The following is the public comment offered on the reuse plan for Fort Monroe:

Fort Monroe gives new meaning to the expression “If you build it, they will come”.

In April 2008, a reuse plan was presented for Fort Monroe and while it is a marked improvement over the 2006 plan, it still presents a level of development that comes at too high a cost.

The Fort Monroe Federal Area Development Authority (FADA) continues to propose residential development where the largest cost drivers are those public services that support that development. Water system improvements are estimated at $4 million. Wastewater collection systems will run $1.2 million. Stormwater quality collection and retention systems are estimated at $1.2 million. Public schools shoot up to almost $2.2 million with maximum development.

The Army estimates it spends up to $15 million a year keeping up buildings, plumbing and infrastructure. Depending on the level of redevelopment, the reuse plan estimates annual operating and maintenance costs to run between $4 and $4.7 million. Those estimates assume private ownership of most of the buildings, many of which aren’t of any historical significance, are deteriorating, and/or are likely to be razed and replaced with new construction.

Fort Monroe lies almost entirely in a designated 100-year floodplain. The Fort is a National Historic Landmark and many of the buildings have not been elevated or altered since their con¬struction, making them especially prone to flood damage. The reuse plan also takes note that there is increased flooding potential created by long term sea level rise caused by climate change. Understandably, flood protection comes in with a whopping $13.8 million price tag and no assurances that flood damage can be ultimately mitigated. Read the rest of this entry »

Governor Kaine along with members of his Cabinet will receive a briefing on the status of the Fort Monroe Reuse Plan and tour the facility on Wed., Aug. 20, 9:00am starting at the Chamberlin Hotel, 2 Fenwick Avenue.

From the Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park, here is our message for Governor Kaine:

We should advocate what the Pilot’s editors wrote in early June, following the release of the Park Service study. Their editorial concluded:

“But none of those stories will be told as effectively or reach as broad an audience unless the National Park Service is involved in the next stage of Fort Monroe’s history, unless preservation groups commit resources to establishing a public trust for its protection, and unless local, state and federal leaders unite in the obvious — creating Fort Monroe National Park.”

That boils down to this: we need the NPS and we need a public trust, and only Virginia’s leaders can make that happen.

Note that the power of this message is that it is not from us. Everyone already knows what we think. It’s in our name. This message is from the editors of the region’s leading daily paper.

Tomorrow, reporters might be present who have been misinformed that the Park Service’s reluctance amounts to an end to national park hopes. But that’s not the meaning of those bureaucrats’ reluctance. Their reluctance stems from understandable caution given the unwise approach that Virginia has taken so far. The NPS does not want to join an unwise “development” enterprise. Luckily, the new reuse plan is open-ended enough that we can still easily recover from Virginia’s unwise start. We can still succeed with what simply must be a many-decades evolution of the _real_ plan for Fort Monroe’s post-Army future.

Wednesday’s festivities are a blip. Virginia must still, and can still, get Fort Monroe right. History demands it and the increasingly beleaguered and congested Tidewater character of our region demands it.

Time to put down the summer reading for some summer writing! Now is the time to ratchet up our campaign against offshore drilling and in support of clean energy solutions that advance alternative energy production and greater energy efficiency, put America back to work with good jobs, put our economy back on the path to prosperity, end our dangerous dependence on fossil fuels, and fight global warming. And one of the best and easiest ways to do so, is by writing a short but sweet letter to the editor.

For instance, you can pick any one of our ten reasons why offshore drillng is wrong for Virginia and develop that further in your letter. The Sierra Club also offers these sample letters. Click here to read other great LTEs finding publication in either the Daily Press or Virginian-Pilot.

We need this very important issue front and center. Folks have got to learn that drilling off our coast may sound like a solution, but it only makes our problem worse. Your personal appeal in the form of an LTE really helps! Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a run down of the good “green” blogs talking up our issues:

Virginia Blogs:
The Green Miles

Raising Kaine - Here’s two sample posts currently on RK’s front page “Will Dominion Blow the Top off This Mountain Too?” and “Democrats’ Disastrous ‘Me, Too’ Drilling Strategy“.

The Daily Press’ At the Bay - The new kids on the block with the great graphic above. Check out this post “Is the King William needed?“.

National Blogs:
Grist -

“Insider” Blogs:
Sierra Club’s Carl Pope’s Blog
Sierra Club’s Compass - Check out this great post “Join Cool Cities for the 30% Solution“.

“The sky is falling”, proclaimed the City of Newport News in 1997 projecting that Newport News Waterworks users would be pulling 61.2 million gallons per day from the Peninsula’s water system by 2010. Thus they hatched a plot to built the King William Reservoir.

Never mind that the King William Reservoir would destroy 1,526 acres of a highly diverse wetland system including more than 400 acres of forested wetlands - the single greatest wetlands impact on the East Coast since 1972, when federal restrictions were imposed. The reservoir would destroy animal habitat including a 17-nest great blue heron rookery and disturb two federally listed threatened plant species. The massive water withdrawals from the Mattaponi River would change the river’s salinity, threatening spawning of fish like shad and the river’s basic ecology.

And never mind that Native American Rights would be harmed. The reservoir would fall within a three mile buffer zone, violating a 1677 treaty with Virginia Native American tribes and would disturb over 100 documented Native American archeological sites. The annual shad spawning run, which been a part of their tribal culture for over 15,000 years, would be finished.

The King William Reservoir is now costing over $300 million — current ratepayers throughout the entire area would be saddled with that cost. On Tuesday, Newport News City Council will vote on borrowing $20 million more to continue buying land for the reservoir. They do so just as other localities, like King William County that signed onto to the agreement to build the reservoir and share in the costs of acquiring the land, are one-by-one backing out of the agreement, citing concern with the “uncertainty” surrounding the reservoir.

That uncertainty has now grown to include evidence that the water use projections are completely off… a whopping 40% off to be exact. From the Daily Press:

Two reports from the Alliance to Save the Mattaponi show that the region’s water use has stayed stable, and slightly declined, over the past 15 years, and remains about 17.7 million gallons per day lower than the 2010 estimate.

“Newport News really missed the mark,” said Glen Besa, the Virginia director of the Sierra Club who coordinated the release of the reports Thursday.

“They’re really significantly off the mark,” Besa said. “That’s a 40% error.”

Ouch! Perhaps it is now this new certainty surrounding the King William Reservoir that will finally kill plans to obliterate the Mattaponi. Nothing is more certain than not wanting to pay a whole lot of money for something that’s not needed in the first place, eh?!

So let’s be frank here, Mayor Frank… why do you really want this monstrous reservoir built? So far it’s obvious that the Mattaponi is expendable as is the money otherwise still in your constituents’ wallets. For who’s interest does the King William Reservoir serve? Anybody want to take a wild guess here?

Click here and learn how you can help save the Mattaponi once and for all.