A 23-year-old woman reported to Richmond police that she was raped this morning on Belle Isle, near the former power plant on the north side of the island. [via]

The RTD is reporting 13 protestors were arrested outside of Dominion Virginia Power’s offices on Tredegar Street at around 7AM this morning. According to the RTD, “four people interlocked their arms and buried their hands in a 55-gallon drum of hardened cement and were sitting on the footbridge from Tredgar to Belle Isle. [...] A fifth person was suspended from a rope attached to that drum of cement, and he was hanging off the bridge.” They were protesting Dominion Virginia Power’s plans to build a new coal-fueled power plant in Wise County.

Michael Paul Williams offers up Belle Isle as an example of “how we might use our most precious asset to bridge the gap between Richmond’s promise and reality”. He argues that development along the river needs to be for everyone (to “eat, drink, and play”), and not a walled-off private compound.

The Belle of the James River Parks, a history of Belle Isle by John Johnson, first appeared in the Church Hill Association’s May 2008 newsletter.

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