Letter to the Editor: Article misses details about Huntley Meadows amendments
Dear Editor:
It is unfortunate that Covering The Corridor did not consult with the Friends of Huntley Meadows Park on this article. This oversight happens to mirror the County’s 2014 Bicycle Master Plan process, where we were also not consulted. These Plan Amendments will correct the mistakes that were made by putting these two conceptual paved bike trails on the County’s Plans. It was a mistake to plan these trails in sensitive wetland areas without a thorough environmental review. It was also a mistake to exclude us and every other environmental organization from the Bicycle Master Plan stakeholder process.
There is now a multi-agency consensus (both County and State) that recommends the removal of these trails. Huntley Meadows Park is not the right place for cut-through transportation corridors; it is too environmentally valuable and sensitive for this. So long as these trails are on the County’s Plans, they pose a threat to the Park because they could get built if State or Federal funds were mobilized and environmental considerations overlooked. The time to remove these conceptual trails from County Plans is NOW.
Friends of Huntley Meadows Park has collected more than 6,500 petition signatures, emails and letters of support from individuals and organizations in support of these Plan Amendments. This includes strong support from State Delegates Krizek (44th District) and Sickles (43rd District).
Both the Fairfax County Planning Commission and the Lee District Land Use Committee have demonstrated their leadership in protecting rare and threatened species and habitats by unanimously voting in favor of removing these conceptual trails from the County’s Plans. Now the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors needs to show its leadership by voting for these Plan Amendments to provide Huntley Meadows Park and its exceptional natural resources with the protection they deserve.
Sincerely,
Cathy Ledec
President, Friends of Huntley Meadows Park
I don’t want to start some giant back and forth debate, but I thought the original article and other articles addressing this issue have been fair and neutrally worded, I don’t think there is anything “unfortunate” about the writer not contacting your organization, and even if this article did not mention your organization, it pointed out that there was debate on both sides.
This Huntley Meadows debate really comes down to whether access to the park should be limited to car owners, or whether the planned trails should be built so that visitors can come by foot or bike. As Senator Surovell wrote in a post on The Dixie Pig: “The communities along U.S. 1 have been ignored for too long and deserve the same access to natural resources the rest of Fairfax County’s residents currently enjoy… Just because these communities do not know how to engage in the Comprehensive Plan process or reach out to County staff does not mean their well-being should be steamrolled.”
Most “Friends” groups try to promote access to the park they are affiliated with. In Delaware, for example, the Friends of Cape Henlopen park — a state park which is a nature preserve with environmentally sensitive marshes — not only embraced bike trails, but they, the Friends, provide free loaner bikes that are maintained by volunteers. https://www.friendsofcapehenlopen.org/bike.html
By contrast, Friends of Huntley Meadows Park (FOHMP) have zealously fought against these planned trails. I’m still not sure why. They can’t possibly believe that these trails are “traffic corridors.” If that were true, they would view every trail at Huntley Meadows as a traffic corridor. I also don’t hear them advocating to tear out Huntley Meadows’ parking lots in the name of the environment. That would mean denying access to car owners.
Instead of lobbying for backdoor plan amendments, FOHMP should have embraced the planned trails as a way to bring new and diverse visitors to the park. I hope FOHMP will reconsider its position.
It’s a little ironic that the Huntley Meadows Park master plan contains the trails in question along with others that have not been built. The Park Authority has not modified that plan which is still in effect.
No one was excluded from the Bicycle Master Plan process. Probably over 100 meetings were held during the bike plan development. Every Supervisor was notified of the advisory committee meetings and most had a rep on that committee. There were meetings held in each part of the county that were open to the public and advertised widely. There were several focus groups with representatives from around the county.
Only one of the two trails was part of the bike plan. The other has been on the Trails Plan for probably 20 years or more. That Trails Plan has been revised multiple times in a public process, and not once was the trail in Huntley Meadows Park asked to be deleted. The proper way to modify the Trails and Bike Plans is through the periodic review of these plans done in a comprehensive way, not through individual out of turn plan amendments. Commissioner Migliaccio agreed that it was “not the preferred way to amend the Comprehensive Plan.” “It is almost always better for us [the Planning Commission] to look at items in a wholistic manner…”
Although increasing public access to parkland is a good thing, these two trails are too extensive and in the wrong place to be acceptable. They would essentially create (bicycle) transportation corridors in highly sensitive and protected habitat, which is an inappropriate use of such environmentally sensitive land. The paved trail along the southern boundary would run through extensive riparian areas and destroy them. The soils in the area are unconsolidated and wet and would provide poor support for a trail. As a consequence, a trail would have to be built on a raised boardwalk or a raised berm. Because the trail runs perpendicular to the southerly flow of ground and surface water towards the Potomac River, an earthen structure would block the flow of water, essentially forming a dam. It would alter the hydrology and harm downstream areas as well as Huntley Meadows Park. In addition, the areas in the powerline easement where the southern trail is shown, provide wet meadow habitat for rare plants and animals and are very sensitive to disturbance. The habitat would be destroyed and wildlife displaced by constructing the trail through this area.
In addition to Dogue Creek, Little Hunting Creek would be impacted by the southern trail. The planned trail would cross Little Hunting Creek at the far eastern end, just before the trail turns northeast behind Audubon Estates trailer park. A portion of the southern perimeter, all of the eastern perimeter, and about half of the northern perimeter are in the Little Hunting Creek watershed. Construction of the trail would impact a long stretch of Little Hunting Creek’s Resource Protection Area and would increase impervious surface in an already highly developed watershed even now degraded by development. The effects on habitat and water quality would be extremely harmful.
The county has invested $3 million to restore the Huntley Meadows Park central wetland, and additional millions in stormwater improvements to Little Hunting Creek and Dogue Creek. The county should protect its investments in water quality and habitat improvements, and build trails where they will not cause environmental harm.
The southern trail runs along a Dominion right of way. It’s my understanding Dominion brings in large trucks to regularly trim/cut back over growth as well as spray weedkiller. Call me crazy but that seems significantly more of a concern than a trail.
And let’s stop with this transportation corridor language. This trail is not a transportation corridor. It is a trail not unlike most in the county that simply connect areas that can’t be connected otherwise as well as provide safe access to the park from those who literally live next to it but can’t walk or bike to the entrance. They instead have to drive to the parking lot to visit it. What’s better for the park walking or biking in or driving in?
And at present, no significant environmental study has been carried out so all of these concerns are simply conjecture. They might be real but they also might not.
Let the process unfold as it should. Let the facts of the study drive the decision making process.
It would also be helpful if FOHMP would aid it’s own in figuring out how to make it’s community safer for those who choose not to drive or have no other alternative.
Dear FOHMP:
I just read you Letter to the Editor above.
The following statement is simply wrong: “It was also a mistake to exclude us and every other environmental organization from the Bicycle Master Plan stakeholder process.”
The BMP was a multi-year, multi-organizational process with numerous public meetings as well as topic specific meetings and adopted in 2014. I myself participated in the schools specific meetings as the Safe Routes to School program was an important aspect to the BMP. And to me personally as the father of at the time three elementary school childern. As a result of the BMP and other efforts, FCPS is now bike and walk friendly. And everything FCDOT does involves environmental concerns.
If you did not participate it was for the following reasons, in order of importance:
1) FOHMP failed to recognize the importance of the BMP
2) FCPA didn’t alert it’s stakeholders
3) Lee District staff didn’t alert their constituents
Ignore is no excuse.
Per the BMP:
Public Outreach
Extensive public outreach was conducted as part of plan development. This outreach included the following:
• Eight subarea public meetings were held from fall 2011 through spring 2012.
• A pre-workshop planning meeting was held in each of the eight outreach areas involving Supervisor staff and Supervisor District representatives on the Trails and Sidewalks Committee.
• Four countywide public meetings were held: two in spring 2012 and two in summer 2014.
Stakeholder Involvement
In addition to public outreach, thematic meetings were held throughout the planning process focusing on special topics. This included the following:
• A BAC was specifically formed for this project and met throughout the duration of the process.
• A series of focus group meetings were conducted covering the following topics: economic impacts, biking and health, bike safety education, school transportation, and law enforcement issues.
• Technical outreach meetings were held to engage stakeholders such as VDOT and the Fairfax County Park Authority.
I call foul on this exclusion.
Not only that, FOHMP decided to go OUTSIDE the normal process to get the two trails removed from the BMP.
So you can’t say we were left out of the public process and then not use the normal public process to get what it wants. The BMP is up for review and being merged with the Trails Plan this year or next. The two trails of concern are simply lines on a ma;, have been for years if not decades and would certainly be at the plan review. It could have waited.
In addition the letter says the following: Friends of Huntley Meadows Park has collected more than 6,500 petition signatures, emails and letters of support from individuals and organizations in support of these Plan Amendments.
How come then FOHMP submitted 331 signatures to the public record at the FCPC meeting. Of those 331, only 51 identified themselves from Northern Virginia and 3 signatures were duplicates. Where did 260 signatures come from? I call foul of 6500 expressions of support. A ‘like’ on FB or a retweet does not count in my opinion. Until otherwise, only 48 Fairfax citizens supported the removal of these trails.
This came down to a very small group of people who are simply selfish. They want the park to a small number of people, namely themselves. It’s not their park. It’s every citizen in the County’s park.