CHESAPEAKE A former construction manager say s Dominion Virginia Power directed the building of a golf course in southern Chesapeake with 1.5 million tons of fly ash to disguise the project's true purpose - as a coal waste dump.

CHESAPEAKE The city plans to begin construction this fall on a project to extend public water to residents around a golf course sculpted from 1.5 million tons of fly ash.

CHESAPEAKE Dominion Virginia Power is asking a Chesapeake judge to dismiss the $1 billion lawsuit brought by residents living near Battlefield Golf Club, a site built on fly ash.

CHESAPEAKE The city is questioning the thoroughness of a report from an Environmental Protection Agency contractor paid to study possible contamination from coal residue used to build a golf course.

CHESAPEAKE Dominion Virginia Power was warned as far back as 2001 that building a golf course with fly ash from its local coal-fired power plant might pose environmental risks. Consultants hired by the utility said so based on two studies containing more than 350 pages of data and research.

CHESAPEAKE Attorneys representing nearly 400 people, part of a "community trust" made up of residents who live near Battlefield Golf Club at Centerville, filed a lawsuit today in Chesapeake Circuit Court seeking damages in excess of $1 billion.

Attorneys representing nearly 400 people who live near the Battlefield Golf Club at Centerville say they will file a lawsuit Friday in Chesapeake Circuit Court seeking a jury trial and damages in excess of $1 billion.

The state has tapped 13 experts to weigh changes to regulations governing fly ash. More than half of them - at least seven members - have ties to industry or businesses that use "coal combustion byproducts," which include fly ash. While the list includes a couple of academics and a state mining official, only two on the study group call themselves environmental advocates.

CHESAPEAKE A local legislator has proposed a bill that would tighten the standards for fly-ash projects such as the Battlefield Golf Club at Centerville. "My bill is intended as an interim fix to prevent a repeat of the Battlefield Golf Club problem - in the interim - until the regulations are revised," said Del. Joe Bouchard, a newly elected Democrat from Virginia Beach.

CHESAPEAKE Dominion Virginia Power is nearing completion of the most intensive environmental study yet of Battlefield Golf Club at Centerville, which was contoured with more than a million tons of the company's fly ash. The utility expects to spend about $200,000 on the study, which began about a month ago. It includes 16 permanent groundwater monitoring wells and an array of soil samplings.