Recent Articles from BRMC Newsletters

Silver Lake Natural Recreation Area

BRMC has an exciting opportunity to create a new 500 acre public natural recreation area this year in Prince William county, the Silver Lake Natural Recreation Area. This new area—just a five minute drive from the current preserve—would combine land proferred by a developer with a large parcel offered by a private owner. Together with the current preserve, this would provide over 1,300 acres of beautiful natural recreation space.

This opportunity has arisen because the developers of Dominion Valley, Toll Brothers, have profferred 318 acres of land, including Silver Lake, to the county. Portions of this profferred land totaling approximately 100 acres are set aside to be used for a new middle school, a therapeutic riding center, and a Park Authority Equestrian Center. BRMC proposes that the county convey the remaining land to BRMC for use as a nature preserve. Provided that this transfer to BRMCoccurs, the owner of an adjoining 268 acre parcel has generously offered to donate its land to BRMCto be combined into a larger natural recreation area (see picture on next page). This combined area would be owned and operated by BRMC in trust for the benefit of the general public, similarly to the Nature Conservancy and the Civil War Preservation Trust.

The natural recreation area will offer bicycling, birding, non-motorized boating, fishing, hiking, horseback riding, primitive camping, jogging, picnicking, and walking trails. Unique education programs for students and teachers, environmental studies, interpretive programs, and other similar programs will be available.

Clearly, this proposal offers many advantages over alternatives such as ownership by the county or another organization. Among these are:

• BRMC will more than double the size of the public natural recreation areaby adding an additional 268 acres of mature hardwood forests, pristine streams, and upland grasslands.

• The maintenance of this area by BRMCwill preserve and perpetuate a mosaic of important natural habitats, specifically a wetland ecosystem, a lake ecosystem, and an upland grassland.

• BRMC can provide necessary improvements and maintenance of the natural recreation area with no subsidy or monetary contribution from the county or the park authority, and hence no need to allocate tax dollars to the project.

• BRMC will open the entire natural recreation area for public programs and events within three to four months, and for general admission within one year.

• BRMC's Youth Outdoors program and interpretive programs sponsored by other conservation entities will utilize Silver Lake, thereby providing an invaluable asset to the three nearby schools in Dominion Valley, as well as for all other area schools.

• In combination with the nearby Camp William B. Snyder's 350 acres, there will be over 830 acres of perpetually protected natural open space in the rural crescent.

Proposed Silver Lake Natural Recreation Area

The 268 acre parcel that has been generously offered to BRMC to combine into a larger natural recreation area is just north of the "Middle School" site. Its boundary is marked by the orange line. It is bordered by Little Bull Run on the left and Catharpin Creek on the right.

[click for larger map 1.4MB]