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WARDENSVILLE - Citizen and environmental groups have filed a federal injunction to halt construction on a new section of Corridor H, just weeks after the state awarded a contract to build it.
The Stewards of the Potomac Highlands and the Virginia Wilderness Committee filed the motion for a preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of West Virginia.
The move follows the West Virginia Division of Highways awarding an $85.4 million contract in July to begin work on the new section.
The lawsuit alleges that the Federal Highway Administration failed to "evaluate the less destructive and vastly less expensive alternative of making spot improvements to existing roads."
The filing claims federal authorities did not consider an improvement plan for the existing two-lane Routes 48/55 rather than building a new four-lane highway. The document stresses that the state of Virginia has refused to extend Corridor H on its side of the border.
The motion states that, since officials had said construction of the new section may begin this month, the "resources and interests the plaintiffs are seeking to protect through enforcement of federal environmental laws are threatened with imminent irreparable injury, and meaningful compliance with the law will be foreclosed if construction is allowed to proceed during the pendency of this case."
The document notes that the plaintiffs were filing the motion now in order to "provide for an orderly schedule for briefing this motion before construction begins," but that, if WVDOT "provides notice of its intent to proceed before this motion is resolved, plaintiffs intend to also file an application for a temporary restraining order to preserve the status quo while this motion is being considered."
In July, Triton Construction Inc. was awarded the $85,425,000 contract to construct the approximately 3.74-mile section to extend the highway from Wardensville to the Virginia state line. This was the first contract to be awarded by the state Division of Highways for the Wardensville section.
According to the Corridor H Authority, the current completion schedule for the highway includes the Wardensville-to-Virginia section to be open by the end of 2032, and the Parsons-to-Davis section to be complete by the end of 2034, almost 70 years after the Corridor H highway project began.