National Water Trail Ready For Public Comment

Thursday, October 07, 2010

 

Four hundred years ago, Englishman John Smith and fellow adventurers set off on a journey to explore nearly 3,000 miles of the Chesapeake Bay, including waterways throughout the Historic Triangle.

Smith’s journey was significant enough that Congress designated the routes his team took as the first national historic water trail, which was officially launched on May 12, 2007, as part of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Virginia. The National Park Service is now looking for citizen input on the future of the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail.

The NPS has finished its draft comprehensive management plan and environmental assessment of the water trail. This plan outlines how the trail will be developed and managed over the next 10 to 15 years, assesses the potential environmental and cultural impacts, and identifies what’s important and significant along the trail.

The NPS has held a series of public open houses and workshops over the past two years to gather public input, and they’re now opening the final 30-day public comment period on the plan they’ve just crafted.

There are four alternatives for the trail’s management set out in the draft plan, and each alternative listed is followed by a discussion on the planning team’s thoughts and earlier public input.

The third alternative is the one preferred by the planning team. This recommendation would emphasize interpreting and protecting the world of the Chesapeake as Smith encountered it, including protecting the natural environment and complex American Indian cultures.

Visitors would travel the trail on land and water and would have a variety of recreational experiences along the way, including fishing, hiking, biking and picnicking as well as interpretive experiences at various voyage stops and archaeological sites.

Visitor contact stations, interpretive and educational centers, national wildlife refuges and other sites would be available to people as they traveled the trail. Dotting the train would be interpretive and educational programs, living history exhibits and reenactments of voyage events along with environmental stewardship programs.

This plan calls for a “greatly expanded” network of public access sites within federal, state, and local parks as well as on national wildlife refuges and private conservation lands. Access would be pull-offs with trail views, trails to the water, day-use facilities near the water and boat access sites.

Land trails would be expanded, as would car routes along the trail, which would connect to the visitor sites.

The NPS Chesapeake Bay Office would be responsible for the trail planning, management and development in coordination with the Chesapeake Bay gateways and Watertrails Network program and the Chesapeake Conservancy.

“With continuing public involvement, development of this first national water trail will respond to visitor-identified needs and preferred experiences,” said John Maounis, superintendent of the trail.

“The promise of the trail is to help the millions of people in the Chesapeake region to experience, understand, and care to protect the natural beauty and resources of the Bay.”

View the full draft plan on the trail’s planning website. The NPS prefers comments to be posted online here, but the public can also email comments to CAJO_Superintendent@nps.gov or by letter.

“By providing Chesapeake experiences in the context of Smith’s 17th-century explorations, the trail will lead to greater awareness of the importance of the Bay and what is needed to restore and sustain this national treasure,” according to the trail website.

“Smith’s map and writings influenced exploration and settlement of eastern North America for many generations, and they are a remarkable record of the native cultures and the natural environment of the 17th-century Chesapeake.”