Virginia's Arlington County is suing the Trump administration to stop President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot triumphal arch. According to the county’s lawsuit, the structure wouldn’t just be a monument.
“Using the Arch to store large stockpiles of ammunition and as a staging point for drones and snipers, so close to commuters and tourists, will dramatically worsen these public-safety harms and the risk of accidents,” county attorneys wrote in the complaint filed on Thursday, according to the Hill's reporting.
The arch would stand at Memorial Circle, between Arlington Memorial Bridge and Arlington National Cemetery. That’s more than twice the height of the Lincoln Memorial, according to a Thursday press release from Democracy Forward, which is representing the county along with the county attorney’s office.
The suit says the National Park Service skipped the “hard look” at environmental impacts that federal law requires. It asks a court to halt “the agency’s feverish pace toward construction,” The New York Times reported. The Park Service has already acknowledged that the arch would “adversely affect” the view between the cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial, including from John F. Kennedy’s grave, according to the Times.
“Enough is enough,” Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said in the press release.
“At a time when millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet, we don’t need vanity projects,” added Democracy Forward CEO Skye Perryman.
The National Capital Planning Commission is set to take a final vote Nov. 5, two days after the midterms, the Times reported.