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Group forms to save Crow's Nest

Grass-roots group forms to save Crow's Nest

By RUSTY DENNEN
and RUTH FINCH

Date published: 1/22/2004

By RUSTY DENNEN

Stafford board agrees peninsula should be preserved

What began last weekend as conversations among friends made the leap to fliers and e-mails and has now become a movement.

The fledgling Save Crow's Nest group made its presence known at the Stafford Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday night. About 60 people--many of them wearing green clothes and "Save Crow's Nest" tags--showed up to urge county officials to thwart a new development plan for the property.

Crow's Nest, a peninsula between Potomac and Accokeek creeks, has one of the last stands of virgin forest in the region and is home to rare plants and animals and a large heron rookery.

The latest preservation push began a few days after The Free Lance-Star reported that negotiations between the state and the land's owner, K&M Properties, had ceased.

The state had intended to buy the 3,800-acre tract for a nature preserve, but now K&M is exploring development options.

Patricia Kurpiel, who lives across from Crow's Nest, said the calls started coming over the weekend. Soon, others were on the phones or tapping out e-mails. Someone set up an e-mail address, savecrowsnest@yahoo .com, as a contact point. A Web site is also in the works.

"We were asking, 'What can we do? We can't just sit by and do nothing,'" Kurpiel said. "I think we have to get more of the community involved. We need people to know that we have not rolled over and we're not playing dead."

She added: "There's been really an outpouring. This has really taken on a life of its own. It's so heartening."

She said that she's just one of many involved in the group and that the next step might be to have a community meeting.

Doris Whitfield, head of the Battlefields Sierra Group in Fredericksburg, also helped get the word out.

"I've e-mailed everybody," she said. The local Sierra Club group has pushed for preservation of Crow's Nest for years.

By Monday, a plan was being circulated for supporters of saving the tract to show up at the board meeting. They spoke to a friendly audience: Supervisors are solidly behind the preservation plan and even chipped in county money to help.

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Date published: 1/22/2004