 Regarding "Open Featherstone"
by Ernie Sears, Independent Hill;
News & Messenger; Aug. 3 2010
I have had the pleasure of attending several tours of the Featherstone Wildlife Refuge conducted by the Prince William Conservation Alliance over the past few years. Those brief tours have convinced me that that this property is indeed a "jewel" that needs to be available to the public.
I grew up in the Featherstone area during the '50s and '60s and enjoyed exploring this property as a boy. During the PWCA tours, it has been comforting to see that the property has remained as a wonderful, undeveloped wildlife preserve. However, I'm reminded how unfortunate it is that it cannot be enjoyed by anyone other than the occasional trespasser.
It is a property that is perfect for use by hikers, artists, photographers, birders, fishermen, and people who enjoy observing and studying a wide range of wildlife. We should strongly support the efforts of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and organizations such as the Conservation Alliance in opening this property for responsible public use.
At a time when acquiring new resources is financially difficult, we should look for and act on opportunities to utilize those resource that we already have.
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Featherstone is a refuge from the rat race
James and Judy Gallagher; News & Messenger, Aug. 4 2010
We were among the group of 30 or more people who toured Featherstone National Wildlife Refuge on July 24. The refuge, as mentioned in your editorial of July 28 ["Open Featherstone"], is normally closed to the public.
As we viewed wetlands in bloom with pickerelweed and Rose Mallow, watched dragonflies zoom around in pursuit of prey and listened to the sweet bird melodies, it was hard to comprehend that we were just a short distance away from the hustle and bustle of Woodbridge.
The Prince William Conservation Alliance has worked for five years to educate the public about the value of opening Featherstone National Wildlife Refuge for the enjoyment of Prince William County residents and visitors from outside the county.
Please join the Prince William Conservation Alliance and Rep. Gerry Connolly in asking that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service open this beautiful refuge to the public.
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Editorial: Open Featherstone
News & Messenger; July 28 2010
A few years ago, a columnist at The Free Lance-Star newspaper in Fredericksburg described Prince William as the ugliest county in Virginia, what with all our asphalt and myriad strip malls.
He must never have gone fishing at Leesylvania State Park or been to Stoney Lonesome Farm, a rural enclave amid the busyness of Gainesville.
Those would have changed his mind. As would the Featherstone National Wildlife Refuge, the Woodbridge home to birds, crickets, cicadas and butterflies with names such as duskywing and zabulon skipper.
That newspaperman surely hasn't been to Featherstone, though, because its 325 acres have been closed to the public since the 1970s when the federal government began acquiring land for the refuge.
Meanwhile, the nearby Occoquan Bay and Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck refuges welcome about 50,000 nature-lovers each year.
A visitor on a tour of the site Saturday with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made a good point in that restricting access to the refuge allows it to stay preserved. But the potential effects of trampling feet and litterbugs aren't enough to merit the land's continued closure.
And keeping the property spotless could necessitate the creation of jobs -- not of the six-figure variety, mind you, but anything's good in this economy -- or at least projects for schoolchildren and Eagle Scouts.
The folks at Fish and Wildlife say they're ready to open Featherstone -- but only after they've resolved issues including where visitors would park and how to provide safe access over the CSX railroad tracks in the area.
That's not good enough for Rep. Gerald E. "Gerry" Connolly, who seems to have gotten a case of Featherstone Fever. "This refuge is owned by all Americans, and they should have access to it now," he wrote to a Fish and Wildlife official and to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
The congressman, who represents most of Prince William, is right. His office notes that Fish and Wildlife plans to release later this summer a draft conservation plan for the refuge. It will be available for public review and comment, so check it out and make your voice heard about how this land, your land, should be used.
Because after all, what's the use of having a jewel if no one can see it?
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Wildlife refuge has never been open to the public but some are seeking to change that
Keith Walker, News & Messenger, July 24 2010
There's a skinny little piece of green property hidden away in plain sight in Woodbridge along Farm Creek and the Potomac River. Its land-side border butts up against the CSX Rail line, and thousands of commuters probably see the Featherstone National Wildlife Refuge every day without giving it a second thought as they wait for their trains at the Virginia Railway Express Rippon Station.
The U.S. Department of Interior acquired 164 acres from the District of Columbia in 1979 and turned them into a wildlife refuge. In1992, Prince William County donated another 161 acres, bringing the total at the refuge to 325 acres.
The refuge has never been opened to the public because of a lack of legal access across land owned by the railroad. Now there's a move on to get it opened, said Daffny Hoskie of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages Featherstone along with the Occoquan Bay and the Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck refuges that make up the Potomac River National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Hoskie said that until recently there wasn't much interest in having the refuge open to the public.
In 2007 the service started its comprehensive conservation plan and that's when the sentiment to open the Featherstone refuge began to bubble up, she said. "That's when the Fish and Wildlife Service recognized that the public was interested in using this property," said Hoskie, the deputy refuge manager Potomac River National Wildlife Refuge Complex. "Now that there's interest, we're going to pursue it."
On Saturday, the Fish and Wildlife service briefly opened the refuge to the public with a guided tour. About 25 people showed up to go and see what they could see out there. Bird experts would have recognized the call of various species along with the crickets and the occasional cicada, but the most readily seen wildlife were the butterflies that included silver-spotted skippers, black swallowtails, monarchs, duskywings, zabulon skippers and tiger swallowtails that fluttered around the purple flower spears of the pickerelweed growing in the water in Farm Creek.
Christina Forbes, a Washington attorney who lives in Alexandria, went on the tour and is in favor of open-ing the refuge under certain conditions. "I believe the plan to leave it in its natural state is the best of all plans, because it provides those who do want to come with a real taste of nature in this stand of 80-year-old trees. And it also acts as a brake against rampant overuse," she said.
Caryn Stein and and her husband, Marc Stein, who live very near the refuge at the Riverside Station Apartments, also went on the tour. They've been to the Occoquan and Mason neck refuges as well. "We've been to all the places around here ... so it's interesting to see this missing piece," Caryn Stein said. "A lot of people probably don't know that there are so many nature areas preserves and refuges. People probably don't think of this area as being a rich place for wildlife and nature."
The Steins said they would be back to the refuge, which is situated between Leesylvania State Park and the Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, if it ever opens to the public. "I think we would definitely use it," Caryn Stein said."This has been really enjoy-able."
Chris Thacker was of another mind about the refuge. "It's neat to be down here to come to a place that's hardly touched," said Thacker, a Manassas resident. He said he's not necessarily in favor of opening it to the public on a regular basis. "I personally kind of like the idea of it being closed and doing tours like this every now and then just because I don't think there's enough places like this left," said Thacker, an assistant body shop manager.
Kim Hosen of the Prince William Conservation Alliance said opening the land to the public would provide a certain amount of oversight. "If it's open to the public, then people could be stewards at the site," Hosen said. The public has little access to natural sites in Northern Virginia, she said. "There are very few places that you can have access to water like this," she said of the refuge that includes upland forests and freshwater tidal marshes.
There are others who would like to see the refuge opened to the public. Rep. Gerald E. "Gerry" Connolly, D-11th, recently asked the Fish and Wildlife Service about opening the refuge.
In response, Greg Siekaniec, the acting deputy director of the service, said that several things were holding up the opening, including safe access across the railroad tracks and ample parking. "When the parking and access issues have been resolved, and a safe environment for refuge visitors can be provided, the Service's intent is to proceed with administrative procedures to open the refuge to compatible public uses," Siekaniec wrote.
Connolly replied in a letter dated July 15 saying, "The refuge is owned by all Americans and they should have access to it now." Siekaniec also stated in his letter that the service had been working with Prince William County to try and iron out some of the problems.
Hoskie said it is the Service's aim to open the refuge. "We really are working at trying to get this place open," Hoskie said. "Now that there is interest, we're working diligently to see what we might be able to do to accommodate the pub-lic."
The Occoquan Bay and Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck refuges receive roughly 50,000 visitors a year, according to written information Hoskie provided to those who toured the refuge.
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