The government wants, and says it will take, Cory Garrett’s farmland. Garrett’s response to the government’s eminent domain grab of ground worked by his family over five generations? No. Period.
High-value, high-yielding, and postcard picturesque, Garrett’s acres rub against a bend of the Rappahannock River in northeast Virginia, the precise spot chosen by county government officials to build a 14-million-gallon per day water intake plant and adjoining pipeline.
Beyond seizing Garrett’s acreage and offering a cellar-dweller sum for his riverfront property, the county claims the water plant will have zero effect on his farm operation.
“False. Absolutely untrue,” Garrett exclaims. “They comprehend absolutely nothing about farming, but pretend to know all. And per day, guess where up to 4.63 million gallons of this project will go? To cool industrial and commercial facilities.”
“This is a steamroll job by county officials. You don’t have to rely on my words to figure that out,” he adds. “Look at the facts and the county’s actions and draw your own conclusions. The whole thing stinks and they know it.”
Surrender
At 15, Garrett made his first mark in agriculture with a hay-and-straw business. Now 40, he is the last farmer standing from a family line stretching back five generations. In the Tidewater Trail area of Caroline County, he grows corn, soybeans, and wheat, alongside his wife, Rebekah, and the couple’s two daughters.
Part of his grain operation sits along the banks of the Rappahannock River on 143 acres originally sharecropped by Garrett’s grandfather. The flat field is pivot irrigated and consistently produces among the highest yields across Garrett’s overall ground.
He bought the 143 acres in 2020. “We sacrificed to come up with the money to make the purchase,” he says. “That’s literally the spot where I worked ground on a tractor by myself for the first time at 12.”
In 2022, he signed off on a conservation easement (a process already in motion before he bought the land) with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF), ensuring the property could never be subdivided or broken.
However, with one clink of the mailbox, Garrett’s assumptions were rocked. “We got a letter from the county basically saying our farmland was going to be the spot for a new $200-million water intake facility, chosen from three or four potential sites.”
“No discussion. No face-to-face explanations. Just a notice that I was supposed to get ready to surrender the land.”
Take It Or Leave It
How do Caroline County officials intend to use Garrett’s riverfront acreage?
Located between Fredericksburg and Richmond, Caroline County (roughly an hour and a half south of Washington, D.C.) forecasts a water crisis due to population growth and associated sprawl. The county contends a riverside water intake plant on Garrett’s farmland is the remedy to the crisis. Once built, the plant will suck 14 million gallons per day out of the Rappahannock River and transport it underground via a 30”-diameter line. The pipeline will cross three farms worked by Garrett and stretch 35 miles down Route 17 and along the 301/207 corridor where the water will be treated and then used for residential, commercial, and industrial purposes—and then treated again, and finally dumped into the Mattaponi River.
“They want to take water out of the river and move it to another watershed,” Garrett notes. “They want to harvest a natural resource from one area and pipe it away to make that distant land worth more, and in doing so decrease the value of my land. It’s wrong. They shouldn’t be allowed to do this.”
And the key to entire project? Garrett’s 143-acre field—specifically the 11 riverfront acres. Caroline County contains 343,680 acres of land (537 square miles), but the county board of supervisors pinpoints Garrett’s 11 acres as the prime solution to pending water issues.
In May 2024, the county made Garrett an offer (by letter) for his 11 acres of Rappahannock farmland—roughly $7,000 per acre. He was given a week to decide: Take it or leave it.
“No way,” he says. “I don’t want to sell, period, but that’s a laughable sum around here for a big prime spot on the river. All this time, the county keeps telling the public that the intake facility won’t affect my farm in any way, but that is completely false.”
“My pivot won’t even be able to make a full turn. I won’t even be able to operate the pivot because it’ll cross the county’s right-of-way.”
On June 18, 2024, in conjunction with a scheduled public hearing, the board of supervisors announced the authorized “acquisition” of Garrett’s farmland and claimed to have made “every reasonable effort to acquire the Property by negotiation.”
(The Caroline County board of supervisors did not respond to interview requests from Farm Journal.)
At the public meeting, Garrett’s supporters packed the room. “We had 26 people stand up and speak out in opposition to the board. There was nobody from the community there in support of the board. And guess what? It was all theater to the board because they voted unanimously, 6-0 to take my land, and they insisted there would be no negative impacts to my operation.”
According to both WRIC and Garrett, during the meeting a board member stated: “The rest of the farm’s gonna be there for him [Garrett] to do.”
The comment, Garrett contends, reflects the board’s attitude. “They found a farmer who they believe already has enough acres and therefore he can sacrifice for others, no matter the will of the people or what is right.”
From The Get-Go
Considering Garrett’s riverside acreage is locked in a conservation trust with VOF, a state agency “established to promote the preservation of open-space lands,” how can the county flip the ground to industrial use?
By atonement. To justify turning Garrett’s farmland into concrete, the board could restore/protect another small block of acreage somewhere else in the county—the conversion process.
VOF notified board officials that the county could not condemn Garrett’s land without first going through conversion. “The county did not go through this process and went ahead and condemned our land anyway,” Garrett says.
“The board isn’t concerned about VOF approval,” he adds. “When VOF first sent the board a letter about going through conversion or diversion, the board filed paperwork to take my land anyway, without ever even responding to VOF. One thing for certain: The board has never been two-faced. Right from the get-go, they declared they’re taking my land and they’ve stuck with that no matter what facts, codes, or regulations are in the way.”
“The board’s own paperwork states the water intake plant will have no negative impact on the VOF easement,” Garrett continues. “That’s ludicrous, just like this entire scenario.”
“Worth More To Them”
Garrett has drawn a line in the sand. He will not sign away his land.
County officials, he insists, have never reached out beyond letter or telephone. “I’ve had one face-to-face meeting with a board representative, and that was 100 percent at my request. The county only informs the public as required by the permitting process, otherwise we’d be in complete darkness. Imagine, just for example, if they weren’t required by law to have public meetings. The result? There would be no meetings.”
Of a 13.9-million-gallon daily draw, Caroline County says 44% of water would be used in residences, 23% in commercial buildings, and 33% in industrial buildings. The county’s presentation of the water intake plant as primarily a drinking-water issue is a false flag, Garrett believes.
“Up to 4.63 million gallons a day may be used for industrial cooling. Take into account data centers and commercial interests, and tell me, with a straight face, that big money interests are not involved. The county is tied into data, land values, and building projects—and everyone knows it.’
“For my lifetime, I’ve paid property, business, and personal taxes, and then six people on a board want to take my land at will, and use my own money to fight me? There are other solutions out there, but once bureaucrats get going, they never admit a wrong. It’s more convenient for them to roll over one family, all while they smile and tell the public this won’t affect our farm in any way. That is 100 percent false, but it sure helps promote their agenda.”
Eminent domain, he adds, should manifest only when no other options are available. “All it takes to lose your farmland, no matter the size, is for someone in government to come along and think your acres are worth more to them than you.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
Cottonmouth Farmer: The Insane Tale of a Buck-Wild Scheme to Corner the Snake Venom Market
Bagging the Tomato King: The Insane Hunt for Agriculture’s Wildest Con Man
Ghost in the House: A Forgotten American Farming Tragedy
Priceless Pistol Found After Decades Lost in Farmhouse Attic
Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved After 40 Years
American Gothic: Farm Couple Nailed In Massive $9M Crop Insurance Fraud
Evil Grain: The Wild Tale of History’s Biggest Crop Insurance Scam
Fleecing the Farm: How a Fake Crop Fueled a Bizarre $25 Million Ag Scam
The Arrowhead Whisperer: Stunning Indian Artifact Collection Found on Farmland
Skeleton In the Walls: Mysterious Arkansas Farmhouse Hides Civil War History
