THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 14, 1996 TAG: 9606120105
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: 87 lines
The adoption Monday night of an environmental component of the city's comprehensive plan will not change Portsmouth overnight, Planning Director Jim Gildea told City Council.
But it will provide some guidelines for future activities that impact the city's quality of life.
Protecting the natural environment while using the waterways as a development asset is a balancing act. Gildea said the environmental plan should help keep the balance.
Development is necessary for Portsmouth's survival, and the plan does address the need for seeking development and, at the same time, environmental protection.
However, we do have to use practical sense in all of this.
One of the most interesting clashes of reality versus regulations was brought up Monday night by City Councilman Jim Hawks.
``What they're calling natural in Scotts Creek is not natural,'' Hawks said. ``It's been impacted over the years and now at low tide, it's just mud.''
He's right. The silt carried into the creek by runoff is unbelievable. In some places around Scotts Creek, the drain pipes under London Boulevard and Martin Luther King Freeway are almost clogged by the silt they have brought into the creek.
A huge portion of the city drains into the creek and, at the rate the creek is turning to mud, there won't be any drainage left one of these days.
Hawks raised an interesting point.
The mud flats are not natural, he said. They have been created by the runoff from all over the city for more than a century.
``I'd like to see us restore the creek to its natural state by removing all that silt,'' Hawks said.
Of course, the city would have to make the case with the environmentalists, some of whom are reluctant to concede that the ``natural'' state lies under many years of man-made gunk.
Hawks said the creek could be made navigable if it were restored to its natural bottom, now covered with several feet of silt.
Hawks and Councilman-elect Tommy Benn were talking after the meeting about the silt's depth. Benn said the last time he stood in it many years ago the mud was up to his waist.
``That's not natural,'' Hawks said.
Naturally, I was delighted to hear Hawks ask to insert a section in the new environmental plan to restore Scotts Creek. It's certainly no secret that I am part of a group of people who for about 15 years has been trying to get some action in the Northside area.
Scotts Creek is one of the city's grand and often overlooked assets.
It's incredible that the area around the creek ever was allowed to languish and deteriorate to any degree. Every planner and consultant who has been around Portsmouth during my 17 years of residency has said the Scotts Creek area is extremely important for any number of reasons.
It's a lovely residential area, easily accessible to any place a person needs to go. Ultimately, there will be water taxis to take residents from the area across the water or up the river to work or to play.
The homes in the area, especially Park View and West Park View, are fast approaching the age of antiquity. Many still reflect the turn-of-the-century feeling of the Scotts Creek neighborhoods that attracted many of the city's most prominent citizens. The area is a natural extension of Olde Towne, one of Portsmouth's greatest assets, because it is such a typical streetcar suburb.
Most importantly, however, the city does not need deteriorated neighborhoods anywhere between the tunnels. Keeping Northside healthy will help make Olde Towne and Downtown safe and prosperous.
Vision 2005 already is making a difference. A longstanding plan to dredge one small area of the creek to permit marina development on the north shore may come to fruition soon. New marinas and new housing, compatible with the neighborhood, probably will be developed within the next several years.
The restoration of the creek and its arms to the original natural bottoms, making the water navigable to small boats while maintaining the marshes, could speed up the rehabilitation of Northside.
The image of Portsmouth as a boating community would be greatly enhanced with the creation of more navigable areas along the shoreline near the zero mile post on the Intracoastal Waterway.
Hawks suggested that the neighborhoods might want to look into using money available for storm-water management to restore the creek and its tributaries to their natural bottoms.
That makes sense. Other neighborhoods use the money to install pipelines and cover ditches. In some instances, their storm-water runoff is impacting on Scotts Creek.
Northside residents perhaps can petition the government to use storm-water management fees available to them for cleaning out the silt that creates unnatural mud flats in Scotts Creek.
KEYWORDS: SCOTTS CREEK by CNB