Article date: December 16, 1999

What shape will Avtex riverfront park take?

By Teresa Brumback

Plans for a riverfront park at the Avtex Fibers Superfund site are taking shape.

The latest in a series of "open space design" workshops was held Monday to get ideas from the public on how the park should be developed. The meeting was organized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, FMC Corp., and its contractors, the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

The workshops have been well- advertised with large ads and public announcements but officials have complained that attendance has been weak.

A final concept plan is set to be drawn up Jan. 11, with a design review workshop where it will be presented in mid-February.

About 25 persons, most of them local officials and presenters at the meeting, were in attendance Monday at the Raymond E. Santmyers Youth Center.

Three schemes were proposed by EDAW, Inc. of Alexandria, a landscape architect hired to help with plans for the park.

As with designing a house, the issues with the park boiled down to what to put where. Generally, the plans call for hard surfaced or soft mulched trails, or a combination of both along the river and or winding through the park; and a road or pedestrian access through the site, or both.

The plans generally provided for some combinations of the following: forests, meadows, wetlands, lakes, overlooks, picnic areas, canoe or boat launches, pavilions, a river boardwalk, picnic areas, playground, learning centers, and formal gardens.

One plan was a low-impact "ecological" plan with a soft mulched trail along the river bank, fields and forests, interpretive exhibit space, a wetland area, two man-made lakes fed by stormwater and connected by a stream, and a canoe launch at Luray Avenue at the south end of the site.

Another plan called "passive recreation" showed a playground, four river access points, pavilions, forests, play meadows, wetlands, picnic areas, and boat launches at the north and south ends, as well as several boardwalks and piers along the river, hard trails along the river and unpaved pedestrian trails winding through the park.

Those in attendance at the meeting broke into groups and came up with their own variations of a vision for the perfect park.

Engineers for the project, GeoSyntec, Inc. of Atlanta, were to meet Tuesday morning to look over all the proposed schemes to see which were achievable from an engineering standpoint, as well as stormwater issues, "Most of the ideas are achievable in concept," said engineer Neil Davies. " I don’t see any great roadblocks." he told the group.

Scott Reid, a real estate broker in Front Royal, told the group that the park’s development should be done with one purpose in mind: "What do you have to do so the maximum number of people in our community can enjoy the site? I think that’s an important criteria."

Warren county Planning director Doug Stanley said he liked elements of all three proposed design schemes. "I like the idea of the access and bike trails under " passive recreation’ and the idea of a wetland area for wildlife under ‘ecological’ and the idea of a public meeting space in ‘civic,’" he said.

Front Royal Planning Director Kimberley Fogle declined comment on which she preferred. Later, as spokesman of one of the mini-groups reviewing the plans, said her group favored an enhanced boat launch at one end of the park, a bench overlook, and pedestrian access, but no vehicular access at the park. Handicapped access could be provided through a path system. Also in the group’s vision was a bike loop accommodating emergency vehicles, a historical interpretive/environmental education center, two lakes and a water system slicing through the site, several bench overlooks, outdoor and indoor classrooms, and minimum use of signs.

Marla Jones, as spokesman of her group, said "We felt that a naturally terraced amphitheater for cultural events might be a real asset for the community. The group also favored a Frisbee meadow, picnic area, interpretive loop, and paved path going into the park and along the river, as well as an overlook above wetlands. The group, she said, also liked having vehicle access on both ends of the park, two comfort stations, river and fishing access and a boat launch at the south end of the park.

Ed Ward, chairman of the Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District, said he was concerned about runoff issues involving two lakes at the park.

At the meeting, he explained that the Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District and the Valley Conservation Council in Staunton, jointly hold a conservation easement over the 85 acre site for the park. The two groups are charged with enforcing the easement, which was incorporated in the final bankruptcy order Nov.23, which approves the sale of Avtex to the Front Royal Warren County Economic Development Authority.

The easement, Ward said, is "very restrictive". The whole purpose is to keep it a conservation area, not a recreation or civic area." A representative for FMC replied that all three plans envisioned "passive" recreation such as hiking, biking and canoeing "and things consistent with a natural area, and limited structures like a parking lot."

Later, Ward said, "the only one that’s clearly incompatible is the civic design. A combination of the ecological and passive recreation are in keeping with the conservation easement."

A former employee at Avtex, Robert Christiansen, who worked from 1951 to 1965 as a contractor for Rust Engineering of Philadelphia, addressed officials at the meeting, saying they outght to consider the paths that stormwater has historically taken at the site.

"If you haven’t lived here and seen the way the water runs and the way it backs up, you don’t know nothin’. You’re defeating yourself."

Five streams come off a hill at Randolph Macon Academy, he added.

When it’s done, the park will be spread out over 220 acres of the former 500 acre Avtex site. Of the 220 acres, about 85 acres are comprised of 25 large hazardous waste lagoons stretching across one mile of riverfront, according to EPA remedial project Manager Bonnie Gross. The lagoons will be dredged of toxic sludge and rainwater and capped with a thick layer of soil, anywhere from six inches to two feet thick. They will be further stabilized with grasses or trees.

Some of the soil from the roughly 75 foot tall Fly Ash Mountain would be used to fill in the lagoons, officials said. The remaining hill could be capped with soil and a grass cover and used as an overlook point, officials added.