Huntley Meadows Park, much to the dismay of its managers, is looking more and more like a meadow.
Since the late 1970s, beavers at the park maintained the largest wetland of its kind in Northern Virginia. But they recently have changed their engineering habits, abandoning a large dam that allowed for a vibrant, marshy ecosystem to thrive at the southern Fairfax County park.
Now it’s drying up.
Park officials are using Huntley Meadows as an example of how millions of dollars could be spent to maintain, expand and maintain parkland throughout the county. Voters will weigh a $77 million bond referendum for the parks in November, $2.5 million of which would pay for an earthen wall and water pipe system that would allow the Park Authority to restore the wetlands.
“This is the only one of its kind in Fairfax County, and we want to be able to sustain it as a natural freshwater wetland,” Harry Glasgow, a member of the Park Authority Board, said at a news conference last week. “So we’re going to invest a lot of money in restoring this park … to its former glory and be able to attract some of the species that were very famous here. We’re not going to do it with beaver labor anymore.”
Even if the ballot question passes — and history indicates it probably will — Fairfax County supervisors still face the question of when and how to undertake major new projects amid one of the most severe budget crunches in years. County Executive Anthony Griffin rolled out a series of cuts this week that includes delaying or terminating some capital plans in the pipeline. With a shortfall of at least $500 million next fiscal year, more such measures could be on the way.
“We will probably contract a little bit as far as how much we will sell in bonds,” said supervisor Sharon Bulova, the board’s budget chairwoman.
Park officials remain optimistic, though they can’t expressly advocate for the referendum’s passage. Without intervention, Huntley Meadows’ wetlands will continue to transition into a meadow, and a number of rare flora and fauna will disappear, said Park Manager Kevin Munroe.
“We’re just trying to push this park back about 10 years to the state it was then, when we had the highest level of rare plants and animals,” he said.
