Mason Neck
Source: Terraserver
"It is no accident that Mason Neck is protected today, nor that its extensive network of public lands is managed by three different levels of government," reports Elizabeth Rieben in her thesis, Safe Landing: Elizabeth Hartwell’s Role in Protecting Mason Neck, Virginia, and Its Eagles. Much of the material below is drawn from her thesis and articles in the Washington Post.
Mason Neck was visited by John Smith in 1608, and settled by the Mason family on colonial times. The father of "our" George Mason ran a ferry across the river from Hallowing Point to Maryland. When he fell into the river and drowned, George Mason was left without a father at the age of 11 - just as George Washington lost his father when he was 11 years old, and living at Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg.
The Mason's used slave labor to grow crops, including tobacco, on the peninsula. After the soil was enhausted, farming was limited and the forests regrew. After the Civil War, Mason Neck was the home of various sawmills, and primary land use was timber management.
In 1949, VDOT completed the Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway (now I-95). It was designed at the start of World War Two as the first major "limited access" highway in the state intended to move cars without intersections or driveways. In 1952, the southern end of the Shirley Highway was expanded to become a 4-lane freeway, four years before President Eisenhower initiated the interstate highway system.
This highway eliminated the slow commute up Route 1 through Alexandria. Other plans in the 1960's included building two Outer Beltways with a Woodrow Wilson-like bridge over the Potomac River to Maryland, one crossing a Mason Neck and the other bridge crossing the Potomac River at Cherry Hill in Prince William County.
(The planned bridge at Mason Neck is a dead issue now. The planned bridge at Cherry Hill, near the "Southbridge" development, has not been built... yet. It is included in the TransAction 2030 plan of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, but not in the Constrained Long Range Plan that identifies only road projects for which funding is realistically feasible.)
Not surprisingly, the opening of the Shirley Highway in 1949-52 stimulated rapid population growth in southern Fairfax and eastern Prince William County, just 18-20 miles from the center of Washington. In the 1950's, private property owners near the Shirley Highway got a financial windfall from the new transportation infrastructure. Low-quality farmland become high-value property for building new subdivisions, thanks to the taxpayers who financed the new road. In contrast, the Dulles Greenway extension of the Dulles Toll Road was funded largely by landowners in Loudoun County who would see property values rise, once traffic congestion was reduced.
In 1964, two landowners on Mason Neck proposed to sell 1,800 acres they had inherited to a developer that would construct "Kings Landing," a new town like Reston with homes for 20,000 people. The proposal included a sewage treatment plant in the Great Marsh, since septic systems could not handle all the expected human waste.
(The peninsula had little resisential development in 1964 because local soils had too much clay, and fluids from septic tanks would not percolate or "perc." Large-scale sewage treatment facilities were a recent feature in Northern Virginia. Arlington did not build a sewage plant to treat its waste until 1956.)
The planned development included elements supported by "smart growth" advocates. Waterfront property was to be developed at low density, minimizing the impact of construction and the visibility of development along the water's edge. Dense housing would be clustered in the interior of the Mason Neck peninsula. It resembles modern proposals for mixed use projects, where retail development should be surrounded by housing to create a "walkable community" and to facilitate transit by limiting the number of bus stops needed to provide services.
However, today Mason Neck is still argely undeveloped. A complex of parks, wildlife refuges, and recreation areas protect 6,600 of the 8,000 acres. Residents live without modern amenities such as chlorinated water and sewers, but they also live in a low-density rural setting with horses, eagles, and trails.
That lack-of-development in prime territory for suburban growth did not occur naturally. It required bold action and, at times, unpleasant confrontations between conservationists and developers. Developers used to mock the conservation leader who highlighted the value of eagle habitat on Mason Neck at public meetings, by squawking and waggling their arms like chickens. In the middle of the process, three county supervisors were convicted of bribery related to local zoning decisions. Conservation of land is a contact sport.
What made it possible to conserve Mason Neck was a partnership between Federal, state, county officials and local residents. The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority was late to the partnership, perhaps in part because one of its board members owned 50 acres he wanted to develop on Mason Neck. At one point, it even abandoned plans to purchase land on Mason Neck, and voted instead to accept scenic easements along the Potomac shoreline. However, the authority has ended up being a key player in the modern conservation effort. (The Virginia Water Control Board demonstrated that state agencies do not all work well as members of a team, when it approved the permit for the wastewater treatment plant in 1966.)
When Kings Landing was proposed on Mason Neck, the Federal government was just ramping up its involvement in conservation. Fifty years ago, in 1958, Congress recognized that the baby boom would stress the existing recreation sites. It created the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. In 1963, President Kennedy signed the Outdoor Recreation Bill, and the Department of the Interior created a Bureau of Outdoor Recreation (which is now defunct, with remnant responsibilities folded into the National Park Service).
One conclusion from the commission's National Recreation Survey was "The Simple Activities Are the Most Popular. Driving and walking for pleasure, swimming, and picnicking lead the list of the outdoor activities in which Americans participate, and driving for pleasure is most popular of all. This is generally true regardless of income, education, age, or occupation." Another conclusion is that conservation would require funding.1 The Land and Water Conservation Fund Act in 1965 finally created a funding source - revenues from leases of offshore oil and gas.
In early 1965, the Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall, toured along the Potomac, looking for potential conservation sites. A resident on Mason Neck, Elizabeth Hartwell, made sure the Secretary understood the opportunity to save the eagles (and their habitat) at Mason Neck. Though uninvited, she crashed the tour. She drove in her personal car behind the official bus, getting out at each stop - though in 1965, she was wearing high heels and was unable to climb to at least one overlook.
Secretary Udall decided the Federal government should get become involved in zoning cases that could result in inappropriate development along the Potomac River, and actually wrote directly to the Fairfax County Director of Planning and to the Planning Commission. Armed with political support from President Johnson, who recognized that the Federal government could not ignore the degredation of the Potomac River, the Secretary was able to play a powerful role in the Mason Neck story. He used his position to express clear support for conserving rather than developing the peninsula - and to steer Federal funds for acquisition of key parcels.
(Today, Federal policy is to minimize involvement in local issues, and to minimize land acquisition. Funding is focused on reducing the maintenance backlog for existing Federal properties, rather than obtaining additional property that will increase the maintenance backlog.)
Housing developments were not the only threat to Mason Neck. Though it may seem odd today, in 1965 there was a special County Port Committee, created to advocate with the City Alexandria that the Army Corps of Engineers should dredge a deeper shipping channel in the river (funded by Congress, of course). The committee proposed creating a deepwater port at Belmont Bay, filing in the shallow bay with the sediment dredged up from the channel. The expectation was that industrial development at the port would provide jobs and taxes, though obviously the port facilities would transform the historical and natural environment of Mason Neck.
The logic behind the port proposal? River access is limited, and property along the river should be zoned and developed to maximize the economic potential of river access. Today, the same logic shapes the large amount of land zoned for industrial development along railroad tracks. While places with river/rail access may have value for other land uses, it's pretty hard to move the transportation network - so other places should be zoned to provide the other land uses (housing, parks, wildlife habitat).
Read:
Elizabeth Hartwell gets much of the credit for convincing Federal, state, and local officials to create a mixture of Federal, state, and regional parks/refuges. However, she did not work alone. She formerd the Mason Neck Conservation Committee, which included politicians and savvy activists who know how to generate media coverage and get support. In 1966, the Fairfax Planning Commission created a Lower Potomac Master Plan that endorsed parkland acquisition (4,695 acres) over port/housing development on Mason Neck.
Turning that proposal into actual parkland acquisition required money - and a key source was the new The Land and Water Conservation Fund. In addition, Fairfax voters approved a park bond in 1966 that provided funding for expansion of the existing Pohick Bay Regional Park. The non-profit Nature Conservancy stepped in and committed $6 million to purchase properties (including the Kings Landing holdings) to block development, and later recovered its costs by selling the property to government agencies when they had finally obtained funds.
In a creative maneuver, the new Endangered Species Act was cited to justify creating the first National Wildlife Refuge intended to protect an endangered species, the bald eagle. the US Fish and Wildlife Service normally acquired property with revenues paid by hunters - a "Duck Stamp" must be purchased in order to hunt migratory waterfowl. Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge was aquired with funds appropriated by Congress for endangered species, plus Land and Water Conservation Funds.
More recently, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) engaged in a complex land trade with developers of Laurel Hill (for site of the former Lorton prison) to acquire 800 more acres on Mason Neck. The BLM is using the old horse farm as a site for adopting wild horses and burros, which have been removed from overgrazed Federal lands in the western United States.
Mason Neck benefitted from being a conservation priority at a time when new funding became available, plus the commitment of indiviuduals who kept pushing steadily to achieve the vision of parkland. In contrast, the recent battle to conserve Crow's Nest in Stafford County has required carving out money from existing funding sources, requiring the advocates to work even harder.
In 2007, the refuge was renamed the Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge. In 2005, while testifying in support of the new name, a Federal official summed up the success of the conservation partnership that protected the southeastern cornmer of Fairfax County: "The Mason Neck peninsula currently has seven eagle nest sites (including 3 on the refuge), an eagle roost site, and a wintering population of 50-60 eagles. One of the largest blue heron rookeries in the Mid-Atlantic area, averaging 1,500 nests, is on the refuge along with the largest freshwater marsh in northern Virginia."2
Read these very short but illuminating stories on the twists and turns of the Mason Neck story:
1. "OUTDOOR RECREATION FOR AMERICA - ORRRC REPORT, 1962," National Park Service, http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/anps/anps_5d.htm (last checked April 16, 2008)
2. "Testimony Of Rick Schultz, Chief Of The Division Of Conservation, Planning, And Policy For The National Wildlife Refuge System, United States Fish And Wildlife Service, Department Of The Interior, Before The Subcommittee On Fisheries And Oceans Of The House Committee On Resources, Regarding H.R.2866, Providing For The Expansion Of The James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge, Honolulu County, Hawaii, And H.R.3682, Redesignating The Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge In Virginia As The Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge," December 6, 2005, http://www.fws.gov/laws/testimony/109th/2005/Shultz_testimony_12-106-05.html (last checked April 16, 2008)
