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No settlement likely over Silver Lake
For just one day, Park Authority and Bull Run Mountains Conservancy members and volunteers put aside their differences over which group should gain control over Silver Lake in Haymarket. Last Saturday, the two groups joined forces to clean up the area.More than 80 people descended on the grounds to get rid of debris left on the site for more than two years as the property dispute has grown and no ownership resolution has been reached.
“This is a good opportunity here,” said Jay Ellington, executive director of the Park Authority, as the sun shone over the park after two days of rain left the fields muddy and wet.
Old campgrounds where recreational vehicles used to park were cleared by hand and by a front-end loader provided by Nokesville Horse Society official Cleve Benton.
“It’s a very helpful piece of gear because I can reach in and [pull out] something” without anyone getting hurt, he said, rhetorically asking why people would “risk getting a nail their foot” when his loader can do the job.
The clean-up list ran the gambit from dead trees and lumber to beer cans, plastic tubing and even artificial turf and an old batting cage net.
But behind the scenes, the future-ownership process of the 268-acre site has deteriorated. The Park Authority board voted last week to recommend the Board of County Supervisors reconsider their offer to take over Silver Lake.
Talks broke down between the BRMC and Park Authority after August when the two sides could not strike a compromise deal as they were instructed by the Board of County Supervisors and the county executive.
Working in the Park Authority’s favor is that the land would remain in a government-controlled body.
However, it would cost the cash-strapped county tens of thousands of dollars each month to run and maintain the site while the BRMC would run it, according to their proposal, at no cost to county tax payers.
Also, the BRMC claims it can get Silver Lake open to the public faster than the Park Authority, and an anonymous adjacent land owner would donate a 233-acre section of land to the conservancy, almost doubling the size of Silver Lake.
One of the biggest third-party players in the ongoing saga for control of the lake is the Nokesville Horse Society.
Because the equestrian group has a history of working with the Park Authority, the equestrian enthusiasts know they would have a say in running the area if the Park Authority were in charge.
Scott Helberg, vice president of the Nokesville Horse Society, has questioned how horse-friendly the BRMC would be at Silver Lake.
While standing next to Jon Shurberg, a member of the BRMC board of directors, he said that a 500-acre park should have 14 to 16 miles of trails available, while the conservancy’s proposal has only four to five miles of trails sketched out.
While the land dispute continues, however, security of the property has become an issue for the county.
Diane Cabot, the public relations manager for the county, pointed out how shacks and other small buildings around the area have been covered with graffiti.
“The vandalism is huge,” she said, adding that “God knows what [trespassers] are doing in those houses.”
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