Mary Burritt: Mayo River State Park is growing

Keith Martin, superintendent of the Mayo River State Park, remains unperturbed as he eyes the meager crowd attending last week’s hurricane-delayed, wind-whipped celebration of the park system’s centennial anniversary.

He knows there are big plans afoot to make his park, and Rockingham County, a compelling destination for outdoor enthusiasts, and he expects one of those plans to be complete by the end of the year: The Piedmont Land Conservancy is transferring to the Mayo River State Park 354 acres flanking the river for 3.6 miles on its west bank and 2.8 miles on the east.

The transferred property will link five of the park’s 14 land tracts, at last creating a continuous swath of river frontage capable of accommodating trails, boating access and parking.

Meanwhile, the town of Mayodan has voted to acquire the riverside Washington Mills property and a second tract of river frontage, and nonprofits, municipalities and county officials are each working on their respective visions of the Rockingham County Pathways Plan, which suggests developing and protecting outdoor assets countywide.

Martin, therefore, takes the long view when assessing the future of the 6-year-old Mayo River State Park.

“Western Rockingham County right now is sort of a sleepy bedroom community, but it won’t always be,” Martin says. “What we need to do now is prepare for the people who are going to be coming.”

Mike Brandt, Mayodan town manager, thinks like Martin. “We’re the closest town to the (park’s) main access, so it’s a great resource for people coming to the community,” he says.

Adding river frontage, especially tracts contiguous to park-owned parcels, will leverage trails and boating access, boosting the area’s economic development.

To that end, Mayodan’s town council earlier this month agreed to take ownership of the Washington Mills site, a narrow parcel of nearly 15 acres between the train tracks and the Mayo river running north from the N.C. 135 bridge, by paying off a $90,000 lien against the previous owner. The council also voted to accept the donation of a second tract comprised of 13 acres south of the town’s former wastewater treatment plant.

Now the real work begins.

The first priority is paying the lien. “We’re trying to put as small a burden as possible on the citizens of Mayodan,” Brandt says, noting, for perspective, that the town’s general fund is $2.7 million annually. Mayodan will try to get grant money to pay the debt before pursuing a loan.

Once the lien is paid, the town can move on to planning the land use; getting an environmental assessment to identify contaminants; cleaning it up; and finally, developing the site. “But we’re not anywhere close to that,” Brandt warns.

To minimize the taxpayers’ burden, Mayodan already is pursuing three funding sources.

• The town could hear as early as next month about its $100,000 grant application to the RiverBank Fund to pay for the planning and development of the Washington Mills property.
• There’s no guesstimate on when or how the Duke Energy Water Resources Fund will answer the town’s request for $100,000 in cleanup money.
• Mayodan is one of the municipalities that could receive money for community outreach, planning and contamination studies from a regional Brownfield grant applied for by the Piedmont Triad Regional Council.

In an email, Brandt rattles off a myriad of other nonprofit and government grant sources the town will explore, from Parks and Recreation trust funds to the Environmental Protection Agency to the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust.

“It’s a very big process and a very big project, and we’re going to take advantage of what opportunities are out there,” Brandt says. “We’re tapping as many funding sources as we can.”

Consequently, he adds, “at this time there is no specific timeline due to the many moving parts and potentially complicated cleanup requirements.”

Martin says the state park system wants to “look into acquiring land at the Mayo River corridor in the lower stretches along the confluence with the Dan River. That would support public access and also work well with the goals of local municipalities and other stakeholders to develop a greenway.”

A greenway is one of the goals of a group Mark Richardson, vice chairman of the Rockingham County Board of Commissioners, says he’s involved with. “We’re looking at opportunities to establish a greenway and mountain bike trails in close proximity to Belews Lake. You’re going to get a lot about this in the next month or so, I hope.”

Talks are too preliminary to say more, he adds, but “depending on the availability of assets to build (the trails) and the land to put them on, those announcements should be forthcoming in the new year.”

Whether river frontage is owned by the state park system or a municipality, Martin says, making the parcels virtually contiguous through joint agreements is the best way to protect it. The Mayo River is home to 11 different species of organisms ranging in conservation status from special to federally endangered.

“Contiguous is a good word when talking about a riverine park.”