Huntley Meadows Reopens Eco-Friendly Boardwalk

Huntley Meadows Park celebrated the reopening of their newly constructed boardwalk with a ribbon-cutting ceremony early Saturday morning and the long-awaited event drew community supporters from all over Fairfax County.

Since August, the boardwalk has been closed to visitors while crews worked to replace the boards while standing in one of the rarest habitats in the country. The surface of the half-mile long lumber boardwalk, first constructed in 1993, was replaced with high-density polyethylene boards that are made of 100 percent recycled materials. The 132,269 pounds of plastic came from 965,568 milk jugs collected from a recycling plant in Chicago.  

“For Huntley Meadows Park, we’ve this wonderful dual mission of environmental education and resource protection, and this boardwalk is sort of the perfect marriage of those two," park manager Kevin Munroe said. “It’s an excellent opportunity for education, obviously, and it’s done in a way that allows us to protect our resources. Every project, every program, every development we do in the park, we always try to keep that two-pronged mission in mind, of environmental education and resource protection.”

Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay reported that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors recently dedicated dozens of acres to Huntley Meadows behind Hayfield Farm off of Telegraph Road and emphasized that the park is continually growing. The land will be protected indefinitely as a result of the transfer and McKay said he is excited to have his four year-old daughter be able to explore the park.

“We’re also working on some major improvements to the parking lot and the entrance off of Kings Highway,” McKay said. “As we embark on a road improvement project in that area, it will inevitably improve drainage and the natural habit, add a parking lot and a much safer access for the visitors coming to the park in that area. ”

Friends of Huntley Meadows board member Adam Bucher thanked the staff of the park, the TMJ construction crew and the community for its support. He ended his remarks with a reading of a poem by President Kathi McNeil, who was unable to attemd.

“The staff have done an excellent job managing this project," Bucher said. "Hopefully this material will last quite a bit longer than the one that was here before and be much less of a hazard tripping and splintering wise."

“To everyone in the community that came here to support this event, this was a huge commitment for the Park Authority, especially in times of such financial trouble," he said. "We’re going to continue to need your support to show that projects like this are really, really important and continued to be needed to support the community.”

After the ribbon cutting, Munroe took visitors on a walk along the boardwalk to view birds and other indigenous animals in the wetland.

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