This approximately 1.5 mile recon was sponsored by the
Mid County Civic Association of Prince William,
led by Martin Jeter and took place on Saturday, January 13, 2024. There were between 60 and 75 participants on this hike. The address of this future park is: 5901 Davis Ford Road, Manassas, VA. It is not open to the public yet.
As usual I was one of the first to show up for this hike. It was a former sewage treatment plant that was being transformed into a future Prince William County, VA park. I thought that no one was going to show up for this one but by about 9:55 AM, about 40 vehicles entered the area.
There were a number of political people there from various government agencies as well as representatives of various area trail clubs and organizations. Everyone there wanted to see the new park and hear about what the future held in store for it.
Around 10:00 AM Martin gave a spiel about the history of the land from around the 1960’s to the present. Long story short, it was a former sewage treatment plant for a nearby development. As the area began to transition from rural to suburban, they realized that the plant was not conducive to the area.
The way the plant worked was that it partially treated the sewage from the development, then, undeground pipes would spray the material around the surrounding forest.The plant closed once sewer lines going to the county sewage treatment plant were built in the early 1970’s. There was a cleanup of the area and it sat dormant for about twenty years.
In the early 2000’s there was a movement to convert the area into a park. But bureaucracy took it’s toll on the process and the funding for the master plan for the park was not secured until the end of 2023. Since this park is very close to fruition, we got a sneak peak at it today.
This park is 57 acres in size. There are a series of rolling hills leading down to Crooked Creek. You can see nice houses close to the borders of this park. There are no existing trails here. We did three up and backs as “spokes” to explore this park. Each “spoke” had it’s own unique charactor and beauty. We could see the remnants of the old sprinklers on one, a nice view on another and a pile of stones that many theries were put forth as to how they got there on the final “spoke”.
Various people gave talks along the way. The weather was cool at the beginning, then a few sprinkles right before we started, then nice and sunny in the middle of the recon and then cloudy and windy at the end. We were done by around 12 noon. I learned a lot about this parcel of land today, met some very nice people and had a generally nice time. My only complaint is that I wished that there was more hiking and less talking. But that’s just me. The hike leader Martin did a good job, especially with the amount of people that he had to keep track of.
Mike C
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