Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy
People and Wildlife Living in Harmony

    July 2011

PLEASE TAKE ACTION:

SAVE 190 ACRES of SENSITIVE FOREST AND WETLANDS FROM DEMOLITION!
Please take one minute to call your Supervisor (703-777-0100) AND send an email (bos@loudoun.gov). Please let them know how you feel about the proposed rezoning for Stonewall Secure Business Park. Come to the Public Hearing on Monday (July 18, 6:30 pm, Government Center, Leesburg) and bring your email. Raise our voice for wildlife!

Approval of this rezoning request, located between Leesburg and Ashburn, on Sycolin Rd, would result in clearing of 190 acres of mature hardwood forest, wetlands and archeological sites and construction of a 3.9 MILLION square foot business park/data center (TWICE the size of the Dulles Town Center)!

Furthermore, approval of the rezoning violates our County's Comprehensive Plan and Transition Plan, setting a precedent for further rezoning in this critical area.

Currently, this property is zoned as low density allowing up to19 residential units with 70% open space required because this area is WIDELY RECOGNIZED for its unique environmental and cultural features. Current zoning needs to stay in place.

Our Position:

Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy requests that the Board of Supervisors deny rezoning for the Stonewall Secure Business Park.  This area is an extremely critical and environmentally sensitive area and the development use proposed is inappropriate for this location.  This land needs to be preserved as a Transition Area as currently zoned.  Our opposition to this rezoning is as follows:
1) Destroys Environmentally Sensitive Area: This property contains high quality mature hardwood forest and a SIGNIFICANT area of sensitive wetlands. These are incredibly productive habitats for wildlife that also play a key role in filtering our water supply. If approved, thousands of trees will be clear-cut.

It also contains a culturally significant archaeological site which includes a 19th c. pottery kiln, the likes of which are not found elsewhere in the County.

You cannot reproduce this combination elsewhere once destroyed.
2) Causes Potential Harm to Water Supply: This location is in the heart of the watershed for the Goose Creek and at least half of this property drains in to the Goose Creek above the drinking water intake. Development at this extreme removes all protection and natural filtration of water running into our water supply. Furthermore, the significant amount of steep slopes here increases the potential for the development to impact our streams.
3) Further Threatens Likely Wood Turtle Populations: Wood Turtles are a State Threatened species and are known to live in waterways adjacent to this property. This habitat is ideal for Wood Turtles and we expect that Wood Turtles will be found if surveys were performed at the right time of year. This survey has not been completed. Wood turtles require BOTH streams and forest to survive. It is not enough to simply protect the stream. Clear-cutting forest WILL impact any populations present. Wood Turtles spend most of the spring and summer in mixed or deciduous forests, fields, and riparian wetlands. Then they return to streams in late summer or early fall to their favored overwintering location.
Wood turtles require both forests and streams to survive
4) Further Degrades our Ecosystem: Removing that much forest and destroying that much open space will further contribute to our air pollution problems. This is a huge area of undeveloped habitat which links with other forested properties designed to protect our environment.  The removal of forests and their replacement with pavement and rooftops results in the “heat –island” effect where heat is trapped by blacktop and radiated out, intensifying air pollution.

5) Guts Ability to Pursue our Comprehensive Plan: This proposal contradicts what Loudoun residents have endorsed for years and worked cooperatively to establish in the Comprehensive Plan. Our Comprehensive Plan established safeguards for our environment and the Transition Area, where this property sits, was one of these. Approval of this rezoning violates that Plan in ways beyond the environmental impacts and sets the precedence for further violation.

6) Not Needed for Loudoun: Other sites in Loudoun would support a secure business park/data center, already have adequate road infrastructure to support them and are not in such sensitive environmental locations. Rezoning at this location does not fill any unmet needs. It only destroys something remarkable.

This property was zoned as low density allowing up to19 residential units with 70% open space required because this area is WIDELY RECOGNIZED for its environmental and cultural significance.  We ask the Board of Supervisors to DENY the Stonewall Secure Business Park rezoning and retain the existing designation and policies for the Transition Area.
For more information about Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy
and our programs, visit our website
www.loudounwildlife.org