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Chamber of Commerce supports goals of river easement, but opposes plan's major details. Date published: 8/9/2005
By RUSTY DENNEN and EMILY BATTLE The Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce has objections to some major components of Fredericksburg's plan to protect 4,232 acres it owns on the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers. Its suggestions reflect differences among City Council members over how the river land should be preserved. The chamber's July 27 letter to Mayor Tom Tomzak states that the pro-business group supports the goals of the easement, but would like the city to find "a vehicle other than an easement" to accomplish those goals. The letter says the chamber board is pleased that the city is talking with officials in Spotsylvania and Stafford. A lot of the river land lies in these localities, and they would be affected by any easement. But the letter goes on to say that the chamber is "adamantly opposed" to a third party such as the Virginia Outdoors Foundation or The Nature Conservancy being part of the agreement. The letter also asks the city to look at other ways of funding a river steward. Chamber President Linda Worrell said yesterday that the chamber expressed similar concerns to the City Council in April 2004. She said in an e-mail response to The Free Lance-Star that the chamber has been pleased with the city's response to its concerns about preserving transportation and utility options on the land. "We still have the concerns about granting a broad-based easement to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and The Nature Conservancy whose roots are not in the Fredericksburg region." The proposed easement was hammered out by the foundation, The Nature Conservancy and Friends of the Rappahannock, a local conservation group. It would create a comprehensive framework to protect the land, while allowing access for recreation, and to local governments. The Nature Conservancy would chip in more than $1 million to create an endowment to fund a permanent river steward to patrol the land. Officials in upstream localities have worried that they could be restricted in the use of the land for future projects such as roads and water supplies, and that a third-party easement holder would tie their hands. The city's river holdings extend into Orange, Culpeper and Fauquier counties.
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