A proposed golf course in Tappahannock, Va., could displace a popular habitat for eagles, while Allentown (Pa.) Municipal GC works to restore the honeybee population through Operation Pollinator, and George Wright GC in Hyde Park, Mass., employs goats to chew through weeds.
The emerald tree canopy on Tappahannock, Va.’s scenic high cliffs is something of a luxury community for bald eagles—it’s one of the top places in the Chesapeake Bay region to raise their young. But if the corporation that owns the land where they live has its way, moving day will come soon, the Washington Post reported.
Richmond County recently approved a request from Diatomite Corporation of America to rezone a large section of the cliffs for a sprawling resort with pricey housing and an 18-hole golf course atop a habitat used by tens of thousands of eagles each year, the Post reported.
The proposed development on the rezoned land has set off a heated skirmish in sleepy Richmond County. In the fall, the county board will consider whether to allow construction. Opponents such as the Chesapeake Conservancy and Friends of the Rappahannock say wiping away hundreds of trees will destroy the scenery that Smith viewed before English settlers arrived, the Post reported.
Even worse, they say, a resort that would take years to build could permanently damage one of the most important gathering places for eagles in the Chesapeake Bay region. Hundreds of eagles live there, and as many as 20,000 visit to feed on shad, herring and blue catfish as they migrate between Canada and South America. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which operates the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge, also has expressed concern, the Post reported.
“This is a global hot spot,” said Bryan D. Watts, director of the Center for Conservation Biology, a research group that studies nature and birds at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. “There’s no other place on the continent like the Chesapeake Bay for eagles, and this place is one of the most important places in the bay. It’s an eagle magnet.”
But a backer of the project said the conservationists are part of “a cabal of interests,” including property owners along the Rappahannock who are using environmental issues as a wedge to keep the remote and quiet landscape to themselves. He described their opposition as a NIMBY movement — “not in my back yard,” the Post reported.
“You feel like you’re being shot at all the time,” said Robert Smith, an attorney for Diatomite, which is based in Miami, according to court records. The land that conservationists call historic and pristine was once denuded for resources to fight the Civil War, Smith said. Now, the eagle population, which has rebounded nationwide after being classified as endangered, is so plentiful that they appear to be everywhere in Virginia, he said.
“It’s a false assumption that man and nature can’t co-exist,” Smith said.
The bald eagle is one of the biggest success stories of the Endangered Species Act. America’s national symbol was nearly eliminated by destruction of its habitat, food contamination, illegal shooting and pesticide use in the 1970s. But the population recovered with protection and was removed from the endangered list eight years ago, the Post reported.
The eagles inhabit Fones Cliffs, where bluffs 1,000 feet high overlook a wide section of the river. The Fish and Wildlife Service attempted to purchase the land in recent years but failed. A budget request by President Obama that would provide funds to protect a major portion of the property is before Congress, said Joel Dunn, president and chief executive of the Chesapeake Conservancy, who helped lobby for it, the Post reported.
Three years ago the company envisioned developing the land for a 116-room lodge, guest cottages and a 150-seat restaurant, as well as 718 homes that would cost between $300,000 and $500,000, said R. Morgan Quicke, Richmond County’s administrator. “This is certainly much bigger than anything than we’ve ever been a part of,” Quicke said.
Diatomite promised the county planning board that the development will bring new jobs and added tax revenue to a county still recovering from the 2008 recession. In a nod to county history, Smith said in a February presentation that “monuments will be erected to recognize John Smith and the first English settlers.” An 18-hole championship golf course would tie everything together, the Post reported.
Smith, the attorney, said that there would be millions of dollars in additional tax revenue. Conservation easements that protect virgin land from development now yield $5 per acre in taxes for the county. “Our property will generate approximately $9,000 per acre,” Smith said.
But will buyers flock to what Quicke described as “a very rural part of the county . . . big farms, big landowners, big tracts of land, narrow roads” 35 miles from the small city of Fredericksburg? The largest road, two-lane Route 624 is so sparsely traveled that workers didn’t bother to paint a yellow stripe. Most homes in the area cost no more than $150,000, and they would be dwarfed by the 3,500-sq. ft. houses in the proposed project, the Post reported.
The county board of supervisors will start considering the proposal in the fall, a process that could take a year. Its attraction to buyers is “something that needs to be determined as we go through the process,” Quicke said.
Diatomite says there’s a market, but what the county “might consider is maybe getting a second opinion.”
Hill Wellford, whose 2,200-acre property sits along the river, said there’s no reason to think that people will flock to the area after eagles are chased from Fones Cliffs. Wellford joined one of several conservation groups opposed to the project and wrote a letter to the planning board to denounce the project, the Post reported.
“The vision is not to be against development, but to focus on how to protect essential natural features, spawning crabs and bird habitat,” said Wellford, a retired lawyer.
Wellford said that 10 active eagle nests are on his land. Through binoculars, he recently watched two nesting, one with a lifeless fish in its talons. “You realize you’re seeing something special.”
But Smith argues that Virginia’s eagle population has grown to a saturation point, so large that younger birds cannot find unoccupied territory. Citing Watts and other bird experts, Smith said eagles “will nest at airports, on a chimney, at nuclear power plants.”
Yet Watts, with the Center for Conservation Biology, said he is strongly opposed to development, the Post reported.
Watts said he has debunked past arguments by conservationists who sought to stop developments by using the destruction of the eagle habitat as an excuse. But “this is different than those. That area is a nexus for populations across the coast. There’s a much larger public good at Fones Cliffs that trumps local landowner rights.”
In Allentown, Pa., a quarter-acre of wildflowers, adjacent to the 15th green at Allentown Municipal Golf Course, used to be an eyesore, but the plot of land now is part of an international program to restore the honeybee population, the Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Morning Call reported.
It’s also part of a course-wide project to maintain both the ecological health and playability of the city’s municipal golf course, the Morning Call reported.
“At the end of the day, we’re part of the Allentown parks system,” said superintendent Chris Reverie. “We want to maintain the integrity and beauty of the property. But Kyle [Krause, the course’s greenskeeper] and I strongly believe that, since this is a public golf course, everybody deserves to play in good conditions.”
Since taking over as superintendent last year, Reverie has begun a long-term project to maintain, upgrade and beautify one of the Lehigh Valley’s busiest golf courses. The job holds a personal element for Reverie, who is a descendant of Gen. Harry Trexler, the benefactor of Allentown’s parks department, the Morning Call reported.
Reverie, Trexler’s great-grandnephew, said he’s proud to work at a golf course that’s part of his family lineage. As a result, he sees a responsibility to balance the course’s busy tee sheet (Allentown booked about 44,500 rounds last year) with its maintenance and environmental needs, the Morning Call reported.
In the past year, Reverie, Krause and their staff have removed about 50 trees and overgrown brush from the course, redefined the bunkers, overseeded the greens following winter damage, reconfigured the property’s irrigation and added mounding to restore some of its original parkland design, the Morning Call reported.
In addition, they also converted an overgrown mound of dirt—left over from the 1999 redesign—into a small field of native grasses and wildflowers. This plot between the 15th green and seventh tee box is part of Operation Pollinator, a program that launched in Europe 10 years ago and has spread to the U.S., the Morning Call reported.
More than 50 American golf courses participate in Operation Pollinator, for which they convert out-of-play areas to wildflower fields that attract honeybees and other pollinators. The project is designed to create more pollinating habitats for bees to help restore their dwindling numbers, the Morning Call reported.
General Manager Jeff Wambold said he had planned to address that space for years. But his original ideas for restrooms or a snack stand changed when Reverie proposed the pollinator program. Allentown has planted wildflowers on other out-of-play pieces of land, expecting to convert about an acre in total, the Morning Call reported.
There are several benefits. First, Krause said, he has seen a noticeable increase of bees and butterflies in the area. Second, the area requires less water and fertilizer and no mowing, lowering maintenance costs. Further, it adds and aesthetic component to the golf course, the Morning Call reported.
“This property has so many beautiful attributes,” said Reverie, who has worked at Indian Creek and Shepherd Hills. “We want to preserve and accentuate them.”
Longtime players say the golf course’s conditions are as good as they have been in years. Greens have recovered from winter ice damage sustained by many courses in the area. Reverie and his staff spent January and February shoveling ice and snow from the greens, then reseeded them several times during the spring, the Morning Call reported.
On Monday, five truckloads carrying about 125,000 tons of sand arrived to replenish the course’s 56 bunkers. That will be added to the 90,000 tons dispersed last year. Tree and brush removal has improved the health of several greens, notably at holes 14 and 15. Most of Allentown’s arbor vitae trees that served as yardage markers have been removed. While the tree removal continues, Reverie is planting smaller trees in other vacant areas to compensate, the Morning Call reported.
Wambold admitted that Reverie’s work is complicated by Allentown Municipal’s operating schedule. The course finished the 2014 season with a deficit, according to city budget reports, despite its heavy play. To help mitigate that, the course accepts players all year, weather permitting. That limits Reverie’s ability to complete projects on an empty course, the Morning Call reported.
This past spring, when private clubs closed damaged greens, Allentown’s remained open. One Friday, Reverie examined several damaged greens and noticed some improvement. By Monday, after a busy weekend of play, the greens were trampled again, the Morning Call reported.
“It’s discouraging to some, but we got through it,” Wambold said. “A private course can close six greens for a month and be OK. We can’t do that. We can’t lose the revenue.”
Wambold also said that he has no plans to implement a mandatory cart policy on weekends, which would add revenue but also anger regulars who love to walk. As Reverie said, “This is the only course I’ve ever seen with pull-cart damage.”
For the most part, the changes have been welcomed among Allentown’s regular players, Wambold said. He added that there’s more to come, the Morning Call reported.
“What they’ve done for this place is unbelievable so far,” Wambold said of Reverie and his staff. “They have the work ethic and organizational plan for what the golf course should be. The turf issues are resolved, and the condition of the course has never been this good.”
In the middle of the otherwise pristine greens of the George Wright Golf Course in Hyde Park, Mass., lies an overgrown tangle of poison ivy, buckthorn, and knotweed—a groundskeeper’s nightmare, but a great meal for a goat, the Boston Globe reported.
Two herds of landscaping goats got to work early this week at the golf course. Another herd is eating the remaining weeds at a green space on West Street, and will join the others at the golf course on August 1, the Globe reported.
Ryan Woods, a spokesman from the Parks and Recreation Department described the deployments as strategic. “Right when you add some more goats, as we learned last year, the productivity increases. It’s more competition so they start eating more.”
The golf course goats are enclosed by an electric fence in an area that is difficult for workers and machinery to maintain because of a steep slopes and trees, the Globe reported.
“They’ll have the goats in an area that people aren’t golfing in actively, but they want to keep clear of some of the poison ivy and low brush because golf balls do go in there and golfers go in there,” said Jim Cormier, co-owner of The Goatscaping Co., which supplied the animals for the project.
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