather, even as states to our west are having repeated outbreaks, including on this Wednesday.

Wait a minute. Virginia has had two ice storms that broke trees and power lines, flooding that inundated homes in our Southwest counties, and multiple windy cold fronts that have blown down power lines and spread fires and even pulled in dust from thousands of miles — what do you mean Virginia hasn’t had much severe weather so far in 2025?

It all comes down to what the word “severe” really means.

By the dictionary, “severe” simply means “intense.”

Applied to weather, lots of things can be severe in a generic sense — a severe ice storm, a severe heat wave, severe drought, severe flooding.

But when meteorologists use the word “severe,” they are almost always referring to a narrowly defined class of thunderstorm impacts, the kinds of effects that if observed or detected by radar, can lead to a severe thunderstorm warning being issued.

Upcoming weather

Virginia continues to miss most of the rain it needs to ease developing dryness while others several hundred miles west will get way too much rain. The lower and middle Mississippi River Valley is expecting 6-12 inches of rain over the next four days, starting with rounds of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes on this Wednesday. This will translate to periods of mostly light showers for Virginia through the weekend as storm systems are stubborn to move eastward, with Sunday perhaps turning into a fairly rainy day, though amounts are expected to be mostly under an inch. Colder weather looks to make an encore by the second week of April — expect some frosty mornings and maybe even some mountain snow showers.

After a surge of warmth that may push 90 for some on Friday and Saturday, colder weather looks to make an encore by the second week of April – expect some frosty mornings and  maybe even some mountain snow showers.

All about wind and hail

Specifically, severe thunderstorm effects include winds gusting 58 mph or stronger, hail 1 inch in diameter or greater, and tornadoes.

Nothing else makes a thunderstorm “severe.”

Torrential rain can’t make a storm “severe” no matter how bad the flooding might become. (There are other kinds of warnings that cover flooding.)

Frequent or vivid lightning can’t make a storm “severe.”  (Don’t wait for a severe warning to get off the lake or inside a car or a structure if lightning is approaching.)

Wind gusts that are only 57 mph or hail 0.9 inch in diameter also don’t make a storm severe, though practically speaking, those can do similar damage to winds a mile per hour faster or hail a tenth of an inch larger.

Much of the winds we get with strong cold fronts or inland tropical effects don’t gust above 58 mph, but blow down plenty of limbs and cause scattered to numerous power outages, owing partly to their duration. A whole lot of smaller hail, piling up in snow-like drifts, can cause its own intense impacts, but that occurs very infrequently in our region and technically wouldn’t be considered a severe thunderstorm unless at least some of the hail is an inch or more in diameter.

So, when a severe thunderstorm warning is issued, it means that National Weather Service forecasters have determined by radar or surface reports that a thunderstorm is likely to contain winds gusting 58 mph or greater and/or hail 1 inch or larger in diameter.

If radar indicates tight circulation that might be a tornado or the precursor to one, or there are ground reports from people of a tornado being sighted or damage consistent with a tornado, a tornado warning is issued, possibly overlapping or superseding an existing severe thunderstorm warning. (For the most part we’re going to let tornadoes be a separate subject for another day and not delve into them too deeply with this column today. Check out this Cardinal Weather column from last spring, linked here, about why Virginia sometimes has tornadoes, but isn’t really a “tornado alley.”)

It’s important to know what exactly is meant, and not meant, by “severe” when you hear or see that term in weather reports.

How do storms get to be severe?

Four factors determine how intense a thunderstorm will become.

·       Moisture. If there is very little moisture, there won’t be a thunderstorm. Storms become more likely the more humid it is. There are variations in how wetter and drier layers can be stacked in the atmosphere that don’t make this a direct relationship in such a way that the more moisture there is where you can feel it, the stronger or more severe a storm will be, definitely. But, very generally speaking, a day of 60s or 70s dew points that soaks your shirt in sweat will have a better chance of storming, and storming harder, than a more comfortable day with lower dew points.

·       Instability. Warmer air near the surface rises into colder air aloft. The steeper the contrast, the more rapidly moist updrafts will lift in the atmosphere, increasing the chances for lightning, heavy rain, gusty downdrafts and hail as updrafts reach regions of ice crystal formation then collapse rapidly. Sometimes there is a layer of warmer air aloft that “caps” the rising updrafts and prevents storms from developing. But that can also be like a lid on a boiling pot that will blow off suddenly and violently with powerful storms building rapidly if the updrafts are powerful enough to erode the cap and break through.

·       Lift. Atmospheric boundaries like frontal systems can give updrafts an extra boost that can overcome some factors they might not be able to overcome through instability alone. Mountainous terrain plays a role with lift in our region.

·       Shear.  Winds change in direction and speed with height. Very generally speaking, the more change there is in direction and speed moving upward, the more potential there is for storms to rotate, separating updrafts from downdrafts and making them last longer and continue to re-intensify, sometimes for hours. Rotating storms have a greater propensity to produce very large hail (the golfball- and baseball-sized stuff caused by hail being carried upward by repeated updrafts until it is too heavy and falls to the ground), recurring strong downdrafts of wind, and of course, tornadoes.

Severe thunderstorms don’t always have all four of these factors in spades.

Summer “pop-up” thunderstorms with very little shear, called “pulse storms,” build upward and collapse quickly, but that downfall can produce a mighty outflow of damaging winds gusting well above the necessary 58 mph and sometimes splatter some hail near an inch in diameter. There may only be a 10-minute window when severe effects can occur, but it can be a memorable tempest for anyone underneath the downdraft.

Squall lines and storm clusters occur with moderate levels of shear not sufficient for individual rotating storms, but as we well know from the June 29, 2012, derecho and other damaging wind squall lines since, they are fully capable of producing severe effects over considerable distances.

The fully rotating, discrete storms called “supercells” are king when it comes to producing severe thunderstorm effects, including tornadoes. While full-fledged supercells lasting more than a couple hours are somewhat infrequent in our region, transient supercell-like rotating structures forming within more clustered storms do occur more often.

That gets us to the more localized, short-term nature of severe thunderstorm impacts.

Severe for thee but not for me

One of the most difficult aspects of severe thunderstorms, both in forecasting and assessing impacts, is that most of the time, their impacts are confined to narrow corridors rather than widespread swaths.

While infrequently there can be something like the aforementioned 2012 derecho with a wall of outflow wind that affects a widespread area, the more common occurrence is sporadic or localized damaging wind, big hail in a small section of a storm, or a tornado path usually less than a quarter-mile wide (often a hundred yards or less) and seldom longer than a couple or three miles in length.

The temptation for those of us not affected by much more than some rain or modest gusts after days of hearing about a potential severe storms outbreak is to label it a “bust.” But, quite often, somebody within an hour’s drive, sometimes even a couple blocks away, may have had a tree blown onto their house or have a car or shingles dented by big hail — or something even worse.

There are indeed times when forecasted severe potential fails to fully come to fruition because a factor or two is a little off, and no one in the region gets bad storms. We’ve seen a couple episodes like that so far this spring.

But let’s all remember not to use what happened in our backyard as the sole judge of how bad a stormy day or night might have been for everyone around us.

Journalist Kevin Myatt has been writing about weather for 20 years. His weekly column, appearing on Wednesdays, is sponsored by Oakey’s, a family-run, locally-owned funeral home with locations throughout the Roanoke Valley. Sign up for his weekly newsletter:

The post What makes a thunderstorm ‘severe’? appeared first on Cardinal News.

Mountain Valley Pipeline and its opponents are facing off over the natural gas pipeline company’s plans to extend its footprint through southern Pittsylvania County into North Carolina.

Mountain Valley’s main pipeline runs 303 miles from West Virginia through six Virginia counties, ending at a compressor station in Pittsylvania. The company has proposed building a 31-mile extension, called Southgate, from the main pipeline in Pittsylvania into Rockingham County, North Carolina.

Mountain Valley says Southgate is needed to deliver natural gas to North Carolina, where it notes that the extension’s proposed gas capacity is already fully subscribed to by two utilities. It also points to support from elected officials, landowners, business groups and others.

“We are grateful for the strong community support for this important project, and we are committed to working collaboratively with local, state and federal officials to ensure MVP Southgate helps to meet public demand for reliable, affordable and lower-carbon energy,” said Mountain Valley spokesperson Shawn Day.

In 2020, federal regulators granted Mountain Valley a certificate that it needs to move forward with the project, and they renewed it in 2023. On Feb. 3, Mountain Valley asked to amend the certificate based on a revised plan, which now calls for a shorter route using a wider pipe, among other changes.

Southgate is anticipated to cost $370 million. Developers aim to start construction in 2026 and put the extension into service in 2028.

Opponents of the project are asking regulators to deny Mountain Valley’s request. They argue that not only is the natural gas project unnecessary and harmful to the environment, but that the Southgate proposal has changed significantly from its original plan and therefore requires a brand-new regulatory review.

The Terry family — Grace Terry, John Coles Terry III, Frank Terry Jr. and Elizabeth Terry Reynolds — of Roanoke County said that they oppose Southgate in part because of environmental violations documented during construction of the main Mountain Valley Pipeline, which impacted their Bent Mountain property.

“MVP Southgate would be built by the same actors, so the same destructive environmental outcomes should be expected,” the family wrote in a letter to federal regulators.

Opponents push for new look at project

Critics have submitted thousands of public comments, either individually or in batches via petitions, asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to deny Mountain Valley’s request to amend the certificate that it needs. FERC regulates the construction of interstate natural gas pipelines. 

Southgate opponents argue that Mountain Valley should be required to file for an entirely new certificate because its amended plan has a different route and would carry more gas than what has already been approved. They also say the public should have more time to comment.

The matter has also gone to federal court, with eight environmental groups contending that FERC has fallen short of its legal responsibilities by not requiring a new review based on the proposed changes.

Mountain Valley had originally proposed a 75-mile extension into Rockingham and Alamance counties in North Carolina and a new compressor station in Pittsylvania County. Its newer plan calls for a route less than half that length that doesn’t enter Alamance County, and no new compressor station.

But it also originally proposed a narrower pipe carrying less gas. Its plan has changed from 16- and 24-inch pipes carrying 300,000 dekatherms of gas daily to a 30-inch pipeline carrying 550,000 dekatherms of gas daily.

For context, Roanoke Gas says its average residential customer uses 5.6 dekatherms per month, while the American Gas Association says an average commercial customer uses 50 dekatherms per month.

The environmental nonprofit Appalachian Voices told FERC on March 11 that the newer plan “means increased downstream greenhouse gas emissions and more pollution that is not accounted for in the environmental impact statement underlying the current certificate.”

Construction, safety concerns raised

Opponents also say the project will be unsafe and harmful. Nineteen Democratic members of the Virginia General Assembly wrote in a letter to FERC that Mountain Valley “has a history of construction violations and safety issues” with its original pipeline.

The lawmakers cited a $2.15 million civil penalty, which the pipeline developer agreed in 2019 to pay in order to resolve a lawsuit, and a 2023 safety order from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration.

“That specific history is precisely why the amendment request from the same developer for this extension through Pittsylvania County should receive significant scrutiny,” read the letter, whose signatories included Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, and state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville.

Several environmental groups submitted letters accompanied by what they said were names and comments gathered from people opposed to the proposal.

The Sierra Club submitted more than 3,480 comments, including more than 1,300 individual ones. The Chesapeake Climate Action Network submitted more than 6,000 names. Appalachian Voices submitted more than 2,500 names, including more than 150 individual comments.

Developer says no new review needed

In a response to critics filed last week with FERC, Mountain Valley said that its opponents “do not seriously dispute the facts” of its application to amend its Southgate certificate and that the Southgate approval process should not be used as a platform for “attacks” on the main pipeline.

“Contrary to opponents’ various claims regarding Mountain Valley as a pipeline operator, the Mainline System has been safely and reliably serving customers since it commenced operations in June 2024,” the company said.

The amended proposal is not markedly different from the company’s original plan, and the shorter route will “reduce impacts to landowners and sensitive environmental resources,” Mountain Valley said.

Mountain Valley pointed to the natural gas subscriptions from Duke Energy and Enbridge Gas as evidence of the need for the project. 

Duke Energy needs the gas to meet a forecasted increase in electricity demand while also retiring 8,400 megawatts of coal power plants in North Carolina by 2035, according to Mountain Valley’s application.

Enbridge Gas has added about 100,000 utility customers over the past decade, bringing its total to 600,000, and needs additional gas supply to continue meeting demand, according to Mountain Valley.

Business groups, lawmakers support pipeline plan

Mountain Valley also pointed to supportive comments filed with FERC.

“Expanding natural gas access is critical to our region’s ability to attract and retain industries, particularly at the Southern Virginia Mega Site at Berry Hill, one of the largest industrial parks in the Southeast,” wrote Anne Moore-Sparks, president and CEO of the Danville Pittsylvania Chamber of Commerce, referring to the 3,528-acre industrial park in Danville and Pittsylvania County. 

“Reliable and affordable energy is essential to making this site — and our broader business community — competitive for major employers and long-term economic development.”

Del. Eric Phillips, R-Henry County, said Southgate would support Pittsylvania County, of which he represents a part, and North Carolina through hundreds of construction jobs and ongoing tax revenue after completion.

“In addition to strengthening southern Virginia’s energy infrastructure, the MVP Southgate will provide significant economic benefits to residents, as well as state and local governments,” Phillips wrote to FERC.

Mountain Valley dismissed many of the comments against the proposal as “variations on the same anti-gas form letter solicited by opponents.”

Southgate is latest flashpoint in decade-long conflict

The opposition to Southgate echoes the fight against the main Mountain Valley Pipeline, which began operating in June and can transport up to 2 billion cubic feet of gas each day. For context, Roanoke Gas delivers about 10 billion cubic feet each year to its approximately 64,000 customers.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline was originally announced in 2014, with a planned operation date of 2018 and a price tag of less than half of its current $8.1 billion estimate.

Lawsuits and permitting disputes, along with construction site protests, delayed its completion for years until a provision in a national debt-ceiling bill in 2023 removed many of the legal obstacles.

Southgate was first announced in 2018 and has faced similar opposition and setbacks, including the 2021 denial of an air permit that would have been necessary to build an additional compressor station in Pittsylvania County under the original plan.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline development company is a joint venture among five companies. Pittsburgh-based EQT Corp. is the largest single stakeholder with about 49% ownership. RGC Resources, the parent company of Roanoke Gas, owns less than 1%.

Appearing at West Virginia’s state capitol last week, EQT CEO Toby Rice said more gas pipelines must be built to meet the energy demands of both the growing data center market and gas-fired power plants, according to West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Pipeline competitor speaks up

Also weighing in on Mountain Valley’s amended Southgate proposal with FERC is The Williams Companies Inc., which plans to expand its Transco pipeline system in a project called Southeast Supply Enhancement.

That project calls for adding 26 miles of 42-inch-diameter pipeline adjacent to the existing Transco pipeline corridor in Pittsylvania County, as well as installing additional pipeline in North Carolina adjacent to the existing system.

Southgate and the SSE project would run in the same general area. Transco told FERC that Southgate “duplicates the same path as Transco with the same supply sources” and that Transco’s system could accommodate Southgate’s proposed capacity instead.

Mountain Valley rebutted that argument, saying last week that the commitments from Duke Energy and Enbridge Gas demonstrate the demand for Southgate. Several supporters told FERC that while Transco has operated reliably in delivering gas to North Carolina, adding Southgate would help diversify the state’s sources.

“Having new transportation paths into North Carolina from new transportation service providers that can tap into affordable gas supply makes the Amended Project unique compared to any alternative,” wrote D. Russell Harris, vice president and general manager of Enbridge Gas in North Carolina.

The post Mountain Valley Pipeline, critics clash over Southgate extension plan appeared first on Cardinal News.

Mountain Valley Pipeline and its opponents are facing off over the natural gas pipeline company’s plans to extend its footprint through southern Pittsylvania County into North Carolina.

Mountain Valley’s main pipeline runs 303 miles from West Virginia through six Virginia counties, ending at a compressor station in Pittsylvania. The company has proposed building a 31-mile extension, called Southgate, from the main pipeline in Pittsylvania into Rockingham County, North Carolina.

Mountain Valley says Southgate is needed to deliver natural gas to North Carolina, where it notes that the extension’s proposed gas capacity is already fully subscribed to by two utilities. It also points to support from elected officials, landowners, business groups and others.

“We are grateful for the strong community support for this important project, and we are committed to working collaboratively with local, state and federal officials to ensure MVP Southgate helps to meet public demand for reliable, affordable and lower-carbon energy,” said Mountain Valley spokesperson Shawn Day.

In 2020, federal regulators granted Mountain Valley a certificate that it needs to move forward with the project, and they renewed it in 2023. On Feb. 3, Mountain Valley asked to amend the certificate based on a revised plan, which now calls for a shorter route using a wider pipe, among other changes.

Southgate is anticipated to cost $370 million. Developers aim to start construction in 2026 and put the extension into service in 2028.

Opponents of the project are asking regulators to deny Mountain Valley’s request. They argue that not only is the natural gas project unnecessary and harmful to the environment, but that the Southgate proposal has changed significantly from its original plan and therefore requires a brand-new regulatory review.

The Terry family — Grace Terry, John Coles Terry III, Frank Terry Jr. and Elizabeth Terry Reynolds — of Roanoke County said that they oppose Southgate in part because of environmental violations documented during construction of the main Mountain Valley Pipeline, which impacted their Bent Mountain property.

“MVP Southgate would be built by the same actors, so the same destructive environmental outcomes should be expected,” the family wrote in a letter to federal regulators.

Opponents push for new look at project

Critics have submitted thousands of public comments, either individually or in batches via petitions, asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to deny Mountain Valley’s request to amend the certificate that it needs. FERC regulates the construction of interstate natural gas pipelines. 

Southgate opponents argue that Mountain Valley should be required to file for an entirely new certificate because its amended plan has a different route and would carry more gas than what has already been approved. They also say the public should have more time to comment.

The matter has also gone to federal court, with eight environmental groups contending that FERC has fallen short of its legal responsibilities by not requiring a new review based on the proposed changes.

Mountain Valley had originally proposed a 75-mile extension into Rockingham and Alamance counties in North Carolina and a new compressor station in Pittsylvania County. Its newer plan calls for a route less than half that length that doesn’t enter Alamance County, and no new compressor station.

But it also originally proposed a narrower pipe carrying less gas. Its plan has changed from 16- and 24-inch pipes carrying 300,000 dekatherms of gas daily to a 30-inch pipeline carrying 550,000 dekatherms of gas daily.

For context, Roanoke Gas says its average residential customer uses 5.6 dekatherms per month, while the American Gas Association says an average commercial customer uses 50 dekatherms per month.

The environmental nonprofit Appalachian Voices told FERC on March 11 that the newer plan “means increased downstream greenhouse gas emissions and more pollution that is not accounted for in the environmental impact statement underlying the current certificate.”

Construction, safety concerns raised

Opponents also say the project will be unsafe and harmful. Nineteen Democratic members of the Virginia General Assembly wrote in a letter to FERC that Mountain Valley “has a history of construction violations and safety issues” with its original pipeline.

The lawmakers cited a $2.15 million civil penalty, which the pipeline developer agreed in 2019 to pay in order to resolve a lawsuit, and a 2023 safety order from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration.

“That specific history is precisely why the amendment request from the same developer for this extension through Pittsylvania County should receive significant scrutiny,” read the letter, whose signatories included Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, and state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville.

Several environmental groups submitted letters accompanied by what they said were names and comments gathered from people opposed to the proposal.

The Sierra Club submitted more than 3,480 comments, including more than 1,300 individual ones. The Chesapeake Climate Action Network submitted more than 6,000 names. Appalachian Voices submitted more than 2,500 names, including more than 150 individual comments.

Developer says no new review needed

In a response to critics filed last week with FERC, Mountain Valley said that its opponents “do not seriously dispute the facts” of its application to amend its Southgate certificate and that the Southgate approval process should not be used as a platform for “attacks” on the main pipeline.

“Contrary to opponents’ various claims regarding Mountain Valley as a pipeline operator, the Mainline System has been safely and reliably serving customers since it commenced operations in June 2024,” the company said.

The amended proposal is not markedly different from the company’s original plan, and the shorter route will “reduce impacts to landowners and sensitive environmental resources,” Mountain Valley said.

Mountain Valley pointed to the natural gas subscriptions from Duke Energy and Enbridge Gas as evidence of the need for the project. 

Duke Energy needs the gas to meet a forecasted increase in electricity demand while also retiring 8,400 megawatts of coal power plants in North Carolina by 2035, according to Mountain Valley’s application.

Enbridge Gas has added about 100,000 utility customers over the past decade, bringing its total to 600,000, and needs additional gas supply to continue meeting demand, according to Mountain Valley.

Business groups, lawmakers support pipeline plan

Mountain Valley also pointed to supportive comments filed with FERC.

“Expanding natural gas access is critical to our region’s ability to attract and retain industries, particularly at the Southern Virginia Mega Site at Berry Hill, one of the largest industrial parks in the Southeast,” wrote Anne Moore-Sparks, president and CEO of the Danville Pittsylvania Chamber of Commerce, referring to the 3,528-acre industrial park in Danville and Pittsylvania County. 

“Reliable and affordable energy is essential to making this site — and our broader business community — competitive for major employers and long-term economic development.”

Del. Eric Phillips, R-Henry County, said Southgate would support Pittsylvania County, of which he represents a part, and North Carolina through hundreds of construction jobs and ongoing tax revenue after completion.

“In addition to strengthening southern Virginia’s energy infrastructure, the MVP Southgate will provide significant economic benefits to residents, as well as state and local governments,” Phillips wrote to FERC.

Mountain Valley dismissed many of the comments against the proposal as “variations on the same anti-gas form letter solicited by opponents.”

Southgate is latest flashpoint in decade-long conflict

The opposition to Southgate echoes the fight against the main Mountain Valley Pipeline, which began operating in June and can transport up to 2 billion cubic feet of gas each day. For context, Roanoke Gas delivers about 10 billion cubic feet each year to its approximately 64,000 customers.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline was originally announced in 2014, with a planned operation date of 2018 and a price tag of less than half of its current $8.1 billion estimate.

Lawsuits and permitting disputes, along with construction site protests, delayed its completion for years until a provision in a national debt-ceiling bill in 2023 removed many of the legal obstacles.

Southgate was first announced in 2020 and has faced similar opposition and setbacks, including the 2021 denial of an air permit that would have been necessary to build an additional compressor station in Pittsylvania County under the original plan.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline development company is a joint venture among five companies. Pittsburgh-based EQT Corp. is the largest single stakeholder with about 49% ownership. RGC Resources, the parent company of Roanoke Gas, owns less than 1%.

Appearing at West Virginia’s state capitol last week, EQT CEO Toby Rice said more gas pipelines must be built to meet the energy demands of both the growing data center market and gas-fired power plants, according to West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Pipeline competitor speaks up

Also weighing in on Mountain Valley’s amended Southgate proposal with FERC is The Williams Companies Inc., which plans to expand its Transco pipeline system in a project called Southeast Supply Enhancement.

That project calls for adding 26 miles of 42-inch-diameter pipeline adjacent to the existing Transco pipeline corridor in Pittsylvania County, as well as installing additional pipeline in North Carolina adjacent to the existing system.

Southgate and the SSE project would run in the same general area. Transco told FERC that Southgate “duplicates the same path as Transco with the same supply sources” and that Transco’s system could accommodate Southgate’s proposed capacity instead.

Mountain Valley rebutted that argument, saying last week that the commitments from Duke Energy and Enbridge Gas demonstrate the demand for Southgate. Several supporters told FERC that while Transco has operated reliably in delivering gas to North Carolina, adding Southgate would help diversify the state’s sources.

“Having new transportation paths into North Carolina from new transportation service providers that can tap into affordable gas supply makes the Amended Project unique compared to any alternative,” wrote D. Russell Harris, vice president and general manager of Enbridge Gas in North Carolina.

The post Mountain Valley Pipeline, critics clash over Southgate extension plan appeared first on Cardinal News.

Mountain Valley Pipeline and its opponents are facing off over the natural gas pipeline company’s plans to extend its footprint through southern Pittsylvania County into North Carolina.

Mountain Valley’s main pipeline runs 303 miles from West Virginia through six Virginia counties, ending at a compressor station in Pittsylvania. The company has proposed building a 31-mile extension, called Southgate, from the main pipeline in Pittsylvania into Rockingham County, North Carolina.

Mountain Valley says Southgate is needed to deliver natural gas to North Carolina, where it notes that the extension’s proposed gas capacity is already fully subscribed to by two utilities. It also points to support from elected officials, landowners, business groups and others.

“We are grateful for the strong community support for this important project, and we are committed to working collaboratively with local, state and federal officials to ensure MVP Southgate helps to meet public demand for reliable, affordable and lower-carbon energy,” said Mountain Valley spokesperson Shawn Day.

In 2020, federal regulators granted Mountain Valley a certificate that it needs to move forward with the project, and they renewed it in 2023. On Feb. 3, Mountain Valley asked to amend the certificate based on a revised plan, which now calls for a shorter route using a wider pipe, among other changes.

Southgate is anticipated to cost $370 million. Developers aim to start construction in 2026 and put the extension into service in 2028.

Opponents of the project are asking regulators to deny Mountain Valley’s request. They argue that not only is the natural gas project unnecessary and harmful to the environment, but that the Southgate proposal has changed significantly from its original plan and therefore requires a brand-new regulatory review.

The Terry family — Grace Terry, John Coles Terry III, Frank Terry Jr. and Elizabeth Terry Reynolds — of Roanoke County said that they oppose Southgate in part because of environmental violations documented during construction of the main Mountain Valley Pipeline, which impacted their Bent Mountain property.

“MVP Southgate would be built by the same actors, so the same destructive environmental outcomes should be expected,” the family wrote in a letter to federal regulators.

Opponents push for new look at project

Critics have submitted thousands of public comments, either individually or in batches via petitions, asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to deny Mountain Valley’s request to amend the certificate that it needs. FERC regulates the construction of interstate natural gas pipelines. 

Southgate opponents argue that Mountain Valley should be required to file for an entirely new certificate because its amended plan has a different route and would carry more gas than what has already been approved. They also say the public should have more time to comment.

The matter has also gone to federal court, with eight environmental groups contending that FERC has fallen short of its legal responsibilities by not requiring a new review based on the proposed changes.

Mountain Valley had originally proposed a 75-mile extension into Rockingham and Alamance counties in North Carolina and a new compressor station in Pittsylvania County. Its newer plan calls for a route less than half that length that doesn’t enter Alamance County, and no new compressor station.

But it also originally proposed a narrower pipe carrying less gas. Its plan has changed from 16- and 24-inch pipes carrying 300,000 dekatherms of gas daily to a 30-inch pipeline carrying 550,000 dekatherms of gas daily.

For context, Roanoke Gas says its average residential customer uses 5.6 dekatherms per month, while the American Gas Association says an average commercial customer uses 50 dekatherms per month.

The environmental nonprofit Appalachian Voices told FERC on March 11 that the newer plan “means increased downstream greenhouse gas emissions and more pollution that is not accounted for in the environmental impact statement underlying the current certificate.”

Construction, safety concerns raised

Opponents also say the project will be unsafe and harmful. Nineteen Democratic members of the Virginia General Assembly wrote in a letter to FERC that Mountain Valley “has a history of construction violations and safety issues” with its original pipeline.

The lawmakers cited a $2.15 million civil penalty, which the pipeline developer agreed in 2019 to pay in order to resolve a lawsuit, and a 2023 safety order from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration.

“That specific history is precisely why the amendment request from the same developer for this extension through Pittsylvania County should receive significant scrutiny,” read the letter, whose signatories included Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, and state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville.

Several environmental groups submitted letters accompanied by what they said were names and comments gathered from people opposed to the proposal.

The Sierra Club submitted more than 3,480 comments, including more than 1,300 individual ones. The Chesapeake Climate Action Network submitted more than 6,000 names. Appalachian Voices submitted more than 2,500 names, including more than 150 individual comments.

Developer says no new review needed

In a response to critics filed last week with FERC, Mountain Valley said that its opponents “do not seriously dispute the facts” of its application to amend its Southgate certificate and that the Southgate approval process should not be used as a platform for “attacks” on the main pipeline.

“Contrary to opponents’ various claims regarding Mountain Valley as a pipeline operator, the Mainline System has been safely and reliably serving customers since it commenced operations in June 2024,” the company said.

The amended proposal is not markedly different from the company’s original plan, and the shorter route will “reduce impacts to landowners and sensitive environmental resources,” Mountain Valley said.

Mountain Valley pointed to the natural gas subscriptions from Duke Energy and Enbridge Gas as evidence of the need for the project. 

Duke Energy needs the gas to meet a forecasted increase in electricity demand while also retiring 8,400 megawatts of coal power plants in North Carolina by 2035, according to Mountain Valley’s application.

Enbridge Gas has added about 100,000 utility customers over the past decade, bringing its total to 600,000, and needs additional gas supply to continue meeting demand, according to Mountain Valley.

Business groups, lawmakers support pipeline plan

Mountain Valley also pointed to supportive comments filed with FERC.

“Expanding natural gas access is critical to our region’s ability to attract and retain industries, particularly at the Southern Virginia Mega Site at Berry Hill, one of the largest industrial parks in the Southeast,” wrote Anne Moore-Sparks, president and CEO of the Danville Pittsylvania Chamber of Commerce, referring to the 3,528-acre industrial park in Danville and Pittsylvania County. 

“Reliable and affordable energy is essential to making this site — and our broader business community — competitive for major employers and long-term economic development.”

Del. Eric Phillips, R-Henry County, said Southgate would support Pittsylvania County, of which he represents a part, and North Carolina through hundreds of construction jobs and ongoing tax revenue after completion.

“In addition to strengthening southern Virginia’s energy infrastructure, the MVP Southgate will provide significant economic benefits to residents, as well as state and local governments,” Phillips wrote to FERC.

Mountain Valley dismissed many of the comments against the proposal as “variations on the same anti-gas form letter solicited by opponents.”

Southgate is latest flashpoint in decade-long conflict

The opposition to Southgate echoes the fight against the main Mountain Valley Pipeline, which began operating in June and can transport up to 2 billion cubic feet of gas each day. For context, Roanoke Gas delivers about 10 billion cubic feet each year to its approximately 64,000 customers.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline was originally announced in 2014, with a planned operation date of 2018 and a price tag of less than half of its current $8.1 billion estimate.

Lawsuits and permitting disputes, along with construction site protests, delayed its completion for years until a provision in a national debt-ceiling bill in 2023 removed many of the legal obstacles.

Southgate was first announced in 2018 and has faced similar opposition and setbacks, including the 2021 denial of an air permit that would have been necessary to build an additional compressor station in Pittsylvania County under the original plan.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline development company is a joint venture among five companies. Pittsburgh-based EQT Corp. is the largest single stakeholder with about 49% ownership. RGC Resources, the parent company of Roanoke Gas, owns less than 1%.

Appearing at West Virginia’s state capitol last week, EQT CEO Toby Rice said more gas pipelines must be built to meet the energy demands of both the growing data center market and gas-fired power plants, according to West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Pipeline competitor speaks up

Also weighing in on Mountain Valley’s amended Southgate proposal with FERC is The Williams Companies Inc., which plans to expand its Transco pipeline system in a project called Southeast Supply Enhancement.

That project calls for adding 26 miles of 42-inch-diameter pipeline adjacent to the existing Transco pipeline corridor in Pittsylvania County, as well as installing additional pipeline in North Carolina adjacent to the existing system.

Southgate and the SSE project would run in the same general area. Transco told FERC that Southgate “duplicates the same path as Transco with the same supply sources” and that Transco’s system could accommodate Southgate’s proposed capacity instead.

Mountain Valley rebutted that argument, saying last week that the commitments from Duke Energy and Enbridge Gas demonstrate the demand for Southgate. Several supporters told FERC that while Transco has operated reliably in delivering gas to North Carolina, adding Southgate would help diversify the state’s sources.

“Having new transportation paths into North Carolina from new transportation service providers that can tap into affordable gas supply makes the Amended Project unique compared to any alternative,” wrote D. Russell Harris, vice president and general manager of Enbridge Gas in North Carolina.

The post Mountain Valley Pipeline, critics clash over Southgate extension plan appeared first on Cardinal News.

Sometime this week, maybe Wednesday, the U.S. Senate will vote on a resolution by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., to block President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada.

Kaine might pick up enough Republican votes in the Senate for the resolution to pass — Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a tariff opponent, has said there may be four Republicans uneasy enough about tariffs to join with Democrats on this vote.

“However,” Politico reported, “it’s likely the resolution never comes up in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson moved earlier this month to block the ability of tariff critics to force a floor vote on ending the kind of national emergencies Trump is citing to levy the tariffs.”

That means what we’re witnessing is mostly symbolic: “Losing the vote,” Politico said, “would represent the most significant rebuke to Trump that congressional Republicans have yet mustered in his second term.”

It might be of interest to politically minded Virginians to see their junior senator being the one who leads the charge against the administration. However, it ought to be of interest to a broader swath of Virginians to understand just how tied our economy is with our neighbor to the north — and therefore how much we have at risk in any trade war.

Spoiler alert: The parts of Virginia at most risk in a trade war with Canada are west of the Blue Ridge, specifically the 6th and 9th Congressional Districts, the two most Republican districts in the state, currently represented by Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith. Between them, those two districts have nearly 10,000 jobs and nearly $1.8 billion of goods tied to exports to Canada, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data. If you factor in services that companies in those districts are selling north of the border, then the trade value rises to $2.69 billion in total Canadian exports from the western part of Virginia.

In politics, this is called “cross-pressure,” where members of Congress philosophically inclined to back the policies of a president from their own party might find themselves facing questions at home if that president’s trade war with Canada backfires. Any economic casualties might come first on poultry farms in the Shenandoah Valley or any of the auto parts manufacturers along Interstate 81.

Let’s dig deeper into this data.

Trump has famously said of Canada: “We don’t need anything they have.” The marketplace begs to differ or we wouldn’t have the trade deficit that Trump says he is concerned about. At the risk of getting lost in economic theory, it’s worth asking whether we need a trade surplus with every country. The whole point of trade is to acquire things that you can’t produce on your own, or can’t produce as cheaply. This is why we don’t mind importing coffee; we could grow the bean here in greenhouses, but the cost would be more than we’d want to pay. 

The U.S. runs trade surpluses with some countries — the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis says our biggest is with the Netherlands, followed by all of Central and South America. Over on the deficit side, our biggest trade deficit is with China. We buy $295.4 billion more from China than China buys from us. There’s broad consensus across the political spectrum that this is a problem, but consumers like inexpensive goods, even if they’re made by poorly paid workers in foreign sweatshops. Our 10th-biggest trade deficit is with Canada, behind even Ireland, which might make you wonder why we’re more upset with Ottawa than Dublin.

Trump has said that his goal is to get Canada to crack down on fentanyl being smuggled into the U.S., but the vast majority of fentanyl comes into the country through Mexico. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, so far this year 1,580 pounds of the deadly drug have been seized along the Mexican border, 49 pounds at “interior” points of entry and 1 pound along the Canadian border. Of course, you never know what’s not being seized or where, but these numbers would suggest that there’s 49 times more smuggling through American airports than along the Canadian border. It’s not as if the Canadians are the only ones doing border checks; we’ve got agents there, too, and they’re not finding the stuff, either.

The reason there’s been such political pushback against U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports is the very real fear of retaliatory tariffs from Canada on American products — and the reason that matters is that the two nation’s economies are closely integrated. That’s a product both of geography and of more than a century and a half of warm relations that Trump is now busy undoing. 

Canada is an easy country to ignore for the same reason that it’s so important to us: It’s nearby, it’s politically stable and it isn’t particularly exotic unless you’re in French-speaking Quebec, in which case you might well be in France. Economically, though, we are more dependent on Canada than we realize.

For 23 states, Canada is that state’s top import market, and some states are highly dependent on Canadian goods, according to data compiled by Visual Capitalist. In Montana, 86% of the state’s imports come across the northern border. In North Dakota, 75%. Even next door to us in West Virginia, 40% of imports come from Canada — more than even China. Those are the states that will first feel the bite of tariffs, a fancy word for taxes. Virginia will be one of the last. I’ve not found a figure I trust for what percentage of our imports come from Canada, but state figures say we import more from China than anywhere else and Visual Capitalist puts that figure at 13%. Canada ranks third for us, behind Mexico. 

Where Virginia — and many other states — are most vulnerable in a trade war is with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports to Canada. In business terms, Canada is our best customer. Canada buys more from the United States than any other country does. If anything disturbs that relationship, some American jobs will be at risk. Tariffs risk disturbing that relationship. 

For 32 states, Canada is their top export market. Virginia is one of those 32. Last year, Virginia sold $3.4 billion worth of products to Canada — 15% of our total exports — according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. China ranked a distant second at $1.5 billion, India third at $1.4 billion. Those two countries combined still didn’t add up to what the Canadian market means to the Virginia economy. 

All those numbers may be a blur, but let’s make them more specific. The Canadian embassy in Washington took employment statistics from the U.S. government and has produced an economic profile of each congressional district in the country. This is the extent of Canadian propaganda: publishing the American government’s own numbers. (They are a wily bunch indeed.)

Here’s what we find. These are the number of jobs tied to exports to Canada in each of Virginia’s congressional districts:

Why do the 6th and 9th districts rank so high? Auto-related jobs. There’s a cluster of auto-related jobs along the I-81 corridor, with the Volvo truck plant in Pulaski County being perhaps the best known but by no means the only one. (You can see a list of auto-related companies in Virginia on page 3 of this state report). The 6th District gets bumped higher on the list by the poultry industry in the Shenandoah Valley and also the forest products industry, such as the WestRock paper mill in Covington. You scroll through all this data, district by district, but you’ll see that 25% of the exports in the 6th District are tied to the auto industry. 44% of those in the 9th District.

Sources: Trade Partnership: Goods exports (2024 data, 2/2025 release), services exports (2023 data, 12/2024 release) and jobs, calculated figures, based on U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data at state and national levels. Dun & Bradstreet:
Canadian-owned businesses (2/2025 release). Figures may not add up due to rounding.

This is where political desire collides with economic reality. Trump doesn’t want Americans buying cars that were assembled in Canada. “I’d rather make ’em in Detroit,” he’s said. He says 20% of the cars sold in the U.S. come from Canada; but Cars.com says the figure appears to actually be 4.2%. Whatever the number, Trump’s point is he wants to boost American manufacturing — a worthy goal. 

The challenge is that the auto industry has, for better or worse, evolved a supply chain that routinely crosses international borders. NBC recently reported: “There’s no such thing as a fully American-made car.” Such reports usually focus on how many foreign-made parts go into an American-assembled vehicle, but the industry is really much more complicated than that. We also have a lot of American-made parts going to Canada to be assembled into vehicles.

Yes, it might be better if those were American-made parts going to U.S. auto plants, but the current system is not going to be unwound quickly — if it all. Corporate America thinks both short-term (quarterly dividends) and long-term — and that long-term horizon extends longer than a president’s term. In the meantime, parts crossing the border are going to get taxed and automakers will either need to eat those costs or pass them onto consumers. You can consult your own experience to decide which is more likely.

It’s also not so simple as a single part being shipped from one country to another and staying there. The London Free Press — that’s London, Ontario, by the way — recently reported about a scrap metal company in Ontario that is part of the auto parts supply chain: “Scrap from Linamar Corp. crosses Canada, U.S., Mexico borders 7 times until it becomes an automatic transmission that powers a vehicle,” the paper reported.  That’s also not unusual.

That paper quoted Flavio Volpe, chief executive of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association: Until now, “No one cared if an auto part crossed the borders six or seven times. That is, not until we have a crisis like this. … We have highly integrated post-industrial powers that have grown together.” Now the leader of one of those powers is trying to pull it apart and the pain will be felt on both sides of the border, from the Linamar scrapyard in Gueph, Ontario, to, perhaps, auto parts companies along I-81.

Other products have their own economic ecosystem. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that 80% of the chicken meat consumed in Canada comes from the United States. If Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. poultry makes American chicken too expensive for Canadian consumers — or if Canadians decide simply not to buy American in the same way that some Americans try to avoid buying Chinese — then there’s a market opportunity for other countries. In a report last fall, before these tariffs were on the table, the USDA warned that “Chile [has] emerged as a significant supplier, and is expected to gain additional market share in 2025.” Canada’s retaliatory tariffs could hurt farmers in the Shenandoah Valley and benefit those in South America. 

The bottom line: Farmers and factory workers in the western part of Virginia are now on the front lines of a trade war. 

The post The Virginians most at risk in a trade war with Canada are west of the Blue Ridge. Here’s why. appeared first on Cardinal News.

Sometime this week, maybe Wednesday, the U.S. Senate will vote on a resolution by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., to block President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada.

Kaine might pick up enough Republican votes in the Senate for the resolution to pass — Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a tariff opponent, has said there may be four Republicans uneasy enough about tariffs to join with Democrats on this vote.

“However,” Politico reported, “it’s likely the resolution never comes up in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson moved earlier this month to block the ability of tariff critics to force a floor vote on ending the kind of national emergencies Trump is citing to levy the tariffs.”

That means what we’re witnessing is mostly symbolic: “Losing the vote,” Politico said, “would represent the most significant rebuke to Trump that congressional Republicans have yet mustered in his second term.”

It might be of interest to politically minded Virginians to see their junior senator being the one who leads the charge against the administration. However, it ought to be of interest to a broader swath of Virginians to understand just how tied our economy is with our neighbor to the north — and therefore how much we have at risk in any trade war.

Spoiler alert: The parts of Virginia at most risk in a trade war with Canada are west of the Blue Ridge, specifically the 6th and 9th Congressional Districts, the two most Republican districts in the state, currently represented by Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith. Between them, those two districts have nearly 10,000 jobs and nearly $1.8 billion of goods tied to exports to Canada, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data. If you factor in services that companies in those districts are selling north of the border, then the trade value rises to $2.69 billion in total Canadian exports from the western part of Virginia.

In politics, this is called “cross-pressure,” where members of Congress philosophically inclined to back the policies of a president from their own party might find themselves facing questions at home if that president’s trade war with Canada backfires. Any economic casualties might come first on poultry farms in the Shenandoah Valley or any of the auto parts manufacturers along Interstate 81.

Let’s dig deeper into this data.

Trump has famously said of Canada: “We don’t need anything they have.” The marketplace begs to differ or we wouldn’t have the trade deficit that Trump says he is concerned about. At the risk of getting lost in economic theory, it’s worth asking whether we need a trade surplus with every country. The whole point of trade is to acquire things that you can’t produce on your own, or can’t produce as cheaply. This is why we don’t mind importing coffee; we could grow the bean here in greenhouses, but the cost would be more than we’d want to pay. 

The U.S. runs trade surpluses with some countries — the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis says our biggest is with the Netherlands, followed by all of Central and South America. Over on the deficit side, our biggest trade deficit is with China. We buy $295.4 billion more from China than China buys from us. There’s broad consensus across the political spectrum that this is a problem, but consumers like inexpensive goods, even if they’re made by poorly paid workers in foreign sweatshops. Our 10th-biggest trade deficit is with Canada, behind even Ireland, which might make you wonder why we’re more upset with Ottawa than Dublin.

Trump has said that his goal is to get Canada to crack down on fentanyl being smuggled into the U.S., but the vast majority of fentanyl comes into the country through Mexico. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, so far this year 1,580 pounds of the deadly drug have been seized along the Mexican border, 49 pounds at “interior” points of entry and 1 pound along the Canadian border. Of course, you never know what’s not being seized or where, but these numbers would suggest that there’s 49 times more smuggling through American airports than along the Canadian border. It’s not as if the Canadians are the only ones doing border checks; we’ve got agents there, too, and they’re not finding the stuff, either.

The reason there’s been such political pushback against U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports is the very real fear of retaliatory tariffs from Canada on American products — and the reason that matters is that the two nation’s economies are closely integrated. That’s a product both of geography and of more than a century and a half of warm relations that Trump is now busy undoing. 

Canada is an easy country to ignore for the same reason that it’s so important to us: It’s nearby, it’s politically stable and it isn’t particularly exotic unless you’re in French-speaking Quebec, in which case you might well be in France. Economically, though, we are more dependent on Canada than we realize.

For 23 states, Canada is that state’s top import market, and some states are highly dependent on Canadian goods, according to data compiled by Visual Capitalist. In Montana, 86% of the state’s imports come across the northern border. In North Dakota, 75%. Even next door to us in West Virginia, 40% of imports come from Canada — more than even China. Those are the states that will first feel the bite of tariffs, a fancy word for taxes. Virginia will be one of the last. I’ve not found a figure I trust for what percentage of our imports come from Canada, but state figures say we import more from China than anywhere else and Visual Capitalist puts that figure at 13%. Canada ranks third for us, behind Mexico. 

Where Virginia — and many other states — are most vulnerable in a trade war is with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports to Canada. In business terms, Canada is our best customer. Canada buys more from the United States than any other country does. If anything disturbs that relationship, some American jobs will be at risk. Tariffs risk disturbing that relationship. 

For 32 states, Canada is their top export market. Virginia is one of those 32. Last year, Virginia sold $3.4 billion worth of products to Canada — 15% of our total exports — according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. China ranked a distant second at $1.5 billion, India third at $1.4 billion. Those two countries combined still didn’t add up to what the Canadian market means to the Virginia economy. 

All those numbers may be a blur, but let’s make them more specific. The Canadian embassy in Washington took employment statistics from the U.S. government and has produced an economic profile of each congressional district in the country. This is the extent of Canadian propaganda: publishing the American government’s own numbers. (They are a wily bunch indeed.)

Here’s what we find. These are the number of jobs tied to exports to Canada in each of Virginia’s congressional districts:

Why do the 6th and 9th districts rank so high? Auto-related jobs. There’s a cluster of auto-related jobs along the I-81 corridor, with the Volvo truck plant in Pulaski County being perhaps the best known but by no means the only one. (You can see a list of auto-related companies in Virginia on page 3 of this state report). The 6th District gets bumped higher on the list by the poultry industry in the Shenandoah Valley and also the forest products industry, such as the WestRock paper mill in Covington. You scroll through all this data, district by district, but you’ll see that 25% of the exports in the 6th District are tied to the auto industry. 44% of those in the 9th District.

Sources: Trade Partnership: Goods exports (2024 data, 2/2025 release), services exports (2023 data, 12/2024 release) and jobs, calculated figures, based on U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data at state and national levels. Dun & Bradstreet:
Canadian-owned businesses (2/2025 release). Figures may not add up due to rounding.

This is where political desire collides with economic reality. Trump doesn’t want Americans buying cars that were assembled in Canada. “I’d rather make ’em in Detroit,” he’s said. He says 20% of the cars sold in the U.S. come from Canada; but Cars.com says the figure appears to actually be 4.2%. Whatever the number, Trump’s point is he wants to boost American manufacturing — a worthy goal. 

The challenge is that the auto industry has, for better or worse, evolved a supply chain that routinely crosses international borders. NBC recently reported: “There’s no such thing as a fully American-made car.” Such reports usually focus on how many foreign-made parts go into an American-assembled vehicle, but the industry is really much more complicated than that. We also have a lot of American-made parts going to Canada to be assembled into vehicles.

Yes, it might be better if those were American-made parts going to U.S. auto plants, but the current system is not going to be unwound quickly — if it all. Corporate America thinks both short-term (quarterly dividends) and long-term — and that long-term horizon extends longer than a president’s term. In the meantime, parts crossing the border are going to get taxed and automakers will either need to eat those costs or pass them onto consumers. You can consult your own experience to decide which is more likely.

It’s also not so simple as a single part being shipped from one country to another and staying there. The London Free Press — that’s London, Ontario, by the way — recently reported about a scrap metal company in Ontario that is part of the auto parts supply chain: “Scrap from Linamar Corp. crosses Canada, U.S., Mexico borders 7 times until it becomes an automatic transmission that powers a vehicle,” the paper reported.  That’s also not unusual.

That paper quoted Flavio Volpe, chief executive of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association: Until now, “No one cared if an auto part crossed the borders six or seven times. That is, not until we have a crisis like this. … We have highly integrated post-industrial powers that have grown together.” Now the leader of one of those powers is trying to pull it apart and the pain will be felt on both sides of the border, from the Linamar scrapyard in Gueph, Ontario, to, perhaps, auto parts companies along I-81.

Other products have their own economic ecosystem. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that 80% of the chicken meat consumed in Canada comes from the United States. If Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. poultry makes American chicken too expensive for Canadian consumers — or if Canadians decide simply not to buy American in the same way that some Americans try to avoid buying Chinese — then there’s a market opportunity for other countries. In a report last fall, before these tariffs were on the table, the USDA warned that “Chile [has] emerged as a significant supplier, and is expected to gain additional market share in 2025.” Canada’s retaliatory tariffs could hurt farmers in the Shenandoah Valley and benefit those in South America. 

The bottom line: Farmers and factory workers in the western part of Virginia are now on the front lines of a trade war. 

The post The Virginians most at risk in a trade war with Canada are west of the Blue Ridge. Here’s why. appeared first on Cardinal News.

Sometime this week, maybe Wednesday, the U.S. Senate will vote on a resolution by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., to block President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada.

Kaine might pick up enough Republican votes in the Senate for the resolution to pass — Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a tariff opponent, has said there may be four Republicans uneasy enough about tariffs to join with Democrats on this vote.

“However,” Politico reported, “it’s likely the resolution never comes up in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson moved earlier this month to block the ability of tariff critics to force a floor vote on ending the kind of national emergencies Trump is citing to levy the tariffs.”

That means what we’re witnessing is mostly symbolic: “Losing the vote,” Politico said, “would represent the most significant rebuke to Trump that congressional Republicans have yet mustered in his second term.”

It might be of interest to politically minded Virginians to see their junior senator being the one who leads the charge against the administration. However, it ought to be of interest to a broader swath of Virginians to understand just how tied our economy is with our neighbor to the north — and therefore how much we have at risk in any trade war.

Spoiler alert: The parts of Virginia at most risk in a trade war with Canada are west of the Blue Ridge, specifically the 6th and 9th Congressional Districts, the two most Republican districts in the state, currently represented by Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith. Between them, those two districts have nearly 10,000 jobs and nearly $1.8 billion of goods tied to exports to Canada, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data. If you factor in services that companies in those districts are selling north of the border, then the trade value rises to $2.69 billion in total Canadian exports from the western part of Virginia.

In politics, this is called “cross-pressure,” where members of Congress philosophically inclined to back the policies of a president from their own party might find themselves facing questions at home if that president’s trade war with Canada backfires. Any economic casualties might come first on poultry farms in the Shenandoah Valley or any of the auto parts manufacturers along Interstate 81.

Let’s dig deeper into this data.

Trump has famously said of Canada: “We don’t need anything they have.” The marketplace begs to differ or we wouldn’t have the trade deficit that Trump says he is concerned about. At the risk of getting lost in economic theory, it’s worth asking whether we need a trade surplus with every country. The whole point of trade is to acquire things that you can’t produce on your own, or can’t produce as cheaply. This is why we don’t mind importing coffee; we could grow the bean here in greenhouses, but the cost would be more than we’d want to pay. 

The U.S. runs trade surpluses with some countries — the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis says our biggest is with the Netherlands, followed by all of Central and South America. Over on the deficit side, our biggest trade deficit is with China. We buy $295.4 billion more from China than China buys from us. There’s broad consensus across the political spectrum that this is a problem, but consumers like inexpensive goods, even if they’re made by poorly paid workers in foreign sweatshops. Our 10th-biggest trade deficit is with Canada, behind even Ireland, which might make you wonder why we’re more upset with Ottawa than Dublin.

Trump has said that his goal is to get Canada to crack down on fentanyl being smuggled into the U.S., but the vast majority of fentanyl comes into the country through Mexico. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, so far this year 1,580 pounds of the deadly drug have been seized along the Mexican border, 49 pounds at “interior” points of entry and 1 pound along the Canadian border. Of course, you never know what’s not being seized or where, but these numbers would suggest that there’s 49 times more smuggling through American airports than along the Canadian border. It’s not as if the Canadians are the only ones doing border checks; we’ve got agents there, too, and they’re not finding the stuff, either.

The reason there’s been such political pushback against U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports is the very real fear of retaliatory tariffs from Canada on American products — and the reason that matters is that the two nation’s economies are closely integrated. That’s a product both of geography and of more than a century and a half of warm relations that Trump is now busy undoing. 

Canada is an easy country to ignore for the same reason that it’s so important to us: It’s nearby, it’s politically stable and it isn’t particularly exotic unless you’re in French-speaking Quebec, in which case you might well be in France. Economically, though, we are more dependent on Canada than we realize.

For 23 states, Canada is that state’s top import market, and some states are highly dependent on Canadian goods, according to data compiled by Visual Capitalist. In Montana, 86% of the state’s imports come across the northern border. In North Dakota, 75%. Even next door to us in West Virginia, 40% of imports come from Canada — more than even China. Those are the states that will first feel the bite of tariffs, a fancy word for taxes. Virginia will be one of the last. I’ve not found a figure I trust for what percentage of our imports come from Canada, but state figures say we import more from China than anywhere else and Visual Capitalist puts that figure at 13%. Canada ranks third for us, behind Mexico. 

Where Virginia — and many other states — are most vulnerable in a trade war is with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports to Canada. In business terms, Canada is our best customer. Canada buys more from the United States than any other country does. If anything disturbs that relationship, some American jobs will be at risk. Tariffs risk disturbing that relationship. 

For 32 states, Canada is their top export market. Virginia is one of those 32. Last year, Virginia sold $3.4 billion worth of products to Canada — 15% of our total exports — according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. China ranked a distant second at $1.5 billion, India third at $1.4 billion. Those two countries combined still didn’t add up to what the Canadian market means to the Virginia economy. 

All those numbers may be a blur, but let’s make them more specific. The Canadian embassy in Washington took employment statistics from the U.S. government and has produced an economic profile of each congressional district in the country. This is the extent of Canadian propaganda: publishing the American government’s own numbers. (They are a wily bunch indeed.)

Here’s what we find. These are the number of jobs tied to exports to Canada in each of Virginia’s congressional districts:

Why do the 6th and 9th districts rank so high? Auto-related jobs. There’s a cluster of auto-related jobs along the I-81 corridor, with the Volvo truck plant in Pulaski County being perhaps the best known but by no means the only one. (You can see a list of auto-related companies in Virginia on page 3 of this state report). The 6th District gets bumped higher on the list by the poultry industry in the Shenandoah Valley and also the forest products industry, such as the WestRock paper mill in Covington. You scroll through all this data, district by district, but you’ll see that 25% of the exports in the 6th District are tied to the auto industry. 44% of those in the 9th District.

Sources: Trade Partnership: Goods exports (2024 data, 2/2025 release), services exports (2023 data, 12/2024 release) and jobs, calculated figures, based on U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data at state and national levels. Dun & Bradstreet:
Canadian-owned businesses (2/2025 release). Figures may not add up due to rounding.

This is where political desire collides with economic reality. Trump doesn’t want Americans buying cars that were assembled in Canada. “I’d rather make ’em in Detroit,” he’s said. He says 20% of the cars sold in the U.S. come from Canada; but Cars.com says the figure appears to actually be 4.2%. Whatever the number, Trump’s point is he wants to boost American manufacturing — a worthy goal. 

The challenge is that the auto industry has, for better or worse, evolved a supply chain that routinely crosses international borders. NBC recently reported: “There’s no such thing as a fully American-made car.” Such reports usually focus on how many foreign-made parts go into an American-assembled vehicle, but the industry is really much more complicated than that. We also have a lot of American-made parts going to Canada to be assembled into vehicles.

Yes, it might be better if those were American-made parts going to U.S. auto plants, but the current system is not going to be unwound quickly — if it all. Corporate America thinks both short-term (quarterly dividends) and long-term — and that long-term horizon extends longer than a president’s term. In the meantime, parts crossing the border are going to get taxed and automakers will either need to eat those costs or pass them onto consumers. You can consult your own experience to decide which is more likely.

It’s also not so simple as a single part being shipped from one country to another and staying there. The London Free Press — that’s London, Ontario, by the way — recently reported about a scrap metal company in Ontario that is part of the auto parts supply chain: “Scrap from Linamar Corp. crosses Canada, U.S., Mexico borders 7 times until it becomes an automatic transmission that powers a vehicle,” the paper reported.  That’s also not unusual.

That paper quoted Flavio Volpe, chief executive of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association: Until now, “No one cared if an auto part crossed the borders six or seven times. That is, not until we have a crisis like this. … We have highly integrated post-industrial powers that have grown together.” Now the leader of one of those powers is trying to pull it apart and the pain will be felt on both sides of the border, from the Linamar scrapyard in Gueph, Ontario, to, perhaps, auto parts companies along I-81.

Other products have their own economic ecosystem. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that 80% of the chicken meat consumed in Canada comes from the United States. If Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. poultry makes American chicken too expensive for Canadian consumers — or if Canadians decide simply not to buy American in the same way that some Americans try to avoid buying Chinese — then there’s a market opportunity for other countries. In a report last fall, before these tariffs were on the table, the USDA warned that “Chile [has] emerged as a significant supplier, and is expected to gain additional market share in 2025.” Canada’s retaliatory tariffs could hurt farmers in the Shenandoah Valley and benefit those in South America. 

The bottom line: Farmers and factory workers in the western part of Virginia are now on the front lines of a trade war. 

The post The Virginians most at risk in a trade war with Canada are west of the Blue Ridge. Here’s why. appeared first on Cardinal News.

The Tech Town! series is showcasing how Roanoke and the region are leveraging biotechnology to foster growth. The premise of the series is that “Railroads built Roanoke, but Norfolk Southern methodically deemphasized the ‘Magic City’ that it had sparked, setting the city on a decades-long decline.” Instead of ignoring those railroading roots, they should be embraced for the future.

It was a bit disheartening to read in part four of the series the quote from Heywood Fralin, who said, “he would like to see a freeway connecting Roanoke to the North Carolina line.” He is correct, though, when he said, “Getting from FBRI to North Carolina’s Research Triangle universities — and to Wake Forest University, which partners with Virginia Tech — should not be as difficult as it is on U.S. 220.” However, over many years of discussion, it has been established that Interstate 73 as a new interstate highway or any major improvements to U.S. 220 are unworkable, too expensive and up against massive resistance from people who live along any proposed route.

There is an alternative that calls on Roanoke’s roots as a railroad town. Virginia could take a page from North Carolina and look to expanding state-run passenger trains. There is an underutilized Norfolk Southern rail line between Roanoke and Winston-Salem that would connect those two cities as Fralin suggests. North Carolina operates The Carolinian passenger service that has stops in Raleigh, Durham, and Greensboro before ending in Charlotte. It wouldn’t take much to extend the service to Winston-Salem to complete the connectivity that Fralin says should exist. Such an option, tied in with improved passenger rail service to the New River Valley, would be a much more eco-friendly way to travel between Virginia Tech, Roanoke, Winston-Salem and the Research Triangle area.

With two train sets initially, there could be a morning departure from each end of the line with an afternoon/evening return. The time riding the train instead of fighting traffic could be used to get work done or have meetings, either planned or impromptu. An ultimate goal would be to upgrade the line to offer higher-speed service.

To improve connections between Roanoke, Blacksburg and the New River Valley, the state should negotiate to repurchase the former Virginian line from Norfolk Southern. The plans that were drawn up to use that line to extend Amtrak service to the New River Valley still have merit. The line could be used for an interurban-type passenger service between the proposed Cinnabar Road station near Blacksburg to downtown Roanoke and just beyond to stop near the Riverside Center. The service could run on a schedule comparable to the Smartway Bus to provide an eco-friendly connection between Roanoke and the New River Valley and reduce traffic on Interstate 81. This would be in addition to and supplement the Amtrak service planned to run to Christiansburg (and beyond). Double-ended battery-operated transit-type trains would provide a smooth ride with no need to turn the train at either end of the trip.

Implementing these plans would require a change from the “we need highways” mindset but would be a better use of taxpayer funds to use ideas from the past (frequent passenger train service) to solve the needs of the present and future.

Bruce Harper is retired from Virginia Tech, where he served as the university webmaster. He is a local historian and author with an interest in railroads and Virginia Tech history.

The post Using the past to improve the present appeared first on Cardinal News.

Here are some of the top headlines from other news outlets around Virginia. Some content may be behind a metered paywall:

Politics:

Appeals court judge focuses on Misjuns’ “unbelievably odious” social media posts. — The (Lynchburg) News & Advance (paywall).

Local:

Town of Bedford looks to contract out commercial waste collection services. — The (Lynchburg) News & Advance (paywall).

Environment:

Major cleanup effort coming to the New River. — Bluefield Daily Telegraph (paywall).

Health care:

Ballad Health CEO discusses recent security measures. — WJHL-TV.

Economy:

6% meals tax proposed for certain Tazewell County restaurants. — WVVA-TV.

Roanoke restaurant closes after 60 years. — WDBJ-TV.

Weather:

For more weather news, follow weather journalist Kevin Myatt on Twitter / X at @kevinmyattwx and sign up for his free weather email newsletter. His weekly column appears in Cardinal News each Wednesday afternoon.

The post Headlines from across the state: Appeals court judge focuses on Misjuns’ ‘unbelievably odious’ social media post; more … appeared first on Cardinal News.

Citing factors that include inflation and rising fuel costs, Dominion Energy is proposing rate and fuel increases that would raise the average residential bill 15% over the next two years.

Virginia’s largest electric utility said Tuesday that it wants to raise monthly base electric rates for the average customer by $8.51 in 2026 and $2 in 2027.

It also plans to raise the monthly fuel rate for an average customer by $10.92, effective July 1.

The bottom line is that if state regulators approve all of Dominion’s requests, the average residential monthly bill will increase 15.3% from $140 today to $161.43 after Jan. 1, 2027.

“We’re focused on providing exceptional value for our customers every single day,” Ed Baine, Dominion’s president of utility operations and Dominion Energy Virginia, said in a news release. “Outside of major storms, we deliver uninterrupted power 99.9% of the time, and we’re significantly reducing storm-related outages as well. This proposal allows us to continue investing in reliability and to serve our customers’ growing needs.”

[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]

The State Corporation Commission regulates utilities in Virginia and will have the final say in whether Dominion’s requests are approved or denied.

Dominion said that the base rate increase would be its first since 1992. According to a Nov. 1, 2024, SCC report that looks at rates going back to 2007, the utility’s base rates have stayed relatively flat, but bills have increased largely due to rate adjustment clauses, which utilities use to recover the costs of transmission, generation, energy-efficiency programs and other expenses.

Before its request this week, Dominion last filed a rate case with the SCC in 2022. That case concluded in 2023 with a settlement that kept base rates the same and provided for $15 million in one-time credits to customers. 

In 2021, Dominion agreed to refund $330 million to customers as part of a settlement that stemmed from a review of its rates between 2017 and 2020.

In 2015, Dominion was ordered to refund $19.7 million to customers based on a review that found customers paid too much in 2013 and 2014.

On Tuesday, Dominion said its latest request is a result of “significant inflationary pressure” since 2023, when its last rate case concluded.

The utility said that labor and materials costs are rising and it needs more revenue to “reliably serve a growing customer base.”

The fuel increase would come from shifting certain demand-related costs from the base rate to the fuel rate to make base rates more stable, along with higher fuel costs tied to January’s cold weather, future price forecasts and the expiration of a $3.99 fuel credit, Dominion said. The company said it does not earn a profit on fuel.

Dominion also proposes a new rate class for data centers and other customers that use high amounts of energy. The new class would require a 14-year commitment from such customers, even if they end up using less energy, and would ensure that they pay the full cost of their service, Dominion said.

Richmond-based Dominion Energy has more than 3.6 million customers in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Of those, more than 2.5 million are in Virginia, including in Central and Southside Virginia and the Alleghany Highlands.

The post Dominion Energy proposes 15% average bill increase appeared first on Cardinal News.

Citing factors that include inflation and rising fuel costs, Dominion Energy is proposing rate and fuel increases that would raise the average residential bill 15% over the next two years.

Virginia’s largest electric utility said Tuesday that it wants to raise monthly base electric rates for the average customer by $8.51 in 2026 and $2 in 2027.

It also plans to raise the monthly fuel rate for an average customer by $10.92, effective July 1.

The bottom line is that if state regulators approve all of Dominion’s requests, the average residential monthly bill will increase 15.3% from $140 today to $161.43 after Jan. 1, 2027.

“We’re focused on providing exceptional value for our customers every single day,” Ed Baine, Dominion’s president of utility operations and Dominion Energy Virginia, said in a news release. “Outside of major storms, we deliver uninterrupted power 99.9% of the time, and we’re significantly reducing storm-related outages as well. This proposal allows us to continue investing in reliability and to serve our customers’ growing needs.”

[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]

The State Corporation Commission regulates utilities in Virginia and will have the final say in whether Dominion’s requests are approved or denied.

Dominion said that the base rate increase would be its first since 1992. According to a Nov. 1, 2024, SCC report that looks at rates going back to 2007, the utility’s base rates have stayed relatively flat, but bills have increased largely due to rate adjustment clauses, which utilities use to recover the costs of transmission, generation, energy-efficiency programs and other expenses.

Before its request this week, Dominion last filed a rate case with the SCC in 2022. That case concluded in 2023 with a settlement that kept base rates the same and provided for $15 million in one-time credits to customers. 

In 2021, Dominion agreed to refund $330 million to customers as part of a settlement that stemmed from a review of its rates between 2017 and 2020.

In 2015, Dominion was ordered to refund $19.7 million to customers based on a review that found customers paid too much in 2013 and 2014.

On Tuesday, Dominion said its latest request is a result of “significant inflationary pressure” since 2023, when its last rate case concluded.

The utility said that labor and materials costs are rising and it needs more revenue to “reliably serve a growing customer base.”

The fuel increase would come from shifting certain demand-related costs from the base rate to the fuel rate to make base rates more stable, along with higher fuel costs tied to January’s cold weather, future price forecasts and the expiration of a $3.99 fuel credit, Dominion said. The company said it does not earn a profit on fuel.

Dominion also proposes a new rate class for data centers and other customers that use high amounts of energy. The new class would require a 14-year commitment from such customers, even if they end up using less energy, and would ensure that they pay the full cost of their service, Dominion said.

Richmond-based Dominion Energy has more than 3.6 million customers in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Of those, more than 2.5 million are in Virginia, including in Central and Southside Virginia and the Alleghany Highlands.

The post Dominion Energy proposes 15% average bill increase appeared first on Cardinal News.

Tens of millions of federal dollars for community projects will not be sent to Southwest and Southside Virginia, or anywhere in the state for that matter, this year. 

Congress passed a continuing resolution in mid-March to fund the government through September and avoid a shutdown, the third such measure in fiscal year 2025. That action will round out a full 12 months of federal funding through stop-gap measures for the fiscal year.

Federal funding that was negotiated in the House and Senate appropriations committees in 2024 for dozens of community infrastructure projects in Southwest and Southside Virginia was halted as a result. Those earmarks could have been included in a federal spending bill if Congress had adopted a budget for the 2025 fiscal year. 

“It is definitely disappointing,” said Lydeana Martin, the community and economic development director for Floyd County. The county had applied for federal money to help extend public utilities to undeveloped land just outside the Floyd town limits to enable more affordable housing to be built there. The county had applied for $1.5 million in federal money. 

“It’s very, very difficult to develop sites and housing that local workers can afford, especially because of our terrain in Floyd and the overall cost of land and development in Floyd,” Martin said. 

From $2 million that would have gone towards upgrades to the drinking water treatment facility in the town of Pound, to $1.6 million that would have gone towards revitalizing a blighted structure into a mixed-use community-focused facility in Danville, to $2.5 million that would have gone toward construction of a health care facility to serve Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County, many localities and organizations are left wondering how to foot the bill for projects meant to improve their communities. 

A rundown of the different projects

Dozens of localities and organizations across Southwest and Southside Virginia applied to receive federal funding for community projects. 

Some of the projects with higher price tags include:

• $7 million requested for Virginia Coalfields Expressway Authority, for the phase II paving project of Corridor Q, U.S. 460 Connector.
• $5.5 million for Roanoke County to expand and pave the parking lot at McAfee Knob and to add restrooms, a shuttle stop and National Park Service signage.
• $4.7 million requested for New River Valley Emergency Communications Regional Authority for their Interoperable P25 Public Safety Communications System Project.
• $3 million requested for the Craig County Emergency Communications Project. 
• $2.75 million requested for the Town of St. Paul, safety building improvements.
• $2.5 million for the city of Lexington, the city of Buena Vista and Rockbridge County to construct a health facility to serve the region.
• $2.1 million for Goodwill Industries of the Valleys to develop a free public high school in Roanoke that provides adults with the opportunity to earn a high school diploma, access higher education and receive wraparound services such as food and child care support.
• $2 million for the Wise County Public Service Authority to upgrade drinking water infrastructure in Pound.
• $2 million requested for a multipurpose facility in Pennington Gap.
• $2 million requested for Virginia Tech to enhance nuclear reactor testing and safety.
• $1.8 million for Dickenson County to support communication infrastructure between first responders. 
• $1.6 million for Danville to revitalize a blighted structure into a mixed-use, community-focused facility with housing and an educational center. 
• $1.5 million for the Economic Development Authority of Floyd County to extend public utilities to an undeveloped area for affordable housing. 
• $1.1 million for the Roanoke Regional Airport Commission to extend the airport’s runway. 
• $1 million to help small businesses within Roanoke’s health and life sciences sector access specialized biotech equipment.
• $772,000 for the Martinsville-Henry County Coalition for Health and Wellness to expand access to medical, dental, and behavioral health services in Patrick County. 
• $683,000 for Lonesome Pine Community Hospital to purchase an Ion Lung Bronchoscopy machine at Norton Community Hospital and Black Lung Clinic. 

Dana Cronkhite, executive director of Dickenson County’s industrial development authority and the county’s economic development director, said the county’s need for funding to complete its project “remains critical.”

“Our current system leaves multiple areas of the county without reliable communication between first responders and dispatch, which includes several of the areas that experienced flooding in February,” she said.

Renee Burton, director of planning for Danville’s community development department, said it was anticipated that the federal money would cover the total cost to rebuild blighted property into a housing and education center. That project has been scrapped, for now, though the city may consider reapplying for federal funding next year. 

In Floyd County, the lack of federal funding has put the effort to extend utilities to develop affordable housing on hold indefinitely. 

“Extending at least public water (and ideally public wastewater) is a foundational piece to being able to do the project. So, no, we cannot move forward with water and sewer expansion until we find funding,” Martin said via email. “Like many small communities, our PSA [public service authority] struggles just replacing and maintaining an old system, so there aren’t resources for expansion.”

Roanoke County Administrator Richard Caywood said the county plans to apply again next year for money to pave and expand parking and add a waterless restroom to the McAfee Knob trailhead, a popular hiking spot that sees about 50,000 visitors a year. 

“We’re still somewhat in limbo,” Caywood said.

What do federal lawmakers think?

Funding for community projects has been included in federal budgets since the first Congress in 1789, with a pause between 2011 and 2021. That pause took place after it was discovered that members from both parties had used earmarks to benefit themselves, rather than the communities they served. After safeguards were put in place, Congress revived the process. 

Every time a new Congress is sworn in, the rules regarding earmarks, also known as congressionally directed spending, can change. The rules or limits regarding earmarks for fiscal year 2026 had not yet been determined by congressional leadership as of Wednesday. 

Different localities and community organizations were able to apply for federal funding in 2024 for projects to be included in the federal budget for fiscal year 2025. Dozens of those projects were accepted, pending the passage of a full budget. A number of applicants were notified at the beginning of March that it was unlikely that the funding requests would be included in the continuing resolution. 

“We were pleased in 2024 when we learned that our senators [Mark Warner and Tim Kaine] had fought hard to include this request in the Senate bill,” said Tom Carroll, Lexington’s city manager, about a funding request for a health care center to serve the Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County region. 

“With the new Congress only passing a Continuing Resolution last Friday [March 14], it is my understanding that this CDS [congressionally directed spending] is effectively dead, and we are very disappointed by this outcome.”

Carroll said the localities plan to move forward with the project, which costs roughly $10 million, and will reapply for federal funding again next year to alleviate some of the financial burden. 

Valeria Rivadeneira, spokesperson for U.S. Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., said that it is difficult to quantify the effect of the lack of spending included in the continuing resolution on a particular region given the “broad nature of these cuts.” She noted that a substantial portion of the $13 billion in non-defense spending that was “cut” in the continuing resolution came from the discontinuation of funding for local projects. 

Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, pushed back against that characterization. 

“While some FY2025 appropriations bills passed in the House of Representatives, which included earmarked projects, currently called ‘community funded projects,’ the U.S. Senate did not move to pass any of them,” Griffith said via email. “Because the U.S. Senate did not move on the House bills, no funding has been enacted or appropriated to agencies on FY2025 community-funded projects. Therefore, the CR that passed Congress last week could not cut funding from these projects.”

In simpler terms: Money for community projects was simply not included in the full year of continuing resolutions passed by Congress for 2025. Rivadeneira argued that House Republicans acted alone and without input from their Democratic colleagues when drafting the continuing resolution. She said, because House Republicans chose to “go at it alone,” that they are responsible for the lack of funding for these projects. 

“We had done all of this work on these community projects and they just struck all of them,” through the lack of inclusion, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said during a roundtable event in Roanoke on March 21. “In Democratic districts, Republican districts, any kind of project, they struck all of them.”

“I’m really disappointed,” Kaine said. “A lot of folks who felt good that we were able to get them commitments now have to postpone for a year, which is very unfortunate.”

The office of U.S. Rep. Ben Cline, R-Botetourt County, did not respond to a request for comment. Cline sits on the House Appropriations Committee. 

In a statement after the continuing resolution was passed, Griffith said that the stripped-down spending bill would deliver critical funding to border enforcement authorities and will help President Donald Trump to carry out his effort to make “government work more efficiently.”

“Hopefully, both the House and the Senate will support bills this year that appropriate funds in the regular order and include community-funded projects,” Griffith said when asked about the lack of inclusion of those projects in the continuing resolution. 

What’s next for these projects and communities?

Some localities and organizations are moving forward with the projects without the federal money. 

The Roanoke Regional Airport Commission chose not to factor in the $1.1 million it requested from the federal government into the airport’s plan to extend its runway. That money would have helped to reduce reliance on aviation funds to secure property for the extension, airport spokesperson Alexa Briehl said. 

Goodwill Industries of the Valleys opted to make cuts elsewhere in its project, a high school for adults opening this year, without the federal money. 

“We are proceeding with the Excel Center even without the $2.1 million in federal funding,” said Chelsea Moran, spokesperson for Goodwill Industries of the Valleys. “However, the school will have reduced capacity for students and staff positions.”

Brad Boettcher, Roanoke’s innovation administrator, said the city opted to hold off on buying highly specialized biotech equipment, which is what the $1 million in federal money would have gone toward. The city plans to move forward with the rest of the project. 

Doug Janz, a spokesperson for Ballad Health, said the health system will be able to purchase a new Ion robotic bronchocopy machine for the Norton Community Hospital’s Black Lung Clinic without the federal money, because the project is self-funded. 

Others have opted to try again next year while looking elsewhere for other funding sources. 

Dickenson County officials are looking into various funding routes, while they plan to apply for congressionally directed spending again for the fiscal year 2026. Funding at the local level for communication infrastructure for first responders is extremely limited, Cronkhite said.

Brittany Anthony, a spokesperson for Connect Health + Wellness, said that the federal money would have helped to renovate and expand the current clinic’s space to serve more people in Patrick County. Without that money, the Patrick Springs clinic remains open, but, Anthony said, the clinic has begun to explore other funding opportunities to support renovations and increase capacity.

And some have considered multiple different approaches. 

Cody McElroy, executive director of the Wise County Public Service Authority, said that the county has been working with the town of Pound to upgrade the water and wastewater systems since 2021, when those utilities were consolidated. 

None of the money the county requested for fiscal year 2025 was received, and it would have made up about 15% of the total price of the project. McElroy said the county and the town will have to scale the work back a bit to make up the shortfall, but it may also apply for federal funding again in fiscal year 2026. 

The post Dozens of community projects halted after federal funding was omitted from Congressional stop-gap spending bill appeared first on Cardinal News.

In the summer of 1776, young revolutionaries intent on securing their freedom resolved to go to war to protect their lands and their liberty. Patrick Henry was intimately involved in this conflict. So were Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock. The result of that war shaped the nation we now have today.

You may think all that seems familiar and it does, but this may not: The war I’m describing is not the American Revolution but a different war: The Cherokee War of 1776, where the American settlers and indigenous Cherokee battled on what was then the frontier — including parts of Southwest Virginia.

This frontier fighting can be seen either as something separate from the American Revolution, or as a war-within-a-war. The Cherokee were aligned with the British, and the legalities they were fighting over — a 1763 proclamation by King George III that banned settlement west of a certain line through the Appalachians — were some of the same ones that outraged American settlers, just from a different point of view.

This is a war that’s faded from the memory of all but the most devoted historians — and Native Americans, for whom the Cherokee War of 1776 was a consequential, and tragic, experience. The outcome was a victory for the Americans and a catastrophic defeat for the Cherokee that set the stage for the infamous Trail of Tears eviction of the Cherokee from the Southeast a generation later.

While most of the fighting took place outside Virginia, some 1,800 Virginians — mostly from the frontier of Southwest Virginia — marched off westward to that war rather than eastward to fight the British. And when those soldiers constructed a fort in modern-day Tennessee, they named it after Virginia’s governor: Fort Patrick Henry.

This Saturday, the Historic Smithfield estate in Blacksburg — the home of Col. William Preston, a Revolution-era leader in the western part of Virginia — devotes a day to a remembrance of that formative, and forgotten, war, with reenactments, demonstrations and speakers. Historic Smithfield has more information here; below is a primer on the other war of 1776.

* * *

The conflict between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of North American goes back to, well, the Vikings who tried to settle Newfoundland and found the natives inhospitable. Let’s fast forward centuries ahead. In the 1750s, the British colonial push inland from coastal settlements prompted a major war with both Native Americans and the French — what we know today as the French and Indian War. The outcome was a British victory that saw France lose its Quebec province.

The British and their North American Colonists might have disagreed before, but they really disagreed over what the outcome of this war meant. With the indigenous threat reduced, the Colonists saw an opportunity to settle farther inland. The British saw the war as expensive. They wanted two things going forward: to make the Colonists pay for more of their own upkeep, through taxes. They also wanted to hold down security costs, so they forbade settlement in much of the Appalachians as a way to limit (violent) contact with the Native Americans. This was the Proclamation of 1763, and it was intensely unpopular among Colonists, particularly those in Virginia. Both land-speculating gentry (such as Henry, Jefferson and George Washington) and land-poor farmers felt they were entitled to that western territory, whether it was inhabited by Native Americans or not. For more on this, see the story and column we published as part of our Cardinal 250 project about lesser-known parts of Virginia’s role in the run-up to independence.

The short version is that many Colonists simply ignored the king’s proclamation and settled west of the line anyway. Much of Southwest Virginia west of modern-day Montgomery County was off-limits. That land got settled. In 1773, Daniel Boone was leading a group of settlers through the Cumberland Gap into modern-day Kentucky, and more conflicts with the native tribes were breaking out. Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, led a force westward in what became known as Lord Dunmore’s War. (We have Cardinal 250 stories on that, too.) Andrew Lewis of Roanoke County was the leader at the battle but the governor got the war named after him anyway. Regardless, the Virginians’ victory at the Battle of Point Pleasant pushed the Shawnee west of the Ohio River, effectively rendering the king’s proclamation line moot, at least through what we now regard as West Virginia.

In the aftermath of Lord Dunmore’s War, some North Carolina land speculators led by a fellow named Richard Henderson (a buddy of the aforementioned Boone) set their sights on Kentucky as the next big thing. The problem was that the Cherokee still regarded Kentucky as their hunting ground. Just because the Shawnee had lost to Lord Dunmore didn’t mean much to them. In 1775, Henderson, Boone and others met with Cherokee leaders at a site in what is now eastern Tennessee and worked out a land deal they called the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals. The settlers got much of Kentucky; the Cherokee leaders got blankets, knives and gunpowder. 

To call this a “treaty” is to overstate the authority that Henderson and Boone had. They had none. They were just land speculators. The legislatures in Virginia and North Carolina both rejected the “treaty.” It was technically in violation of the king’s often-ignored proclamation — and legislators had often been keen to avoid conflicts with native tribes if they could (which is not to say they were attentive to the concerns of indigenous peoples, they just had other things on their mind).

There was another complication with this “treaty.” The Cherokee elders had agreed, but the Cherokee also had a generational split. The older leaders wanted to avoid yet another war with settlers. The younger ones were more radicalized, to use the modern term. One of those was Dragging Canoe. According to Nadia Dean’s history of the Cherokee War of 1776, “A Demand of Blood,” Dragging Canoe became “the focus of the hard-line resistance.” He is said to have given an impassioned speech, the native equivalent of Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” speech. Both had the same result: They swayed their listeners to prepare for war.

The main difference: Henry saw the American Revolution as a defensive war; Dragging Canoe wanted to go on the offensive. And he eventually did.

The British were not exactly unaware of the growing tensions between the Cherokee and the Colonists. They had what Dean calls “agents” who regularly met with the Cherokee and advised them on Colonial happenings. In May 1776, about the same time the Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia to prepare for independence, the British governor of Detroit persuaded Cornstalk — the Shawnee chief who had lost to Lord Dunmore two years before — to lead a delegation of various tribes to meet with the Cherokee. The outcome of that summit, in modern-day Tennessee: a decision to go to war.

In late June, the Cherokee began a series of raids on frontier settlements, from South Carolina up to Virginia (near modern-day Gate City). Throughout the summer of 1776, the frontier was aflame. “War parties bludgeoned to death, mutilated and scalped settlers not holed up in overcrowded forts. Cattle and horses were scattered and sheep and hogs shot dead,” Dean wrote in an essay that appears on the Historic Smithfield website. “On the North Carolina frontier, Cherokee warriors mercilessly hacked to death 37 settlers on the Catawba River.” In one famous incident, three teenage girls floating down the Kentucky River on a canoe were captured by a combined squad of Cherokee and Shawnee raiders. One of those girls was the daughter of Daniel Boone. The girls secretly marked the trail as they were marched through the wilderness of what was then still part of Virginia’s westernmost Fincastle County. Three days later, as the captors were making breakfast, shots rang out. “That’s daddy’s gun!” Jemima Boone shouted. She was right. Her father had organized a rescue party that liberated the girls; his response became part of the lore that surrounded Boone and inspired several works of art.

The Colonists weren’t content with simply restoring the status quo. Dean writes: “John Hancock, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson called for the destruction of the entire Cherokee nation.”

They might have done this anyway, regardless of the war for independence, but now they saw these Cherokee raids as part of British policy. This was a two-front war. Colonial governments from Virginia to Georgia put together a 6,000-man force to go after the Cherokee. The Virginia arm of that was an 1,800-man army under the command of Col. William Christian, the brother-in-law of now-Gov. Patrick Henry and a prominent figure in Southwest Virginia. Here’s how important that expedition against the Cherokee was to the Virginia leadership: Christian resigned his commission in the Continental Army to lead this fight instead.

Before winter set in, the Colonial armies had destroyed more than 50 Cherokee towns in the Carolinas and Tennessee. Christian and his Southwest Virginia men had a hand in some of that. He marched into eastern Tennessee and set up camp in what had been Dragging Canoe’s town, “a gesture of defiance because Dragging Canoe had bred the war,” Dean writes. Christian called his camp Fort Patrick Henry.

His force established in a symbolic place, Christian then demanded to meet with Cherokee leaders. Some agreed, and pledged to stay neutral in the war with the British. Dragging Canoe refused Christian’s summons. Christian’s men then burned Cherokee towns aligned with Dragging Canoe and spared those who pledged fealty to other Cherokee leaders, Dean writes.

With that, the Cherokee War of 1776 was more or less over, but the basic conflict went on for years. Dean writes: “The Cherokee leaders then traveled 500 miles to Williamsburg, Va., to meet Governor Patrick Henry. They agreed to restrain their young warriors and vowed to give up more land, which those warriors had so earnestly fought to defend. Southern rebels, after decimating over 50 Cherokee towns, soon realized that their massive militia campaign had not defeated Dragging Canoe, who continued punishing frontier settlers. Dragging Canoe remained resolved to liberate his land and maintain his alliance with King George. All efforts by posses and militiamen failed to capture or kill Dragging Canoe, who sustained his pan-Indian confederacy for another 15 years.”

Walt Bailey, the visitor experiences coordinator at Historic Smithfield, calls this “a forgotten war.” The definitive history of Virginia has long been considered to be “Virginia: The New Dominion” by Virginius Dabney. That tome contains nary a mention of any of this. Bailey, who grew up in Tennessee near Fort Patrick Henry and studied history, said he was never taught about this conflict, despite all the things it set in motion. The war quieted the frontier — for a while — and helped facilitate Colonial expansion. “It’s a big step toward ‘the Trail of Tears,’” he says, because it was an early attempt to either annihilate the Cherokee or evict them.

It also spawned a famous phrase in American history. Before the war, one of the Cherokee leaders warned the North Carolina land speculators: “You have bought a fair land, but there is a cloud hanging over it; you will find its settlement dark and bloody.” That gave rise to the popular description of Kentucky — then still part of Virginia — as a “dark and bloody land.”

As with many things, we remember that little piece of history but forget who originally coined the phrase: Dragging Canoe.

He was never killed in battle and was never captured. He lived on until 1792 when he died in a most unusual way: His warriors had just returned from a successful raid on some settlements along the Cumberland River near modern-day Nashville. Furthermore, he had just concluded an alliance with two other tribes that promised even more warfare about the encroaching settlers. Dragging Canoe wanted to celebrate, so stayed up all night dancing. Then he dropped dead.

Want more history about Virginia’s role in the American Revolution?

It wasn’t all guys in white wigs in Philadelphia. Much of the American Revolution was conducted by people who haven’t always made the history books, from frontier settlers to enslaved laborers to women and girls. Cardinal has embarked on a multi-year project to tell some on the little-known stories of Virginia’s role in the drive for independence. You can find those stories on our Cardinal 250 page. You can also sign up for our monthly Cardinal 250 newsletter:

• The Daily All of our latest stories, plus public notices, obituaries and opinion pieces. Sent every morning at 5 a.m.
• The Roundup A roundup of our most popular stories each week, plus word puzzles and obituaries. Sent Saturdays at 7 a.m.
• Cardinal Weather In-depth weather forecasts and updates, plus analysis on our region by Kevin Myatt. Sent Wednesdays.
• West of the Capital A weekly round-up of politics, with a focus on our region. Sent Fridays.
• Your Weekend Plan your weekend ahead of time with our go-to guide for celebrations, festivities and other events happening in our region, sent every Thursday at noon.
• Cardinal 250 Dive into history with exclusive stories uncovering Virginia’s role in America’s path to independence. Sent monthly.

Sign up

The post In 1776, some 1,800 Virginians marched off to a ‘forgotten war’ that wasn’t against the British appeared first on Cardinal News.

In the summer of 1776, young revolutionaries intent on securing their freedom resolved to go to war to protect their lands and their liberty. Patrick Henry was intimately involved in this conflict. So were Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock. The result of that war shaped the nation we now have today.

You may think all that seems familiar and it does, but this may not: The war I’m describing is not the American Revolution but a different war: The Cherokee War of 1776, where the American settlers and indigenous Cherokee battled on what was then the frontier — including parts of Southwest Virginia.

This frontier fighting can be seen either as something separate from the American Revolution, or as a war-within-a-war. The Cherokee were aligned with the British, and the legalities they were fighting over — a 1763 proclamation by King George III that banned settlement west of a certain line through the Appalachians — were some of the same ones that outraged American settlers, just from a different point of view.

This is a war that’s faded from the memory of all but the most devoted historians — and Native Americans, for whom the Cherokee War of 1776 was a consequential, and tragic, experience. The outcome was a victory for the Americans and a catastrophic defeat for the Cherokee that set the stage for the infamous Trail of Tears eviction of the Cherokee from the Southeast a generation later.

While most of the fighting took place outside Virginia, some 1,800 Virginians — mostly from the frontier of Southwest Virginia — marched off westward to that war rather than eastward to fight the British. And when those soldiers constructed a fort in modern-day Tennessee, they named it after Virginia’s governor: Fort Patrick Henry.

This Saturday, the Historic Smithfield estate in Blacksburg — the home of Col. William Preston, a Revolution-era leader in the western part of Virginia — devotes a day to a remembrance of that formative, and forgotten, war, with reenactments, demonstrations and speakers. Historic Smithfield has more information here; below is a primer on the other war of 1776.

* * *

The conflict between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of North American goes back to, well, the Vikings who tried to settle Newfoundland and found the natives inhospitable. Let’s fast forward centuries ahead. In the 1750s, the British colonial push inland from coastal settlements prompted a major war with both Native Americans and the French — what we know today as the French and Indian War. The outcome was a British victory that saw France lose its Quebec province.

The British and their North American Colonists might have disagreed before, but they really disagreed over what the outcome of this war meant. With the indigenous threat reduced, the Colonists saw an opportunity to settle farther inland. The British saw the war as expensive. They wanted two things going forward: to make the Colonists pay for more of their own upkeep, through taxes. They also wanted to hold down security costs, so they forbade settlement in much of the Appalachians as a way to limit (violent) contact with the Native Americans. This was the Proclamation of 1763, and it was intensely unpopular among Colonists, particularly those in Virginia. Both land-speculating gentry (such as Henry, Jefferson and George Washington) and land-poor farmers felt they were entitled to that western territory, whether it was inhabited by Native Americans or not. For more on this, see the story and column we published as part of our Cardinal 250 project about lesser-known parts of Virginia’s role in the run-up to independence.

The short version is that many Colonists simply ignored the king’s proclamation and settled west of the line anyway. Much of Southwest Virginia west of modern-day Montgomery County was off-limits. That land got settled. In 1773, Daniel Boone was leading a group of settlers through the Cumberland Gap into modern-day Kentucky, and more conflicts with the native tribes were breaking out. Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, led a force westward in what became known as Lord Dunmore’s War. (We have Cardinal 250 stories on that, too.) Andrew Lewis of Roanoke County was the leader at the battle but the governor got the war named after him anyway. Regardless, the Virginians’ victory at the Battle of Point Pleasant pushed the Shawnee west of the Ohio River, effectively rendering the king’s proclamation line moot, at least through what we now regard as West Virginia.

In the aftermath of Lord Dunmore’s War, some North Carolina land speculators led by a fellow named Richard Henderson (a buddy of the aforementioned Boone) set their sights on Kentucky as the next big thing. The problem was that the Cherokee still regarded Kentucky as their hunting ground. Just because the Shawnee had lost to Lord Dunmore didn’t mean much to them. In 1775, Henderson, Boone and others met with Cherokee leaders at a site in what is now eastern Tennessee and worked out a land deal they called the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals. The settlers got much of Kentucky; the Cherokee leaders got blankets, knives and gunpowder. 

To call this a “treaty” is to overstate the authority that Henderson and Boone had. They had none. They were just land speculators. The legislatures in Virginia and North Carolina both rejected the “treaty.” It was technically in violation of the king’s often-ignored proclamation — and legislators had often been keen to avoid conflicts with native tribes if they could (which is not to say they were attentive to the concerns of indigenous peoples, they just had other things on their mind).

There was another complication with this “treaty.” The Cherokee elders had agreed, but the Cherokee also had a generational split. The older leaders wanted to avoid yet another war with settlers. The younger ones were more radicalized, to use the modern term. One of those was Dragging Canoe. According to Nadia Dean’s history of the Cherokee War of 1776, “A Demand of Blood,” Dragging Canoe became “the focus of the hard-line resistance.” He is said to have given an impassioned speech, the native equivalent of Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” speech. Both had the same result: They swayed their listeners to prepare for war.

The main difference: Henry saw the American Revolution as a defensive war; Dragging Canoe wanted to go on the offensive. And he eventually did.

The British were not exactly unaware of the growing tensions between the Cherokee and the Colonists. They had what Dean calls “agents” who regularly met with the Cherokee and advised them on Colonial happenings. In May 1776, about the same time the Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia to prepare for independence, the British governor of Detroit persuaded Cornstalk — the Shawnee chief who had lost to Lord Dunmore two years before — to lead a delegation of various tribes to meet with the Cherokee. The outcome of that summit, in modern-day Tennessee: a decision to go to war.

In late June, the Cherokee began a series of raids on frontier settlements, from South Carolina up to Virginia (near modern-day Gate City). Throughout the summer of 1776, the frontier was aflame. “War parties bludgeoned to death, mutilated and scalped settlers not holed up in overcrowded forts. Cattle and horses were scattered and sheep and hogs shot dead,” Dean wrote in an essay that appears on the Historic Smithfield website. “On the North Carolina frontier, Cherokee warriors mercilessly hacked to death 37 settlers on the Catawba River.” In one famous incident, three teenage girls floating down the Kentucky River on a canoe were captured by a combined squad of Cherokee and Shawnee raiders. One of those girls was the daughter of Daniel Boone. The girls secretly marked the trail as they were marched through the wilderness of what was then still part of Virginia’s westernmost Fincastle County. Three days later, as the captors were making breakfast, shots rang out. “That’s daddy’s gun!” Jemima Boone shouted. She was right. Her father had organized a rescue party that liberated the girls; his response became part of the lore that surrounded Boone and inspired several works of art.

The Colonists weren’t content with simply restoring the status quo. Dean writes: “John Hancock, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson called for the destruction of the entire Cherokee nation.”

They might have done this anyway, regardless of the war for independence, but now they saw these Cherokee raids as part of British policy. This was a two-front war. Colonial governments from Virginia to Georgia put together a 6,000-man force to go after the Cherokee. The Virginia arm of that was an 1,800-man army under the command of Col. William Christian, the brother-in-law of now-Gov. Patrick Henry and a prominent figure in Southwest Virginia. Here’s how important that expedition against the Cherokee was to the Virginia leadership: Christian resigned his commission in the Continental Army to lead this fight instead.

Before winter set in, the Colonial armies had destroyed more than 50 Cherokee towns in the Carolinas and Tennessee. Christian and his Southwest Virginia men had a hand in some of that. He marched into eastern Tennessee and set up camp in what had been Dragging Canoe’s town, “a gesture of defiance because Dragging Canoe had bred the war,” Dean writes. Christian called his camp Fort Patrick Henry.

His force established in a symbolic place, Christian then demanded to meet with Cherokee leaders. Some agreed, and pledged to stay neutral in the war with the British. Dragging Canoe refused Christian’s summons. Christian’s men then burned Cherokee towns aligned with Dragging Canoe and spared those who pledged fealty to other Cherokee leaders, Dean writes.

With that, the Cherokee War of 1776 was more or less over, but the basic conflict went on for years. Dean writes: “The Cherokee leaders then traveled 500 miles to Williamsburg, Va., to meet Governor Patrick Henry. They agreed to restrain their young warriors and vowed to give up more land, which those warriors had so earnestly fought to defend. Southern rebels, after decimating over 50 Cherokee towns, soon realized that their massive militia campaign had not defeated Dragging Canoe, who continued punishing frontier settlers. Dragging Canoe remained resolved to liberate his land and maintain his alliance with King George. All efforts by posses and militiamen failed to capture or kill Dragging Canoe, who sustained his pan-Indian confederacy for another 15 years.”

Walt Bailey, the visitor experiences coordinator at Historic Smithfield, calls this “a forgotten war.” The definitive history of Virginia has long been considered to be “Virginia: The New Dominion” by Virginius Dabney. That tome contains nary a mention of any of this. Bailey, who grew up in Tennessee near Fort Patrick Henry and studied history, said he was never taught about this conflict, despite all the things it set in motion. The war quieted the frontier — for a while — and helped facilitate Colonial expansion. “It’s a big step toward ‘the Trail of Tears,’” he says, because it was an early attempt to either annihilate the Cherokee or evict them.

It also spawned a famous phrase in American history. Before the war, one of the Cherokee leaders warned the North Carolina land speculators: “You have bought a fair land, but there is a cloud hanging over it; you will find its settlement dark and bloody.” That gave rise to the popular description of Kentucky — then still part of Virginia — as a “dark and bloody land.”

As with many things, we remember that little piece of history but forget who originally coined the phrase: Dragging Canoe.

He was never killed in battle and was never captured. He lived on until 1792 when he died in a most unusual way: His warriors had just returned from a successful raid on some settlements along the Cumberland River near modern-day Nashville. Furthermore, he had just concluded an alliance with two other tribes that promised even more warfare about the encroaching settlers. Dragging Canoe wanted to celebrate, so stayed up all night dancing. Then he dropped dead.

Want more history about Virginia’s role in the American Revolution?

It wasn’t all guys in white wigs in Philadelphia. Much of the American Revolution was conducted by people who haven’t always made the history books, from frontier settlers to enslaved laborers to women and girls. Cardinal has embarked on a multi-year project to tell some on the little-known stories of Virginia’s role in the drive for independence. You can find those stories on our Cardinal 250 page. You can also sign up for our monthly Cardinal 250 newsletter:

• The Daily All of our latest stories, plus public notices, obituaries and opinion pieces. Sent every morning at 5 a.m.
• The Roundup A roundup of our most popular stories each week, plus word puzzles and obituaries. Sent Saturdays at 7 a.m.
• Cardinal Weather In-depth weather forecasts and updates, plus analysis on our region by Kevin Myatt. Sent Wednesdays.
• West of the Capital A weekly round-up of politics, with a focus on our region. Sent Fridays.
• Your Weekend Plan your weekend ahead of time with our go-to guide for celebrations, festivities and other events happening in our region, sent every Thursday at noon.
• Cardinal 250 Dive into history with exclusive stories uncovering Virginia’s role in America’s path to independence. Sent monthly.

Sign up

The post In 1776, some 1,800 Virginians marched off to a ‘forgotten war’ that wasn’t against the British appeared first on Cardinal News.

In the summer of 1776, young revolutionaries intent on securing their freedom resolved to go to war to protect their lands and their liberty. Patrick Henry was intimately involved in this conflict. So were Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock. The result of that war shaped the nation we now have today.

You may think all that seems familiar and it does, but this may not: The war I’m describing is not the American Revolution but a different war: The Cherokee War of 1776, where the American settlers and indigenous Cherokee battled on what was then the frontier — including parts of Southwest Virginia.

This frontier fighting can be seen either as something separate from the American Revolution, or as a war-within-a-war. The Cherokee were aligned with the British, and the legalities they were fighting over — a 1763 proclamation by King George III that banned settlement west of a certain line through the Appalachians — were some of the same ones that outraged American settlers, just from a different point of view.

This is a war that’s faded from the memory of all but the most devoted historians — and Native Americans, for whom the Cherokee War of 1776 was a consequential, and tragic, experience. The outcome was a victory for the Americans and a catastrophic defeat for the Cherokee that set the stage for the infamous Trail of Tears eviction of the Cherokee from the Southeast a generation later.

While most of the fighting took place outside Virginia, some 1,800 Virginians — mostly from the frontier of Southwest Virginia — marched off westward to that war rather than eastward to fight the British. And when those soldiers constructed a fort in modern-day Tennessee, they named it after Virginia’s governor: Fort Patrick Henry.

This Saturday, the Historic Smithfield estate in Blacksburg — the home of Col. William Preston, a Revolution-era leader in the western part of Virginia — devotes a day to a remembrance of that formative, and forgotten, war, with reenactments, demonstrations and speakers. Historic Smithfield has more information here; below is a primer on the other war of 1776.

* * *

The conflict between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of North American goes back to, well, the Vikings who tried to settle Newfoundland and found the natives inhospitable. Let’s fast forward centuries ahead. In the 1750s, the British colonial push inland from coastal settlements prompted a major war with both Native Americans and the French — what we know today as the French and Indian War. The outcome was a British victory that saw France lose its Quebec province.

The British and their North American Colonists might have disagreed before, but they really disagreed over what the outcome of this war meant. With the indigenous threat reduced, the Colonists saw an opportunity to settle farther inland. The British saw the war as expensive. They wanted two things going forward: to make the Colonists pay for more of their own upkeep, through taxes. They also wanted to hold down security costs, so they forbade settlement in much of the Appalachians as a way to limit (violent) contact with the Native Americans. This was the Proclamation of 1763, and it was intensely unpopular among Colonists, particularly those in Virginia. Both land-speculating gentry (such as Henry, Jefferson and George Washington) and land-poor farmers felt they were entitled to that western territory, whether it was inhabited by Native Americans or not. For more on this, see the story and column we published as part of our Cardinal 250 project about lesser-known parts of Virginia’s role in the run-up to independence.

The short version is that many Colonists simply ignored the king’s proclamation and settled west of the line anyway. Much of Southwest Virginia west of modern-day Montgomery County was off-limits. That land got settled. In 1773, Daniel Boone was leading a group of settlers through the Cumberland Gap into modern-day Kentucky, and more conflicts with the native tribes were breaking out. Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, led a force westward in what became known as Lord Dunmore’s War. (We have Cardinal 250 stories on that, too.) Andrew Lewis of Roanoke County was the leader at the battle but the governor got the war named after him anyway. Regardless, the Virginians’ victory at the Battle of Point Pleasant pushed the Shawnee west of the Ohio River, effectively rendering the king’s proclamation line moot, at least through what we now regard as West Virginia.

In the aftermath of Lord Dunmore’s War, some North Carolina land speculators led by a fellow named Richard Henderson (a buddy of the aforementioned Boone) set their sights on Kentucky as the next big thing. The problem was that the Cherokee still regarded Kentucky as their hunting ground. Just because the Shawnee had lost to Lord Dunmore didn’t mean much to them. In 1775, Henderson, Boone and others met with Cherokee leaders at a site in what is now eastern Tennessee and worked out a land deal they called the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals. The settlers got much of Kentucky; the Cherokee leaders got blankets, knives and gunpowder. 

To call this a “treaty” is to overstate the authority that Henderson and Boone had. They had none. They were just land speculators. The legislatures in Virginia and North Carolina both rejected the “treaty.” It was technically in violation of the king’s often-ignored proclamation — and legislators had often been keen to avoid conflicts with native tribes if they could (which is not to say they were attentive to the concerns of indigenous peoples, they just had other things on their mind).

There was another complication with this “treaty.” The Cherokee elders had agreed, but the Cherokee also had a generational split. The older leaders wanted to avoid yet another war with settlers. The younger ones were more radicalized, to use the modern term. One of those was Dragging Canoe. According to Nadia Dean’s history of the Cherokee War of 1776, “A Demand of Blood,” Dragging Canoe became “the focus of the hard-line resistance.” He is said to have given an impassioned speech, the native equivalent of Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” speech. Both had the same result: They swayed their listeners to prepare for war.

The main difference: Henry saw the American Revolution as a defensive war; Dragging Canoe wanted to go on the offensive. And he eventually did.

The British were not exactly unaware of the growing tensions between the Cherokee and the Colonists. They had what Dean calls “agents” who regularly met with the Cherokee and advised them on Colonial happenings. In May 1776, about the same time the Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia to prepare for independence, the British governor of Detroit persuaded Cornstalk — the Shawnee chief who had lost to Lord Dunmore two years before — to lead a delegation of various tribes to meet with the Cherokee. The outcome of that summit, in modern-day Tennessee: a decision to go to war.

In late June, the Cherokee began a series of raids on frontier settlements, from South Carolina up to Virginia (near modern-day Gate City). Throughout the summer of 1776, the frontier was aflame. “War parties bludgeoned to death, mutilated and scalped settlers not holed up in overcrowded forts. Cattle and horses were scattered and sheep and hogs shot dead,” Dean wrote in an essay that appears on the Historic Smithfield website. “On the North Carolina frontier, Cherokee warriors mercilessly hacked to death 37 settlers on the Catawba River.” In one famous incident, three teenage girls floating down the Kentucky River on a canoe were captured by a combined squad of Cherokee and Shawnee raiders. One of those girls was the daughter of Daniel Boone. The girls secretly marked the trail as they were marched through the wilderness of what was then still part of Virginia’s westernmost Fincastle County. Three days later, as the captors were making breakfast, shots rang out. “That’s daddy’s gun!” Jemima Boone shouted. She was right. Her father had organized a rescue party that liberated the girls; his response became part of the lore that surrounded Boone and inspired several works of art.

The Colonists weren’t content with simply restoring the status quo. Dean writes: “John Hancock, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson called for the destruction of the entire Cherokee nation.”

They might have done this anyway, regardless of the war for independence, but now they saw these Cherokee raids as part of British policy. This was a two-front war. Colonial governments from Virginia to Georgia put together a 6,000-man force to go after the Cherokee. The Virginia arm of that was an 1,800-man army under the command of Col. William Christian, the brother-in-law of now-Gov. Patrick Henry and a prominent figure in Southwest Virginia. Here’s how important that expedition against the Cherokee was to the Virginia leadership: Christian resigned his commission in the Continental Army to lead this fight instead.

Before winter set in, the Colonial armies had destroyed more than 50 Cherokee towns in the Carolinas and Tennessee. Christian and his Southwest Virginia men had a hand in some of that. He marched into eastern Tennessee and set up camp in what had been Dragging Canoe’s town, “a gesture of defiance because Dragging Canoe had bred the war,” Dean writes. Christian called his camp Fort Patrick Henry.

His force established in a symbolic place, Christian then demanded to meet with Cherokee leaders. Some agreed, and pledged to stay neutral in the war with the British. Dragging Canoe refused Christian’s summons. Christian’s men then burned Cherokee towns aligned with Dragging Canoe and spared those who pledged fealty to other Cherokee leaders, Dean writes.

With that, the Cherokee War of 1776 was more or less over, but the basic conflict went on for years. Dean writes: “The Cherokee leaders then traveled 500 miles to Williamsburg, Va., to meet Governor Patrick Henry. They agreed to restrain their young warriors and vowed to give up more land, which those warriors had so earnestly fought to defend. Southern rebels, after decimating over 50 Cherokee towns, soon realized that their massive militia campaign had not defeated Dragging Canoe, who continued punishing frontier settlers. Dragging Canoe remained resolved to liberate his land and maintain his alliance with King George. All efforts by posses and militiamen failed to capture or kill Dragging Canoe, who sustained his pan-Indian confederacy for another 15 years.”

Walt Bailey, the visitor experiences coordinator at Historic Smithfield, calls this “a forgotten war.” The definitive history of Virginia has long been considered to be “Virginia: The New Dominion” by Virginius Dabney. That tome contains nary a mention of any of this. Bailey, who grew up in Tennessee near Fort Patrick Henry and studied history, said he was never taught about this conflict, despite all the things it set in motion. The war quieted the frontier — for a while — and helped facilitate Colonial expansion. “It’s a big step toward ‘the Trail of Tears,’” he says, because it was an early attempt to either annihilate the Cherokee or evict them.

It also spawned a famous phrase in American history. Before the war, one of the Cherokee leaders warned the North Carolina land speculators: “You have bought a fair land, but there is a cloud hanging over it; you will find its settlement dark and bloody.” That gave rise to the popular description of Kentucky — then still part of Virginia — as a “dark and bloody land.”

As with many things, we remember that little piece of history but forget who originally coined the phrase: Dragging Canoe.

He was never killed in battle and was never captured. He lived on until 1792 when he died in a most unusual way: His warriors had just returned from a successful raid on some settlements along the Cumberland River near modern-day Nashville. Furthermore, he had just concluded an alliance with two other tribes that promised even more warfare about the encroaching settlers. Dragging Canoe wanted to celebrate, so stayed up all night dancing. Then he dropped dead.

Want more history about Virginia’s role in the American Revolution?

It wasn’t all guys in white wigs in Philadelphia. Much of the American Revolution was conducted by people who haven’t always made the history books, from frontier settlers to enslaved laborers to women and girls. Cardinal has embarked on a multi-year project to tell some on the little-known stories of Virginia’s role in the drive for independence. You can find those stories on our Cardinal 250 page. You can also sign up for our monthly Cardinal 250 newsletter:

• The Daily All of our latest stories, plus public notices, obituaries and opinion pieces. Sent every morning at 5 a.m.
• The Roundup A roundup of our most popular stories each week, plus word puzzles and obituaries. Sent Saturdays at 7 a.m.
• Cardinal Weather In-depth weather forecasts and updates, plus analysis on our region by Kevin Myatt. Sent Wednesdays.
• West of the Capital A weekly round-up of politics, with a focus on our region. Sent Fridays.
• Your Weekend Plan your weekend ahead of time with our go-to guide for celebrations, festivities and other events happening in our region, sent every Thursday at noon.
• Cardinal 250 Dive into history with exclusive stories uncovering Virginia’s role in America’s path to independence. Sent monthly.

Sign up

The post In 1776, some 1,800 Virginians marched off to a ‘forgotten war’ that wasn’t against the British appeared first on Cardinal News.

In the summer of 1776, young revolutionaries intent on securing their freedom resolved to go to war to protect their lands and their liberty. Patrick Henry was intimately involved in this conflict. So were Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock. The result of that war shaped the nation we now have today.

You may think all that seems familiar and it does, but this may not: The war I’m describing is not the American Revolution but a different war: The Cherokee War of 1776, where the American settlers and indigenous Cherokee battled on what was then the frontier — including parts of Southwest Virginia.

This frontier fighting can be seen either as something separate from the American Revolution, or as a war-within-a-war. The Cherokee were aligned with the British, and the legalities they were fighting over — a 1763 proclamation by King George III that banned settlement west of a certain line through the Appalachians — were some of the same ones that outraged American settlers, just from a different point of view.

This is a war that’s faded from the memory of all but the most devoted historians — and Native Americans, for whom the Cherokee War of 1776 was a consequential, and tragic, experience. The outcome was a victory for the Americans and a catastrophic defeat for the Cherokee that set the stage for the infamous Trail of Tears eviction of the Cherokee from the Southeast a generation later.

While most of the fighting took place outside Virginia, some 1,800 Virginians — mostly from the frontier of Southwest Virginia — marched off westward to that war rather than eastward to fight the British. And when those soldiers constructed a fort in modern-day Tennessee, they named it after Virginia’s governor: Fort Patrick Henry.

This Saturday, the Historic Smithfield estate in Blacksburg — the home of Col. William Preston, a Revolution-era leader in the western part of Virginia — devotes a day to a remembrance of that formative, and forgotten, war, with reenactments, demonstrations and speakers. Historic Smithfield has more information here; below is a primer on the other war of 1776.

* * *

The conflict between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of North American goes back to, well, the Vikings who tried to settle Newfoundland and found the natives inhospitable. Let’s fast forward centuries ahead. In the 1750s, the British colonial push inland from coastal settlements prompted a major war with both Native Americans and the French — what we know today as the French and Indian War. The outcome was a British victory that saw France lose its Quebec province.

The British and their North American Colonists might have disagreed before, but they really disagreed over what the outcome of this war meant. With the indigenous threat reduced, the Colonists saw an opportunity to settle farther inland. The British saw the war as expensive. They wanted two things going forward: to make the Colonists pay for more of their own upkeep, through taxes. They also wanted to hold down security costs, so they forbade settlement in much of the Appalachians as a way to limit (violent) contact with the Native Americans. This was the Proclamation of 1763, and it was intensely unpopular among Colonists, particularly those in Virginia. Both land-speculating gentry (such as Henry, Jefferson and George Washington) and land-poor farmers felt they were entitled to that western territory, whether it was inhabited by Native Americans or not. For more on this, see the story and column we published as part of our Cardinal 250 project about lesser-known parts of Virginia’s role in the run-up to independence.

The short version is that many Colonists simply ignored the king’s proclamation and settled west of the line anyway. Much of Southwest Virginia west of modern-day Montgomery County was off-limits. That land got settled. In 1773, Daniel Boone was leading a group of settlers through the Cumberland Gap into modern-day Kentucky, and more conflicts with the native tribes were breaking out. Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, led a force westward in what became known as Lord Dunmore’s War. (We have Cardinal 250 stories on that, too.) Andrew Lewis of Roanoke County was the leader at the battle but the governor got the war named after him anyway. Regardless, the Virginians’ victory at the Battle of Point Pleasant pushed the Shawnee west of the Ohio River, effectively rendering the king’s proclamation line moot, at least through what we now regard as West Virginia.

In the aftermath of Lord Dunmore’s War, some North Carolina land speculators led by a fellow named Richard Henderson (a buddy of the aforementioned Boone) set their sights on Kentucky as the next big thing. The problem was that the Cherokee still regarded Kentucky as their hunting ground. Just because the Shawnee had lost to Lord Dunmore didn’t mean much to them. In 1775, Henderson, Boone and others met with Cherokee leaders at a site in what is now eastern Tennessee and worked out a land deal they called the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals. The settlers got much of Kentucky; the Cherokee leaders got blankets, knives and gunpowder. 

To call this a “treaty” is to overstate the authority that Henderson and Boone had. They had none. They were just land speculators. The legislatures in Virginia and North Carolina both rejected the “treaty.” It was technically in violation of the king’s often-ignored proclamation — and legislators had often been keen to avoid conflicts with native tribes if they could (which is not to say they were attentive to the concerns of indigenous peoples, they just had other things on their mind).

There was another complication with this “treaty.” The Cherokee elders had agreed, but the Cherokee also had a generational split. The older leaders wanted to avoid yet another war with settlers. The younger ones were more radicalized, to use the modern term. One of those was Dragging Canoe. According to Nadia Dean’s history of the Cherokee War of 1776, “A Demand of Blood,” Dragging Canoe became “the focus of the hard-line resistance.” He is said to have given an impassioned speech, the native equivalent of Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” speech. Both had the same result: They swayed their listeners to prepare for war.

The main difference: Henry saw the American Revolution as a defensive war; Dragging Canoe wanted to go on the offensive. And he eventually did.

The British were not exactly unaware of the growing tensions between the Cherokee and the Colonists. They had what Dean calls “agents” who regularly met with the Cherokee and advised them on Colonial happenings. In May 1776, about the same time the Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia to prepare for independence, the British governor of Detroit persuaded Cornstalk — the Shawnee chief who had lost to Lord Dunmore two years before — to lead a delegation of various tribes to meet with the Cherokee. The outcome of that summit, in modern-day Tennessee: a decision to go to war.

In late June, the Cherokee began a series of raids on frontier settlements, from South Carolina up to Virginia (near modern-day Gate City). Throughout the summer of 1776, the frontier was aflame. “War parties bludgeoned to death, mutilated and scalped settlers not holed up in overcrowded forts. Cattle and horses were scattered and sheep and hogs shot dead,” Dean wrote in an essay that appears on the Historic Smithfield website. “On the North Carolina frontier, Cherokee warriors mercilessly hacked to death 37 settlers on the Catawba River.” In one famous incident, three teenage girls floating down the Kentucky River on a canoe were captured by a combined squad of Cherokee and Shawnee raiders. One of those girls was the daughter of Daniel Boone. The girls secretly marked the trail as they were marched through the wilderness of what was then still part of Virginia’s westernmost Fincastle County. Three days later, as the captors were making breakfast, shots rang out. “That’s daddy’s gun!” Jemima Boone shouted. She was right. Her father had organized a rescue party that liberated the girls; his response became part of the lore that surrounded Boone and inspired several works of art.

The Colonists weren’t content with simply restoring the status quo. Dean writes: “John Hancock, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson called for the destruction of the entire Cherokee nation.”

They might have done this anyway, regardless of the war for independence, but now they saw these Cherokee raids as part of British policy. This was a two-front war. Colonial governments from Virginia to Georgia put together a 6,000-man force to go after the Cherokee. The Virginia arm of that was an 1,800-man army under the command of Col. William Christian, the brother-in-law of now-Gov. Patrick Henry and a prominent figure in Southwest Virginia. Here’s how important that expedition against the Cherokee was to the Virginia leadership: Christian resigned his commission in the Continental Army to lead this fight instead.

Before winter set in, the Colonial armies had destroyed more than 50 Cherokee towns in the Carolinas and Tennessee. Christian and his Southwest Virginia men had a hand in some of that. He marched into eastern Tennessee and set up camp in what had been Dragging Canoe’s town, “a gesture of defiance because Dragging Canoe had bred the war,” Dean writes. Christian called his camp Fort Patrick Henry.

His force established in a symbolic place, Christian then demanded to meet with Cherokee leaders. Some agreed, and pledged to stay neutral in the war with the British. Dragging Canoe refused Christian’s summons. Christian’s men then burned Cherokee towns aligned with Dragging Canoe and spared those who pledged fealty to other Cherokee leaders, Dean writes.

With that, the Cherokee War of 1776 was more or less over, but the basic conflict went on for years. Dean writes: “The Cherokee leaders then traveled 500 miles to Williamsburg, Va., to meet Governor Patrick Henry. They agreed to restrain their young warriors and vowed to give up more land, which those warriors had so earnestly fought to defend. Southern rebels, after decimating over 50 Cherokee towns, soon realized that their massive militia campaign had not defeated Dragging Canoe, who continued punishing frontier settlers. Dragging Canoe remained resolved to liberate his land and maintain his alliance with King George. All efforts by posses and militiamen failed to capture or kill Dragging Canoe, who sustained his pan-Indian confederacy for another 15 years.”

Walt Bailey, the visitor experiences coordinator at Historic Smithfield, calls this “a forgotten war.” The definitive history of Virginia has long been considered to be “Virginia: The New Dominion” by Virginius Dabney. That tome contains nary a mention of any of this. Bailey, who grew up in Tennessee near Fort Patrick Henry and studied history, said he was never taught about this conflict, despite all the things it set in motion. The war quieted the frontier — for a while — and helped facilitate Colonial expansion. “It’s a big step toward ‘the Trail of Tears,’” he says, because it was an early attempt to either annihilate the Cherokee or evict them.

It also spawned a famous phrase in American history. Before the war, one of the Cherokee leaders warned the North Carolina land speculators: “You have bought a fair land, but there is a cloud hanging over it; you will find its settlement dark and bloody.” That gave rise to the popular description of Kentucky — then still part of Virginia — as a “dark and bloody land.”

As with many things, we remember that little piece of history but forget who originally coined the phrase: Dragging Canoe.

He was never killed in battle and was never captured. He lived on until 1792 when he died in a most unusual way: His warriors had just returned from a successful raid on some settlements along the Cumberland River near modern-day Nashville. Furthermore, he had just concluded an alliance with two other tribes that promised even more warfare about the encroaching settlers. Dragging Canoe wanted to celebrate, so stayed up all night dancing. Then he dropped dead.

Want more history about Virginia’s role in the American Revolution?

It wasn’t all guys in white wigs in Philadelphia. Much of the American Revolution was conducted by people who haven’t always made the history books, from frontier settlers to enslaved laborers to women and girls. Cardinal has embarked on a multi-year project to tell some on the little-known stories of Virginia’s role in the drive for independence. You can find those stories on our Cardinal 250 page. You can also sign up for our monthly Cardinal 250 newsletter:

• The Daily All of our latest stories, plus public notices, obituaries and opinion pieces. Sent every morning at 5 a.m.
• The Roundup A roundup of our most popular stories each week, plus word puzzles and obituaries. Sent Saturdays at 7 a.m.
• Cardinal Weather In-depth weather forecasts and updates, plus analysis on our region by Kevin Myatt. Sent Wednesdays.
• West of the Capital A weekly round-up of politics, with a focus on our region. Sent Fridays.
• Your Weekend Plan your weekend ahead of time with our go-to guide for celebrations, festivities and other events happening in our region, sent every Thursday at noon.
• Cardinal 250 Dive into history with exclusive stories uncovering Virginia’s role in America’s path to independence. Sent monthly.

Sign up

The post In 1776, some 1,800 Virginians marched off to a ‘forgotten war’ that wasn’t against the British appeared first on Cardinal News.

In the summer of 1776, young revolutionaries intent on securing their freedom resolved to go to war to protect their lands and their liberty. Patrick Henry was intimately involved in this conflict. So were Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock. The result of that war shaped the nation we now have today.

You may think all that seems familiar and it does, but this may not: The war I’m describing is not the American Revolution but a different war: The Cherokee War of 1776, where the American settlers and indigenous Cherokee battled on what was then the frontier — including parts of Southwest Virginia.

This frontier fighting can be seen either as something separate from the American Revolution, or as a war-within-a-war. The Cherokee were aligned with the British, and the legalities they were fighting over — a 1763 proclamation by King George III that banned settlement west of a certain line through the Appalachians — were some of the same ones that outraged American settlers, just from a different point of view.

This is a war that’s faded from the memory of all but the most devoted historians — and Native Americans, for whom the Cherokee War of 1776 was a consequential, and tragic, experience. The outcome was a victory for the Americans and a catastrophic defeat for the Cherokee that set the stage for the infamous Trail of Tears eviction of the Cherokee from the Southeast a generation later.

While most of the fighting took place outside Virginia, some 1,800 Virginians — mostly from the frontier of Southwest Virginia — marched off westward to that war rather than eastward to fight the British. And when those soldiers constructed a fort in modern-day Tennessee, they named it after Virginia’s governor: Fort Patrick Henry.

This Saturday, the Historic Smithfield estate in Blacksburg — the home of Col. William Preston, a Revolution-era leader in the western part of Virginia — devotes a day to a remembrance of that formative, and forgotten, war, with reenactments, demonstrations and speakers. Historic Smithfield has more information here; below is a primer on the other war of 1776.

* * *

The conflict between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of North American goes back to, well, the Vikings who tried to settle Newfoundland and found the natives inhospitable. Let’s fast forward centuries ahead. In the 1750s, the British colonial push inland from coastal settlements prompted a major war with both Native Americans and the French — what we know today as the French and Indian War. The outcome was a British victory that saw France lose its Quebec province.

The British and their North American Colonists might have disagreed before, but they really disagreed over what the outcome of this war meant. With the indigenous threat reduced, the Colonists saw an opportunity to settle farther inland. The British saw the war as expensive. They wanted two things going forward: to make the Colonists pay for more of their own upkeep, through taxes. They also wanted to hold down security costs, so they forbade settlement in much of the Appalachians as a way to limit (violent) contact with the Native Americans. This was the Proclamation of 1763, and it was intensely unpopular among Colonists, particularly those in Virginia. Both land-speculating gentry (such as Henry, Jefferson and George Washington) and land-poor farmers felt they were entitled to that western territory, whether it was inhabited by Native Americans or not. For more on this, see the story and column we published as part of our Cardinal 250 project about lesser-known parts of Virginia’s role in the run-up to independence.

The short version is that many Colonists simply ignored the king’s proclamation and settled west of the line anyway. Much of Southwest Virginia west of modern-day Montgomery County was off-limits. That land got settled. In 1773, Daniel Boone was leading a group of settlers through the Cumberland Gap into modern-day Kentucky, and more conflicts with the native tribes were breaking out. Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, led a force westward in what became known as Lord Dunmore’s War. (We have Cardinal 250 stories on that, too.) Andrew Lewis of Roanoke County was the leader at the battle but the governor got the war named after him anyway. Regardless, the Virginians’ victory at the Battle of Point Pleasant pushed the Shawnee west of the Ohio River, effectively rendering the king’s proclamation line moot, at least through what we now regard as West Virginia.

In the aftermath of Lord Dunmore’s War, some North Carolina land speculators led by a fellow named Richard Henderson (a buddy of the aforementioned Boone) set their sights on Kentucky as the next big thing. The problem was that the Cherokee still regarded Kentucky as their hunting ground. Just because the Shawnee had lost to Lord Dunmore didn’t mean much to them. In 1775, Henderson, Boone and others met with Cherokee leaders at a site in what is now eastern Tennessee and worked out a land deal they called the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals. The settlers got much of Kentucky; the Cherokee leaders got blankets, knives and gunpowder. 

To call this a “treaty” is to overstate the authority that Henderson and Boone had. They had none. They were just land speculators. The legislatures in Virginia and North Carolina both rejected the “treaty.” It was technically in violation of the king’s often-ignored proclamation — and legislators had often been keen to avoid conflicts with native tribes if they could (which is not to say they were attentive to the concerns of indigenous peoples, they just had other things on their mind).

There was another complication with this “treaty.” The Cherokee elders had agreed, but the Cherokee also had a generational split. The older leaders wanted to avoid yet another war with settlers. The younger ones were more radicalized, to use the modern term. One of those was Dragging Canoe. According to Nadia Dean’s history of the Cherokee War of 1776, “A Demand of Blood,” Dragging Canoe became “the focus of the hard-line resistance.” He is said to have given an impassioned speech, the native equivalent of Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” speech. Both had the same result: They swayed their listeners to prepare for war.

The main difference: Henry saw the American Revolution as a defensive war; Dragging Canoe wanted to go on the offensive. And he eventually did.

The British were not exactly unaware of the growing tensions between the Cherokee and the Colonists. They had what Dean calls “agents” who regularly met with the Cherokee and advised them on Colonial happenings. In May 1776, about the same time the Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia to prepare for independence, the British governor of Detroit persuaded Cornstalk — the Shawnee chief who had lost to Lord Dunmore two years before — to lead a delegation of various tribes to meet with the Cherokee. The outcome of that summit, in modern-day Tennessee: a decision to go to war.

In late June, the Cherokee began a series of raids on frontier settlements, from South Carolina up to Virginia (near modern-day Gate City). Throughout the summer of 1776, the frontier was aflame. “War parties bludgeoned to death, mutilated and scalped settlers not holed up in overcrowded forts. Cattle and horses were scattered and sheep and hogs shot dead,” Dean wrote in an essay that appears on the Historic Smithfield website. “On the North Carolina frontier, Cherokee warriors mercilessly hacked to death 37 settlers on the Catawba River.” In one famous incident, three teenage girls floating down the Kentucky River on a canoe were captured by a combined squad of Cherokee and Shawnee raiders. One of those girls was the daughter of Daniel Boone. The girls secretly marked the trail as they were marched through the wilderness of what was then still part of Virginia’s westernmost Fincastle County. Three days later, as the captors were making breakfast, shots rang out. “That’s daddy’s gun!” Jemima Boone shouted. She was right. Her father had organized a rescue party that liberated the girls; his response became part of the lore that surrounded Boone and inspired several works of art.

The Colonists weren’t content with simply restoring the status quo. Dean writes: “John Hancock, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson called for the destruction of the entire Cherokee nation.”

They might have done this anyway, regardless of the war for independence, but now they saw these Cherokee raids as part of British policy. This was a two-front war. Colonial governments from Virginia to Georgia put together a 6,000-man force to go after the Cherokee. The Virginia arm of that was an 1,800-man army under the command of Col. William Christian, the brother-in-law of now-Gov. Patrick Henry and a prominent figure in Southwest Virginia. Here’s how important that expedition against the Cherokee was to the Virginia leadership: Christian resigned his commission in the Continental Army to lead this fight instead.

Before winter set in, the Colonial armies had destroyed more than 50 Cherokee towns in the Carolinas and Tennessee. Christian and his Southwest Virginia men had a hand in some of that. He marched into eastern Tennessee and set up camp in what had been Dragging Canoe’s town, “a gesture of defiance because Dragging Canoe had bred the war,” Dean writes. Christian called his camp Fort Patrick Henry.

His force established in a symbolic place, Christian then demanded to meet with Cherokee leaders. Some agreed, and pledged to stay neutral in the war with the British. Dragging Canoe refused Christian’s summons. Christian’s men then burned Cherokee towns aligned with Dragging Canoe and spared those who pledged fealty to other Cherokee leaders, Dean writes.

With that, the Cherokee War of 1776 was more or less over, but the basic conflict went on for years. Dean writes: “The Cherokee leaders then traveled 500 miles to Williamsburg, Va., to meet Governor Patrick Henry. They agreed to restrain their young warriors and vowed to give up more land, which those warriors had so earnestly fought to defend. Southern rebels, after decimating over 50 Cherokee towns, soon realized that their massive militia campaign had not defeated Dragging Canoe, who continued punishing frontier settlers. Dragging Canoe remained resolved to liberate his land and maintain his alliance with King George. All efforts by posses and militiamen failed to capture or kill Dragging Canoe, who sustained his pan-Indian confederacy for another 15 years.”

Walt Bailey, the visitor experiences coordinator at Historic Smithfield, calls this “a forgotten war.” The definitive history of Virginia has long been considered to be “Virginia: The New Dominion” by Virginius Dabney. That tome contains nary a mention of any of this. Bailey, who grew up in Tennessee near Fort Patrick Henry and studied history, said he was never taught about this conflict, despite all the things it set in motion. The war quieted the frontier — for a while — and helped facilitate Colonial expansion. “It’s a big step toward ‘the Trail of Tears,’” he says, because it was an early attempt to either annihilate the Cherokee or evict them.

It also spawned a famous phrase in American history. Before the war, one of the Cherokee leaders warned the North Carolina land speculators: “You have bought a fair land, but there is a cloud hanging over it; you will find its settlement dark and bloody.” That gave rise to the popular description of Kentucky — then still part of Virginia — as a “dark and bloody land.”

As with many things, we remember that little piece of history but forget who originally coined the phrase: Dragging Canoe.

He was never killed in battle and was never captured. He lived on until 1792 when he died in a most unusual way: His warriors had just returned from a successful raid on some settlements along the Cumberland River near modern-day Nashville. Furthermore, he had just concluded an alliance with two other tribes that promised even more warfare about the encroaching settlers. Dragging Canoe wanted to celebrate, so stayed up all night dancing. Then he dropped dead.

Want more history about Virginia’s role in the American Revolution?

It wasn’t all guys in white wigs in Philadelphia. Much of the American Revolution was conducted by people who haven’t always made the history books, from frontier settlers to enslaved laborers to women and girls. Cardinal has embarked on a multi-year project to tell some on the little-known stories of Virginia’s role in the drive for independence. You can find those stories on our Cardinal 250 page. You can also sign up for our monthly Cardinal 250 newsletter:

• The Daily All of our latest stories, plus public notices, obituaries and opinion pieces. Sent every morning at 5 a.m.
• The Roundup A roundup of our most popular stories each week, plus word puzzles and obituaries. Sent Saturdays at 7 a.m.
• Cardinal Weather In-depth weather forecasts and updates, plus analysis on our region by Kevin Myatt. Sent Wednesdays.
• West of the Capital A weekly round-up of politics, with a focus on our region. Sent Fridays.
• Your Weekend Plan your weekend ahead of time with our go-to guide for celebrations, festivities and other events happening in our region, sent every Thursday at noon.
• Cardinal 250 Dive into history with exclusive stories uncovering Virginia’s role in America’s path to independence. Sent monthly.

Sign up

The post In 1776, some 1,800 Virginians marched off to a ‘forgotten war’ that wasn’t against the British appeared first on Cardinal News.

Averett University has listed its 130-acre equestrian facility up for sale for $1.6 million. 

The facility, located just across the state line from Danville in Providence, North Carolina, features stalls for up to 31 horses, four pastures and a riding arena, along with a mobile home for barn manager housing. 

“We continue to explore all options for making Averett University financially stable, which includes selling the Equestrian Center,” Averett spokesperson Cassie Jones said Friday by email.

The private university has owned the property since 1990 and built the equestrian center there in 1993.

Jones did not respond to a question about whether the sale of the facility would impact Averett’s academic and athletic equestrian programs. She said the university is looking at lease-back options as well as opportunities to partner with other facilities.

Averett offers a Bachelor of Science in equestrian studies with five concentration options, along with an option to minor in equestrian studies. The school has eight faculty in the subject area. 

In the region, Sweet Briar College, the University of Lynchburg, Emory & Henry University and Virginia Tech offer equestrian programs as majors or minors. 

Enrollment in the equestrian studies program at Averett has recently seen a marked increase. From 2019-2020 through 2022-2023, only about a half-dozen students were enrolled in the program each fall; for 2023-2024, the fall headcount was 21, according to data from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

Overall, the university has about 1,450 students. 

Averett’s athletic programs include a dressage team in the Intercollegiate Dressage Association and an Intercollegiate Horse Show Association team. 

The property was listed in mid-March by Wilkins & Co. Realtors. Hampton Wilkins, president of the company, is on Averett’s board of trustees. 

Averett has been cutting costs since financial mismanagement was discovered about a year ago. Early responses from the university included mandating summer furlough days for some full-time staff and reducing retirement benefits for employees. 

Tiffany Franks, Averett’s president since 2008, retired in January. David Joyce immediately took over as president.

The university cut 15 full- and part-time positions in early March. “Along with attrition and the deletion of vacant positions, this reduction of workforce will decrease annual payroll expenses and better align university staffing with the size of the institution,” Jones said in a statement on March 7.

In that statement, Joyce called the staff cuts “the next step in addressing Averett’s budgetary challenges” and said that difficult cost-cutting decisions were “necessary to safeguard Averett’s future.”

The post Averett University puts equestrian center up for sale amid financial recovery efforts appeared first on Cardinal News.

A judge has dismissed a federal lawsuit by a group of Virginia Military Institute alumni who claimed that the school’s alumni association violated their civil rights.

Judge Norman Moon on Monday ordered the case dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought back to court. Moon’s opinion accompanying the order said that he chose not to address two of the four counts that made claims under state law, though the federal court has supplemental jurisdiction over those claims. 

The federal suit, which was filed in June 2024 by more than two dozen alumni, claimed that the state-run military college in Lexington and the VMI Alumni Association are so intertwined that VMI essentially controls the association. 

The alumni said the association violated their First and 14th Amendment rights when it restructured VMI’s alumni fundraising organizations in 2019 under an umbrella organization, the VMI Alumni Agencies, without alumni approval. The suit also claimed that the suspension of seven alumni from the association was retaliation against their efforts to reform leadership of the association through voting.

The Alumni Agencies collectively raise funds to support VMI. The alumni association, in its motion to dismiss the case, contended that because it is a private entity separate from VMI, the alumni had no grounds for civil rights claims.

Moon wrote that the complaint failed to present facts to “plausibly establish” that VMIAA was under the control of the institute.

Even though VMI administrators might have had influence in recommending directors for the alumni association’s governing board, “influence, by itself, does not raise an interference of state control,” Moon wrote. He noted that the plaintiffs’ examples of such influence did not include the board of directors of the alumni association, the named defendant in the case.

In response to the plaintiffs’ claims that the CEO of the alumni association was controlled by VMI, Moon wrote that the activities cited in the suit “seem entirely consistent with what one would ordinarily expect of a leader of a private entity dedicated to supporting a public institution of higher education.” He continued, “Indeed, it would be strange for the chief executive of an alumni organization to expressly work in opposition to a college’s strategic goals or to not be a point of contact for college leadership.”

This lawsuit followed a petition in circuit court in Rockbridge County in 2023 that claimed the alumni association had blocked several alumni from obtaining contact information for institute graduates ahead of an association meeting. A judge dismissed the petition, saying the association was within its rights to withhold member contact information because it’s a private organization. Three of the four plaintiffs in that petition were among the group that filed the federal suit.

The post Federal judge dismisses VMI alumni civil rights suit appeared first on Cardinal News.

Martinsville officials will talk opioid abatement at their 5 p.m. Tuesday regular session at the municipal building. 

The item is a continuation of talks about an item from the city council’s last March regular session, when staff requested that council members approve a new position referred to as kinship navigator family services specialist. The position is described as someone who provides help to caregivers as they navigate the myriad services available to them. 

“This specialist will assist kinship caregivers navigate services and strong connection to community supports to sustain permanency of children; therefore, creating a more stable environment and mitigating the risk of substance use disorder and opioid use disorder among youth in foster care,” reads information from the city. “The navigator will be skilled in substance-use prevention, substance use identification, and recovery support with aftercare.” 

If approved, the specialist will be responsible for a number of tasks, including providing individuals and families with psychological support needed to cope with neglect, abuse or illnesses. Other general tasks include assigning appropriate staff to reports of neglect and abuse, and providing guidance to staff in the absence of a supervisor. 

The three-year position is in partnership with Henry County and would serve both localities. The position is estimated to cost both Henry County and Martinsville $254,932. If approved, the city’s portion, totaling $84,892, would come from Virginia’s Opioid Abatement Authority. 

The authority is the administrator of opioid settlement money earmarked for projects throughout the state. In 2023, Virginia received $23 million in funds from opioid-related court settlements. Of that amount, $8.7 million was designated for projects throughout Southside, including Henry County and Martinsville. 

In an effort for transparency and to incentivize fund usage, each participating locality has to keep records of fund usage while reporting to the Opioid Abatement Authority. This will help to ensure compliance with agreements from the opioid settlements. 

No matching local funds are required if the grant is approved.

The post Agenda Martinsville: Opioid settlement could result in new DSS position appeared first on Cardinal News.

This is part of our Cardinal Way project on promoting civil discussions. 

We recently ran an opinion piece by David Wiley of Roanoke, in which he touted the advantages of the solar panels on his home, which, besides lowering his electric bill, also allow him to charge his electric car.

That prompted us to ask readers for their experience with either solar panels or electric vehicles. We recently had this compilation of responses on solar. Here’s what some had to say about electric vehicles.

Electric car is a ‘perfect fit’ for this couple

Dave Carey, Charlottesville

My wife is very happy with the Bolt, which replaced an older Honda Fit. It’s perfect for us, since we’re retired and we also have a gas car (a Subaru) for longer trips. The Bolt mainly gets driven around Charlottesville, but the range is fine for trips to Richmond (60 miles each way) or hiking in the mountains. Max range is probably around 190 miles at highway speeds.

Our house has a carport where the Bolt gets plugged into a regular 110-volt outlet. We haven’t yet felt the need for a Level 2 (220-volt) charger.

We haven’t been brave enough to take the Bolt on a long trip, other than an overnight to Peaks of Otter, where the lodge had a Level 2 charger. But I’m planning to buy an adapter so we can use the Tesla Superchargers someday!

If we ever get another EV, I’d like to have V2L (Vehicle to Load) capability so the car could be a backup power source when the electricity goes out at our house. 

One more thing: I hate the annual fee ($128) that Virginia charges to register EVs! I enrolled in the Virginia Mileage Choice program, which charges a fee based on actual miles driven. We only drive around 4,000 miles/year, so the Mileage Choice program saves some money. Of course, it would make more sense to charge a fee based on vehicle weight (heavier cars wear out the roads faster). And it would make more sense to raise the gas tax and fix I-81 and improve Amtrak in Virginia (just have to convince 50% of voters of that). We lived in Germany for several years, so $3/gallon for gas seems ridiculously cheap.

‘There is no cost for gas — none!’

Susan Potter, Virginia Beach

My one EV is a VW ID.4. It’s charged from the charger installed on the wall of the garage, for which we paid less than $1000, including installation. The range maxes out at approximately 302 miles, so car has to be charged once on the road for infrequent trips to and from Richmond and Northern Virginia. THERE IS NO COST FOR GAS — NONE! That’s a huge savings! I have solar panels that provide all the electricity to charge the EV. Driving on sunshine! That said, having an EV has been a learning experience. On roadtrips, you have to keep a close eye on the remaining miles on the battery and the closest charging station. The experience is often a breeze, occasionally a concern, and on one occasion a near-disaster. I don’t think that EVs are practical or even possible in rural areas unless and until there is a reliable charger system. A reliable charger system has long been promised by both the state and federal governments, but not delivered. For rural areas, a gas-powered car or truck is more practical. (Depending on individual circumstances, you might consider a hybrid.)

In addition, I don’t think EVs are practical for city dwellers who live in an apartment, unless the apartment building itself has a free charger (which is very rare or non-existent). For most city dwellers, a hybrid vehicle is more practical. For this suburban Virginia Beach dweller, one EV works quite well. There is a vast swath of suburbia around Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads that would benefit from the combination of rooftop solar power and EVs. Instead of looking superficially at the issue of the sources of power and transportation, and deciding solar power and EVs are impractical, the focus should be on making these options available in these areas to the maximum extent possible. Remember, people pay their OWN money for their OWN solar panels on their OWN roof, and for their OWN EVs that are charged in the garage. This is a win/win for everybody if we can get the monopoly utilities, bought and paid for politicians, and political propagandists out of the way.

‘Love the quietness and smooth drive’ of his American-made EV

Joseph Bryson, Roanoke

Purchased in December 2024, and it’s been great. Charge at level 2 (240V) home charger using excess generation from my solar panels. Love the quietness and smooth drive of the car, an SUV made in America by GM/Chevrolet.

‘We never pay for gas or have to deal with expensive maintenance’

Stephen Ambruzs, Roanoke

We drive 2 electric vehicles that are powered by the sun. They are filled up each night in our garage, and we never pay for gas or have to deal with expensive maintenance.

EVs are the future. Test drive one, own one or lease one. Have an open mind and give them a chance before deciding they “aren’t for you.”

‘No issues’

James Francis Reed, Prince William County

I have been driving all-electric since November 2011. I leased a Leaf, then a Bolt, and then bought a Tesla Model 3 Long Range new in March 2019. I have driven my Tesla 102k miles and 95% charged at home. Average cost per mile is $0.03. It has been trouble-free except five cracked windshields. I have driven to MA, CT, RI, NY, and GA multiple times with no charging issues using Tesla Superchargers. It does take more stops and longer charging when temps are below freezing on trips. No issues from home. I used to charge between 2300-0600, but with solar, I charge between 1200-1530 to take advantage of excess energy after backup battery recharges by noon.

‘It’s saved us quite a bit’

Joy Loving, Grottoes

We bought a Chevrolet Bolt in Dec. 2017. It’s compact but serves our purposes well. We use it for relatively short trips (less than 100-mile radius) and charge it on a regular outlet in our garage. Overall, we’ve experienced minimal maintenance costs. Most years, we’ve paid little or nothing for the annual “service,” during which the dealer does the annual VA inspection and updates software as needed. We have about 52,000 miles on the vehicle, and are still using the original tires. It’s saved us quite a bit in financial costs thanks to very minimal maintenance and zero gasoline expenses. And it’s reduced our “carbon footprint.” We received the federal tax credit for the purchase.

The post ‘We never pay for gas or have to deal with expensive maintenance’ appeared first on Cardinal News.

Here’s a roundup of news briefs from around Southwest and Southside. Send yours for possible inclusion to news@cardinalnews.org.

* * *

New Music + Technology Festival bringing programming to Taubman Museum of Art

Virginia Tech’s annual New Music + Technology Festival is growing its map.

The event’s longtime presenters, the School of Performing Arts and the Institute for Creativity, Arts and Technology, are teaming up this year with the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke for the festival, which runs Wednesday through Saturday.

The Cube, at Moss Arts Center, will host the shows between Wednesday and Friday. Acts on the schedule there include “new renaissance” artist The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker — debuting her bass saxophone- and electronics-centric “Hologram” — along with the university’s Linux Laptop Orchestra and multiple faculty members. 

The festival closes Saturday in Roanoke, with new pieces from the October Sky Ensemble, a group of faculty members performing on tenor vocal, violin, cello and percussion.

It’s the eighth time around for the New Music + Technology Festival, and as usual, it’s free. You’ll still need tickets for the Cube concerts, along with a parking pass, but not for the Taubman show.

See the full list of performers and get more information at sopa.vt.edu/events/performances/2025/04/sopa-newmusictechfestivalspring2025.html.

— Tad Dickens

* * *

UVA Wise to host Southwest Virginia Economic Forum

Registration is open for the 10th annual Southwest Virginia Economic Forum, scheduled for May 22 at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise David J. Prior Convocation Center.

This year’s theme, “Meeting the Moment, Shaping the Future,” will celebrate the region’s achievements while focusing on efforts that will create future opportunities.

Attendees can participate either in person or virtually.

The agenda features talks by Christine Chmura, chief executive officer and chief economist of Chmura Economics & Analytics, and Hamilton Lombard, estimates program manager for the Demographics Research Group at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, as well as a panel discussion with leaders from various state agencies.

Breakout sessions will address topics such as downtown revitalization, community resilience, tourism, energy and agriculture. The Virginia Rural Center will debut its Rural Virginia Opportunity Dashboard, a digital tool that offers reports and trend data, plus information on funding opportunities.

The forum will run from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will be followed by a free regional housing symposium from 3 to 5 p.m.

Early bird registration, which runs through Friday, is $20 to attend virtually or $40 in person. After Friday, the price increases by $5.

More details and registration information are online at the forum website.

* * *

Blacksburg nonprofit hopes to provide prosthetics for amputees in Ukraine

A Blacksburg nonprofit plans to travel in May to Ukraine to provide prosthetic legs to people who are now amputees because of the war.

Hope to Walk is seeking to raise $15,000 for its mission. BUZZ Live!, which features Southwest Virginia nonprofits and musicians in a talk-show format, will host a one-hour show at 7 p.m. Thursday at Church on Main in downtown Blacksburg. The show is free and will also be live-streamed to the Facebook and YouTube channels of both @buzz4good and @hopetowalk, according to a new release from BUZZ.

Founded in 2014 by certified orthotist and prosthetist Phil Johnson, Hope To Walk offers prosthetic legs to people in need. Each leg is donated and fitted free to an amputee.

Johnson and assistant Max Faublas are scheduled to travel to Ukraine in May, when they plan to outfit at least 20 amputees with prosthetics.

Donations to cover trip expenses and 20 prosthetic legs can be made at http://hopetowalk.org/donate/.

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Virginia Humanities announces grants, sponsorships

Virginia Humanities has announced $211,897 in grants and sponsorships to 19 nonprofit organizations across the state. 

The following grants and sponsorships were awarded during the first quarter of 2025, according to a news release from Virginia Humanities:

Grants:

• Heritage Day Festival: Interpretation and Tradition: Montgomery Museum of Art and History, Christiansburg: $4,991 to support a series of lectures and events by Appalachian musicians and luthiers. 
• Montañitas Re-Imagined Website and Archive: Lua Project, Charlottesville: $5,000 to support the final stage of an oral history project collecting stories of Latino/a participants who have settled in the Shenandoah Valley. 
• Monacan Indian Nation Powwow: Monacan Nation Cultural Foundation, Madison Heights: $5,000 to support expanded programming at the 32nd Annual Powwow.  
• Maciilan Paih (Remember Who Was Once There): Patawomeck Indian Tribe of Virginia, Fredericksburg: $4,890 to support the construction and implementation of four markers commemorating the Patawomeck Tribe. 
• The History From the Old Brick Church Self-Guided Tour: St. Luke’s Historic Church and Museum, Smithfield: $1,721 to support the second phase of a self-guided tour that will expand its content to include Indigenous, African and European histories related to 17th-century Virginia. 
• Virginia Soundscapes: Staunton Music Festival, Staunton: $4,000 to support a series of public events that will bring together eight living Virginia composers in conversation to increase public awareness of the creative work being done in Virginia today. 
• Utilizing Humanities Scholars in the Exhibit Development of an American Journey: American Frontier Culture Foundation, Staunton: $10,000 to support a new exhibit, “American Journeys,” that will explore the lived experiences, cultural contributions and interwoven histories of Indigenous, European and African American people. 
• Displaced from the Birthplace of America: College of William & Mary, Williamsburg: $20,000 to support a documentary film, “Displaced from the Birthplace of America,” which will examine the displacement of Black communities during the creation of commemorative landscapes at Colonial Williamsburg.  
• The John Mitchell Jr. Project: Firehouse Theatre Project Inc., Richmond: $20,000 to support a new play that will share the story and legacy of John Mitchell Jr. and the Richmond Planet newspaper. 
• Living Legacies: African American History in the Fredericksburg Area: Fredericksburg Area Museum and Cultural Center, Fredericksburg: $20,000 to support a new exhibition, “Living Legacies: African American History in the Fredericksburg Area,” highlighting the role African Americans have played in shaping the nation. 
• Hampton Storytelling Year-Round Program: Hampton Storytelling, Hampton: $20,000 to support storytelling programs including Storytelling Series, Story Swaps, Storytelling Academies and the third annual Everybody’s Got a Story festival. 
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Black Workers in Augusta County and Staunton, 1840-1940, Mary Baldwin College for Women, Staunton: $18,868 to support a new exhibition, “Hidden in Plain Sight: Black Workers in Staunton/Augusta County, VA, 1840-1940,” which will expand previous work to additional local Black neighborhoods. 
• Laying the Leavy and Keeping the Poor: Lynnhaven and Elizabeth City Parish Records, 1723-1831: The Episcopal Project, Richmond: $10,196 to support the digitization of the earliest extant Vestry Books of two parishes in Virginia’s Tidewater: Lynnhaven Parish and Elizabeth City Parish. 
• Local Middlesex County History Curriculum Development of Educational Materials and Display: The Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society, Saluda: $13,231 to support the development of a curriculum of educational materials focused on Middlesex County history that meet Virginia State SOL guidelines.  
• Youth Education, Events and Fellowship Program: The Muse Writers Center, Norfolk: $20,000 to support an expansion of the organization’s annual youth education programs, young writer events and fellowship program. 
• Youth Literary Arts Programming: The Podium Foundation, Richmond: $10,000 to support an expansion of the organization’s weekly youth literary arts programming, including the Teen Scene, Power of the Pen, Prep Your Next Step and Teen Professional Conference. 
• Virginia Children’s Book Festival: Promoting Literacy and Storytelling Across Virginia: Virginia Children’s Book Festival, Keysville: $20,000 to support the Virginia Children’s Book Festival, a three-day celebration of books, storytelling and literacy.  

Sponsorships:  

• Salve Virgen del Socavon: Fundacion Socio Cultural Diablada Boliviana, Fairfax: $2,000 to support a free event showcasing Bolivian culture through dance performances. 
• Virginia Silk Road Fair: Ana Care and Education Uyghur Programs, Chantilly: $2,000 to support a free Turkic Festival to celebrate and unite Uyghur, Uzbek and other Turkic cultures.

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Here are some of the top headlines from other news outlets around Virginia. Some content may be behind a metered paywall:

Economy:

FAA updates hiring process to fill nationwide air controller shortage, including in Virginia. — Virginia Mercury.

Layoffs to begin at Danville’s Goodyear plant. — Danville Register & Bee (paywall).

Bristol joins regional effort to fund new airline with $75,000 pledge. — WCYB-TV.

Culture:

Finding family roots in Fincastle Library’s genealogy room. — The Roanoke Times (paywall).

Sports:

Bedford, Lynchburg working to host more major pro disc golf events. — Lynchburg News & Advance (paywall).

Education:

Classrooms temporarily relocated after unusual odor detected at Covington Middle School. — WSLS-TV.

Weather:

For more weather news, follow weather journalist Kevin Myatt on Twitter / X at @kevinmyattwx and sign up for his free weather email newsletter. His weekly column appears in Cardinal News each Wednesday afternoon.

The post Headlines from across the state: FAA updates hiring process to fill nationwide air controller shortage, including in Virginia; more … appeared first on Cardinal News.

Emily Scott describes her first delivery as nothing short of traumatic. As her daughter struggled to be born, she tilted in the birth canal, her path blocked by Scott’s pelvic bone with each contraction. After nearly 40 hours of labor, doctors performed an emergency cesarean section.  

That was in 2016. Then, in 2019, Scott prepared to welcome her second daughter into the world. She wanted a vaginal birth, despite the complications that can arise following a C-section. This time, she relied on nurse midwives instead of doctors to help her through the delivery at Centra Virginia Baptist Hospital in Lynchburg.

“[The midwives] took such great care of me from the very first appointment up until after she was born. The difference between the births was night and day,” Scott said.

The debate over whether nurse midwives should practice independently without doctors’ oversight has been a contentious one in the past, balancing safety concerns, access to care and professional autonomy. 

Hospital boards, often led by doctors, usually advocate for maintaining some level of oversight, while midwives push for full practice authority, stating that their training prepares them for most outcomes. In the case of complex pregnancies, the mother is referred to a physician early on.

Certified nurse midwives are registered nurses who have a master’s degree, specializing in women’s health and childbirth. They typically practice in hospital settings. Some rural hospitals are turning to midwives to help tackle challenges in labor and delivery rooms. 

However, restrictive hospital bylaws and Virginia state code prevent midwives from working independently, said Katie Page, a nurse midwife at Centra Farmville and legislative representative for the Virginia Affiliate of the American College of Nurse-Midwives.

The need to diversify the labor and delivery workforce most recently came to light in late 2024 as a Southside Virginia hospital paused its delivery unit for a weekend. A state law requiring hospitals to have an on-call pediatrician within 30 minutes of the facility contributed to the shutdown.

A bill introduced during the 2025 General Assembly session aims to address state laws that prevent nurse midwives from practicing to the full scope of their training. HB 1904, introduced by Del. Rodney Willett, D-Henrico County, and signed into law by the governor this month, allows nurse midwives to fulfill the 24-hour duty roster requirements for nursery care if a doctor is unavailable.

It’s now up to hospital boards to implement a system that allows midwives to practice more independently — a process that could take time. Social and political factors often influence these decisions, and hospital boards have the authority to impose stricter rules that may limit midwives from practicing to the full extent of their training. 

An unexpected closure

When Sovah Health Danville’s labor and delivery unit unexpectedly closed down one weekend in November, Elissa Orr grew concerned. She works as a certified professional midwife, helping women who opt for home births or free-standing birth centers over a traditional hospital setting. One of her clients was within her due date window, and the Danville hospital, five minutes away, was designated as the emergency backup. Home births are safer when there’s a hospital nearby in case there are problems during the delivery, but it’s not required by law.  

Orr stayed up late the night she heard about the temporary closure, calling hospitals in North Carolina to see if they’d be willing to take a patient with Virginia Medicaid in case of an emergency.

The temporary pause of labor and delivery services at Sovah Danville occurred when the doctor scheduled to work had a medical emergency that required surgery. The hospital’s two other providers were out of town, causing the hospital to temporarily turn away women in labor, said Steve Heatherly, market president at Sovah Health. 

This was the only pause in delivery services Sovah Health Danville enacted in 2024, according to Heatherly. 

As more rural labor and delivery units close permanently, more patients rely on the dwindling number of health systems that still provide these services. Only eight of the state’s 28 hospitals offer care for laboring mothers. 

That doesn’t mean births stop completely at rural hospitals. Instead, more births are occurring in emergency departments at Virginia facilities that don’t have obstetric specialists, said providers at Roanoke-based Carilion Clinic.   

[Disclosure: Carilion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]

A new state law will open possibility for midwives, but real change could take time

OB-GYN Associates of Danville, a private medical practice unaffiliated with Sovah, announced on its social media that it had offered midwife coverage for the hospital during the temporary suspension in its labor and delivery unit, but the health system declined the proposal, according to the post.

Even if Sovah Health had accepted, it wouldn’t have been able to legally deliver babies without a pediatric physician within 30 minutes of the hospital. This is due to a state law that requires a specialized doctor to be nearby at all times in order to keep a delivery room and a general nursery open. 

According to the Virginia State Code, the law dates back to at least 1993. While online records prior to 1995 are unavailable, documents on the state code website indicate that the law was amended in 1995. 

Sovah Danville employs two full-time pediatricians and four additional traveling pediatricians to perform newborn care, Healtherly said.

Rural hospitals often rely heavily on traveling providers, health care professionals who work temporarily in a health system to fill gaps in staffing. Staffing shortages are persistent. Many health care workers choose higher-paying and better-resourced jobs in urban areas. 

Hospitals that struggle to maintain pediatric coverage may be forced to temporarily close their services if there’s an unexpected gap in staffing.

The legislation introduced by Willett removed this state law, allowing nurse midwives to deliver healthy newborn babies from uncomplicated pregnancies. HB 1904 allows nurse midwives on the 24-hour duty roster for nursery care if a doctor is unavailable and permits the use of telehealth for physician consultations.

The bill moved through the General Assembly with little opposition and was recently signed into law by the governor. It goes into effect July 1, 2025.

But it could take time to amp up the use of midwives, Page said. 

Hospitals are free to enforce stricter policies than state law requires. Many health systems and regulatory boards, and the general public, favor physicians over mid-level providers such as nurse practitioners or nurse midwives, according to Kathryn Haines, health equity manager at the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy.

Haines added that both the public and health care leaders have been trained or socialized to believe physicians are the best options for quality care.

“There is a growing body of research that shows that integrating midwives into the system of maternal health care leads to better outcomes such as lower rates of maternal mortality, lower rates of preterm birth, and lower cesarean rates,” Haines said over email. “The bills that passed this General Assembly that will increase the integration of midwifery care will absolutely improve access to midwives if implemented with fidelity and the result will be better outcomes for moms and babies.”

Births in rural areas are still happening, just outside of specialized delivery units

The loss of labor and delivery rooms doesn’t halt births; instead, more deliveries occur in hospitals that lack obstetric specialists. A 2018 study in JAMA Network found that rural counties that lost hospital-based obstetric services experienced higher rates of preterm births and deliveries in facilities without dedicated specialists.

Women in rural areas are more likely to experience delays in prenatal care and have more pregnancy-related hospitalizations. The decrease in care paired with the increase in stress due to distance from an obstetrics unit can result in preterm birth, according to the JAMA Network study.

The number of preterm births in Virginia has fluctuated in recent years but has largely increased since 2018, according to 2024 data from March of Dimes. 

Five labor and delivery units closed in Virginia from 2018 to 2024 due to the financial strain of maintaining these services and a decreasing number of births in rural areas. In 2023, 9.8% of live births were preterm, up from 9.4% in 2018. 

Access to prenatal care has declined in Virginia. Over a three-year period, 2021 to 2024, inadequate access to prenatal care increased by 16%, according to data from March of Dimes. 

Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital has absorbed an increasing number of births from neighboring communities as rural delivery rooms have closed their doors. The influx has occasionally overwhelmed its capacity. 

There were two months in the latter half of 2024 when the hospital’s labor and delivery unit reached full capacity more frequently than ever before, resulting in temporary halts to incoming transfers, according to Dr. Jaclyn Nunziato, an OB/GYN at Carilion Clinic. 

Roanoke Memorial has 14 beds for delivery and 10 beds reserved to treat pregnant women with high-risk pregnancies. Capacity depends on a number of factors, including staffing and the severity of the patient’s health, said Hannah Curtis, a spokesperson for Carilion. 

When this happens, mothers often have to consider hospitals in North Carolina. For those covered by Virginia Medicaid, it can be difficult to find hospitals in another state willing to accept out-of-state public insurance. Or, mothers give birth in Virginia hospitals that don’t have obstetrics services.

To support its rural satellite facilities, Carilion initiated delivery training programs about 10 years ago, designed to equip emergency room doctors with the skills to manage childbirth and common complications. These training sessions are conducted upon request from the satellite hospitals and have gained urgency as more labor and delivery units have shuttered across Southwest and Southside Virginia.

Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital and Carilion New River Valley Medical Center are the only two of Carilion’s seven Virginia hospitals with dedicated labor and delivery units, making them the primary facilities for maternity care.

Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital, in particular, has amped up its training efforts in response to the rising number of on-site births. The Rocky Mount facility stopped offering labor and delivery in 2011.

Like many other maternity units, the service ended when births declined in the area and it was no longer reasonable to maintain the 24-hour staff needed for obstetrics services. 

The hospital averages about three unexpected deliveries per year, said Stephanie Hodges, the nursing director for the emergency department. 

“It’s something that will just continue to rise,” Hodges said.

Hodges initiates these training sessions on an annual basis, inviting everyone from the hospital to attend. With just three deliveries a year, emergency room workers are unlikely to be proficient in assisting labor without training. 

Hodges said if you don’t encounter a type of medical situation, like assisting labor, on a regular basis, it’s not going to be something you feel is your strong suit. “The more training we can get to the staff, the more comfortable they’ll feel taking care of those patients.” 

Other rural hospitals have created systems that integrate more nurse midwives into their obstetric care teams in order to keep services operational.

Centra Southside Community Hospital relies on certified nurse midwives to take on the bulk of women’s health and obstetrics care, Page said. Physicians from urban areas rotate through the hospital to offer necessary supervision and meet the state requirement. 

Typically, babies born at rural delivery units are healthy

The babies born at rural hospitals with delivery rooms — meaning the hospital has specialists, designated spaces and equipment needed for birthing women — are typically healthy, uncomplicated births, Page said. 

That’s because women who have access to prenatal care from specialists are more likely to have potential complications detected early. When risks arise, they can be referred to facilities equipped to provide a higher level of care before labor begins.  

Nurse midwives are trained to handle typical, uncomplicated births, Page said, and are well suited to fill in gaps in rural hospitals that face persistent challenges in hiring doctors. A study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology found that greater use of midwives could ease the national obstetrician shortage. Currently, the U.S. needs about 8,000 more obstetricians to meet demand, a gap that could grow to 22,000 by 2050.

Hospital bylaws could present a barrier to expanding midwifery care. While nurse midwives in rural Virginia can open private practices for women’s health appointments and prenatal care, hospital policies may restrict their ability to attend in-hospital deliveries. To fully integrate midwives into the maternity care system, hospitals may need to revise their policies to allow midwives to serve as primary providers for low-risk pregnancies. 

Nurse midwives are trained to deliver newborns under normal circumstances and consult with a doctor or refer out for complex pregnancies and births. 

“Our scope of practice is normal newborns,” Page emphasized.

There are other types of midwives who are licensed to practice in Virginia but offer services in different settings.

Orr, for example, is a certified professional midwife, an independent practitioner trained and licensed to support in home births or in birth center settings. 

Professional midwives meet certification requirements of the North American Registry of Midwives, which is accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies, but they aren’t typically found in hospital settings and would not be covered by the newly signed law.

Midwife experience made a night and day difference

After losing multiple pregnancies following the birth of her first child, Emily Scott sought support in a group for women who had experienced similar losses. That’s where she first heard about midwives. 

At the time, she assumed midwives primarily assisted with home births — an option she never considered because she didn’t like the idea of giving birth at home. But as her pregnancy with her second daughter progressed, curiosity led her to schedule an appointment. After that, she never went back to an obstetrician. 

Determined to have a vaginal birth after her emergency C-section, Scott knew the risks but felt strongly about her decision. Her midwives understood its importance to her and supported her throughout the process. 

Again, Scott needed to be induced, but she dreaded the use of Pitocin, a drug that brings on labor, but one that had made labor especially difficult for her. This time, she told her midwives she wanted to explore every alternative.  

“One thing they did was, every step of the way they would ask me before they would even do anything. I felt like with the first time around the doctor would just tell me what they were going to do to me,” Scott said. 

The midwives tried more natural methods to induce labor — and it worked. 

Over the phone, Scott’s voice quavered as she remembered the midwives moving quickly around the room in the final moments before her daughter, Laurel, was born.

“I got to pull her out,” Scott said. “It was beautiful.”

Emily Schabacker reported this story while participating in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2024 National Fellowship and its Fund for Reporting on Child and Family Well-Being.

______________

Correction 9:42 a.m. March 31: Carilion New River Valley Medical Center has a dedicated labor and delivery unit. An earlier version of this story incorrectly omitted it from a description of Carilion’s services.

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