HomeMy WebLinkAboutSDP200900004 Legacy Document 2009-08-18 (2)August 15, 2009
To whom it may concern,
I am writing in response to the request to build a cell phone tower, on a steep rocky slope above
the Rivanna River, in the Key West subdivision. My background is as Chief of Forest Research
with the Virginia Department of Forestry, and since retirement I have been active with the
environmental community and natural history education.
I have spent many years working in and exploring the Piedmont of Virginia. There are fern
colonies on talus slopes (steep boulder fields) on parts of that slope that are very unusual, even
unique. They are too steep and rocky to have been cleared for agriculture, and the fern colonies
are certainly hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of years old.
In addition, the toe slope (concave slope at the foot of the slope, where it joins the floodplain) is
unusually rich, and in the spring is carpeted with wildflowers.
It seems to me that this site is an extremely poor choice for construction of a cell tower. There
must be other possibilities for a cell tower site, but there are probably no other Piedmont sites that
equal this one for fern colonies and few that have such rich wildflower colonies.
Sincerely yours,
Tom Dierauf
2514 Hillwood PI.
Charlottesville, VA 22901