Your Piece of the Planet

…we should be interested in how the National Park Service plans the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, stretching from Hampton Roads to Great Falls (up the Potomac River) and to the northern tip of the Chesapeake Bay.

The alternatives for the trail’s first long-range management plan are now available for public review and comment.

Now would be a good time to suggest that, under any one of the four alternatives, the US Fish and Wildlife Service should open up Featherstone National Wildlife Refuge to public use.

The Federal agency says “Currently, the refuge is closed to the public because of poor access to the site due to the rail line, its proximity to the river, and lack of facilities.”

The rail line issue is bogus.  The Rippon VRE station has provided safe and convenient crossing of the railroad tracks for years.

Proximity to the river is a reason to OPEN the refuge.  Gee, visitors might even get a meaningful watershed educational experience.

As for lack of facilities… put in two porta-potties and declare success.  Visitor centers are nice, flush toilets are nice, indoor seats next to glass windows so visitors can stay warm while watching tweety birds at the feeders outside are nice – but access to the site is essential.

The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago, but the “Public Land – Keep Out” sign at Featherstone NWR remains.    (If Mikhail Gorbachev led the US Fish and Wildlife Service, maybe we could hope for the American public to get access to the refuge…)

Parkland for Plants, People and Wildlife

When: Thursday, Nov. 5 at 7:30 pm
Where: Bull Run Unitarian Church, Bull Run Unitarian Universalist Church, 9350 Main Street, Manassas

Speaker: Charles Smith, Fairfax County Park Authority Natural Resource Specialist & PW Wildflower Society

The Virginia Dept. of Conservation and Recreation has recognized the significance of the globally rare Upland Depression Swamp and Basic Oak-Hickory Forest at Silver Lake.

Given that this site is public land, protecting these resources would seem to be an easy task. But that’s not the case at Silver Lake, where globally rare natural areas were identified only after the fact  -  after the County accepted the property and, more importantly, after the County drew the borders of the middle school site in an area that includes both resources.

If these important resources had been identified in a timely manner, it would have been easy to locate the school site in an area that left globally rare natural areas on the parkland portion of Silver Lake, where they could have been protected.

The good news is that School Board members, working with the Park Authority, are making their best effort to protect these important natural areas. Although the outcome is still not certain, there are good opportunities for success. Read the rest of this entry »

The last public master planning meeting was held on October 27, 2009.  Many citizens came out to both the October 6 and October 27 meetings to share their views about recreation activities at Silver Lake, others posted comments online.

Now the Park Authority has a major challenge.  They need to consider what residents want and carefully plan future recreation uses accordingly while ensuring that the natural beauty and conservation qualities at this special site are protected.

Residents have expressed interest in a wide range of both passive and active recreation uses for Silver Lake Park. Trails for hiking and horseback riding are popular suggestions, including support for connecting these to other nearby parkland. Other people have called for more intensive uses, such as a 60-acre shooting range, indoor equestrian arena, dressage area, outside jumping area and equestrian camping. Read the rest of this entry »

The game continues. At the September 24 Gainesville town hall discussion of the proposed Comprehensive Plan transportation and land use chapters, a crowd appeared to advocate adding lights to Long Park.

Long ago, the Park Authority promised to build a swimming pool and equestrian facility at Long Park.  Today, those are broken promises.  Long Park is an active recreation site now, with heavily-used ballfields.  (The horse people have been promised that the county will build an equestrian center at Silver Lake.)

As the population of the Gainesville area has mushroomed, demand for recreation (passive and active) has increased.  Catharpin Park provides additional ballfields now.  The Park Authority installed lights there in 2009, after the Board of County Supervisors overruled a rejection by the Planning Commission.

Catharpin is located in the Rural Area, with 10-acre lots nearby.  Most people live in the Development Area.  Naturally, people want to recreate nearby, not drive extra distances on congested roads to a park in the Rural Area.

That’s why we need recreation facilities in the area zoned for development, near where people live.  We need parks within walking distance of houses.  So why are county officials pushing for a soccer complex on the Wiita tract (near Lake Manassas, and nowhere close to public transportation) and pushing for lights at Long Park?  What’s behind this new “develop new active-recreation parks away from  where people live” effort?
Read the rest of this entry »

The Prince William County Park Authority has decided where it will buy new land for parks. Parcels have been identified, appraisals ordered, and acquisition authorized by the Board at its July 22 meeting.

Right now, the county is far short of its goal of 15/acres of county-owned parkland per 1,000 residents.  When that standard was approved in the  2008 Parks, Open Space, and Trails chapter of the Comprehensive Plan, Prince William had only 70% of the required 5,718 acres.  By all projection, PW County population will grow, so the deficit (1,700 parkland acres) will get worse unless the county acquires new property.   The question is not whether to buy parkland (especially now, if you think the precipitous drop in land values has hit bottom), but where to buy.

Though the specific parcels to be purchased soon are still a secret, the Park Authority is getting ready to acquire new parkland.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Wiita tract Master Plan meeting this week revealed the fatal flaw in the planning process for parks in Prince William: the key decisions are made in secret.

The Prince William County Park Authority made clear at the Master Plan input session on Tuesday night for the Wiita parcel that they’re going to build soccer fields there.  The only choice in the Master Plan process was deciding how many fields to build; no alternatives were going to be considered now.

The Park Authority and the Virginia Soccer Association revealed that the Wiita tract had been planned for a soccer complex for years, perhaps even before the county negotiated in 2005 and accepted in early 2006 the proffer for the Wellington Glen development.  Though there’s no mention in the proffer about soccer fields, the county agency has claimed “This parcel has been proffered to the county for the primary purpose of developing a soccer complex.”

The revelation of the soccer complex plans stunned the adjacent property owners.  The Park Authority’s Strategic Plan, the Park Authority’s own Comprehensive Plan, and publicly-available site plans had provided no information about the Wiita tract.  There was no way for the neighbors to know what was coming.  All the planning was done by the county Park Authority behind closed doors.
Read the rest of this entry »

When planning to develop in natural areas, it always pays to look before you leap. Otherwise important resources could be accidentally lost.

With this in mind, the Prince William Wildflower Society (PWWS) offered their expertise to survey plants and plant communities at Silver Lake before work to develop the park begins. In early September PWWS member Charles Smith completed a preliminary assessment of the property and found two very special plant communities – an upland depression swamp and basic oak-hickory forest.

Following Mr. Smith’s discovery, a Virginia Dept. of Conservation and Recreation expert visited Silver Lake and verified the presence of these unique plant communities. According to their review, the depression swamp is considered globally imperiled (G2 ranking), and the one found at Silver Lake is a large, mature, high-quality occurrence. Read the rest of this entry »

The Grand Opening is October 4, but volunteers from Dominion Power, Prince William Trails and Streams, and other organizations – plus Park Authority staff – have been busy this summer.

Trails have been located and cleared, some archeological sites/wetlands/special environmental sites identified, old structures removed, new kiosks and fences built, and a massive amount of debris from the old private campground removed.  The newest county park in Prince William is going to be an attractive place for passive recreation.

If you want to participate in the Master Plan process for Silver Lake, first public meeting will be October 6.
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The schedule for public meetings is out, so now the public can participate in the official process for planning the future of the county’s parks.  The Prince William County Park Authority has an ambitious schedule to update its long-tern strategic and comprehensive plans, and also complete at least two site-specific plans for individual parks.

The park system’s Strategic Plan provides the “big picture” and guides the development of future recreation facilities and programs that will be offered during the 2011-2015 time period.

The Comprehensive Plan for the park system is a different document from the Comp Plan that the Board of Coounty Supervisors approves.  The Park Authority’s Comprehensive Plan is intended to portray how individual parks will be developed in the long run.  If you’re wondering what sort of ballfields, trails, or other development is planned for future development at a particular park, the park system’s Comprehensive Plan should be a useful reference.

Two individual park plans are likely to generate discussion this Fall, for the Wiita tract and Silver Lake.
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The National Park Service is inviting public comment on an environmental assessment regarding their proposal to repair 14 cabins at Prince William Forest Park.

It’s not a tough issue.   The cabins were built originally in the 1930’s.  The No Action alternative is to let the buildings continue to deteriorate over time.  The Preferred Alternative is to replace the roofs, rotted railings, broken windows, etc.

What’s nice to see is how the Federal agency invites public participation before taking action. Read the rest of this entry »