LEADING PRESERVATION ORGANIZATIONS FILE AMICUS BRIEF IN OPPOSITION TO MASSIVE WATER EXTRACTION AND BOTTLING FACILITY

Middleway's main street where major truck traffic would happen if the facility was permitted.

On June 1, 2026, leading historic preservation groups filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the Jefferson County Planning Commission. The commission has been sued by Sidewinder Enterprises – a California-based developer – for denying a concept plan to stop construction and operation of a massive water bottling and processing facility adjacent to the Middleway Historic District. According to the brief, “the Planning Commission’s denial was correctly upheld by the Circuit Court, which affirmed the Planning Commission’s finding that the Concept plan would “destroy the historic character” of the Middleway Historic District,” citing Section 4.4(C) of the Jefferson County Zoning Ordinance prohibiting “any development which would destroy the historical character of a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places.”

The friend-of-the-court brief was filed in early June in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia. The filing argues the Jefferson County Circuit Court correctly affirmed the Planning Commission’s denial of the Concept Plan in their April 2025 ruling, in addition to supporting the Jefferson County Planning Commission, the Jefferson County Foundation, and 11 other intervenors petitioned in Sidewinder’s appeal. This decision references the Planning Commission’s March 2025 denial of Sidewinder’s concept plan for a one-million-square-foot water extraction and bottling facility after overwhelming public opposition.

Both organizations jointly stated in the brief: “The Circuit Court properly affirmed the Planning Commission’s clear and factual findings concerning the destruction of historic character the Concept Plan would inflict upon the Middleway Historic District. The Circuit Court specifically noted that the Concept Plan’s proposed pipeline would cause unacceptable “destruction” and “poses significant structural risks to historic properties” and “foreseeable and irreparable harm to the integrity of the buildings listed on the historical registry that would be caused by the heavy tractor-trailer traffic from the water bottling facility.” 

The Middleway Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, “and has approximately sixty historical structures from the 1700s and 1800s that have been carefully preserved. Many of the historical structures are built from logs with stack stone foundations. Middleway’s historic district includes a Civil War Hospital, battlefield, and Civil War era graves (both marked and unmarked).” The National Register Inventory form for the Middleway Historic District further captures its unique character: “As a town with a considerable concentration of log buildings, in particular, and simple vernacular architecture from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in general, Middleway has a quality unlike that of other communities in Jefferson County and relates only marginally to other towns in the region or state as a whole. This quality is inherent in building relationships and materials; the integrity of place and time is well established and retained.”

Many of the properties in the Middleway Historic District are privately-owned residences or historic sites maintained by the Middleway Conservancy – a local nonprofit dedicated to preserving and promoting local history. As an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Middleway falls under the jurisdiction of Jefferson County’s Planning Commission and the Jefferson County Historic Landmarks Commission, which are granted statutory authority under WV State Code and the Jefferson County Zoning Ordinance to designate and regulate historic districts and the uses of lands and the design of buildings within or affecting the districts. 

Sidewinder Enterprises’ arguments laid out in their appeal would upend historic preservation and land use law in West Virginia. “The disastrous ramifications of these specious arguments are one of the key motivations for our organizations’ participation in this case,” stated the Christopher Cody, attorney with the National Trust for Historic Preservation – the nation’s leading historic preservation nonprofit - which participates in historic preservation planning initiatives and litigation across the country, including a lawsuit filed earlier this year to protect Manassas Battlefield from the largest data center development in the world. This is only the third time the Trust has taken legal action in West Virginia and the first at the State’s Supreme Court of Appeals. Alongside the National Trust, the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia – the state’s grassroots nonprofit dedicated to historic preservation - filed this brief - the first of its kind for the organization - because if Sidewinder’s appeal is accepted by the Court, it would end the ability of local governments to engage in land use planning. This is contrary to the purposes of the Planning Commission and ordinary standards for land-use law.

“Planning Commissions play a critical role in the protection of West Virginia’s historic resources, and if Sidewinder’s arguments concerning the evidentiary standards required for planning commission denials are accepted, planning commissions would no longer be able to deny applications that will obviously destroy historic resources, like the Concept Plan. This would be a crippling outcome for historic preservation in West Virginia. West Virginia communities must be allowed to engage in reasonable land use planning to protect their history and heritage,” the organizations jointly stated in the brief.

Sidewinder Enterprises’ filed their final response in June, and the Court’s ruling is expected later this year.