DATE: Tuesday, August 19, 1997              TAG: 9708190004
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial
                                            LENGTH:   40 lines

CHESAPEAKE NATURE TRAIL SAVE THE TREES

Last December, things were looking bleak for a small woods at the Chesapeake municipal center.

Plans called for clear-cutting the trees to make way for 700 parking spaces. A soul-soothing nature trail was to be reduced to a barren exercise path around a parking lot.

But wait! Our friends, the trees, and the nature trail may be saved, for the most part.

Carl Edwards, a Chesapeake contractor and environmentalists, obtained 700 signatures on a petition to save the trees.

He subsequently was named as the only nongovernmental member of a five-person committee to seek a better way, and the committee appears to have found one.

It has proposed a compromise plan that preserves most of the nature trail and the small woods. To make room for 400 parking spaces, 300 fewer than initially proposed, many trees, a baseball field, an open field and a third of the nature trail would be lost.

Claire R. Askew, director of the city's Parks and Recreation Department, told the committee, ``I'm so glad you've decided to leave a little green space.''

The committee's proposal has gone to City Manager John L. Pazour for review. If approved, the proposal would go on to the Capital Projects Review Committee, which could submit it to the City Council for consideration.

Many steps remain, so the trees aren't out of the woods yet, so to speak.

But the muncipal center needs a touch of serenity, and employees who use the nature trail will be healthier for it.

As was written previously, a warm breeze off the blacktop, the pungent essence of engine exhaust, the neat white lines denoting parking spaces - these are not the stuff of hikers' dreams.

Chesapeake should save as many trees as possible and preserve the trail. Generations to come will be grateful.

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