20210224 Ver 1_Public Notice Comments_20211027 (91)

Public Notice Comment Form
ID#*
20210224
Project Name*
West Point
First Name
Jennifer
Affiliation (if applicable)
member of the Eno River Association
Phone Number
9199323430
Version *
1
Number only.
Last Name
Nygard
Email *
[e-mail]
*** The intent for collecting an email address is to allow us send you a receipt for submittal of this comment.
Please pick the response below that represents your stance on the above mentioned project?*
Yes - I agree with the project. No - I do not agree with the project.
Comment
This proposed 379 unit housing development adjoins the historic West Point on the Eno City Park, which sits on
the banks of the Eno River. Such a high density development on Black Meadow Ridge will be environmentally
harmful to the Eno River and the natural parklands, bringing increased flooding, run-off sedimentation, heavy
metal pollution, and sewage spillovers. (which have already occurred there.) There are numerous aquatic
bioindicators of a healthy river at that location including rare freshwater mussels, the endangered Neuse River
Waterdog and the endangered Madtom. The effort to preserve the river at West Point on the Eno was a notable
hardwon conservation victory, which started in 1969 and was celebrated after years of controversy in 1976. The
park first opened for the weeklong statewide Bicentennial Folklife Festival. In the decades since then thousands
have enjoyed the river park and it's unspoiled natural character. Black Meadow Ridge should be preserved as a
part of the park as it is now unspoiled forestland, which historically was part of the West Point rural community of
the past. It took an environmental impact statement to save West Point on the Eno in the 1970's, and I believe an
environmental impact statement should be done for Black Meadow Ridge, the proposed development site. There
is too much at stake for the health of the Eno to allow such a massive development to adjoin the park. Two
tributaries run directly to the Eno from the ridge, Black Meadow Creek and Warren Creek. If this development
with its hardscape surfaces occurs, the polluted creeks will forever degrade the natural habitat of the river and its
quality as a major water source for Raleigh at Falls Lake and as a water source for Durham at Teer Quarry.
Furthermore West Point on the Eno is known to flood, and homes at the Old Farm subdivision on the other side
of Roxboro Road have been subject to flooding ever since they were built in the 1970's. Such a high -density
development combined with the effects of climate change will bring much worsened flooding. A public hearing
must occur for all these reasons.
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Submitted on:

Re: Durham Development Case No. D1900225
Black Meadow Ridge Site Plan Review
October 15, 2021
To Whom It May Concern:
I request that this letter regarding the preservation of Black Meadow Ridge as a natural place for
posterity be placed in the OFFICIAL ADMINISTRATIVE RECORD case file for the ABOVE
CASE no. D1900225.
In 1969 the Eno River Association initiated the early effort to preserve West Point on the Eno.
As the daughter of Margaret and Holger Nygard I witnessed and was closely involved in that
effort. Beyond fighting to protect that stretch of the Eno, the Eno Association strove to save the
McCown -Mangum House and the old gristmill known as West Point Mill which still stood at
the time on the banks of the river. The struggle took place at the same time as the endeavor to
create the Eno River State Park. North Carolina's preeminent historian Jean Anderson wrote
most of the historical part of the environmental impact statement, which helped to turn the
daunting struggle their way. As soon as it was determined an environmental impact statement
could include historical information presenting the cultural as well as the environmental value
of the site, historians across the region began intensive research to help save West Point. That
environmental tool had just been created by then President Richard Nixon as reported in a local
newspaper. My mother saved a clipping of that article along with the rough drafts of the impact
statement which she helped write and edit. It is my further understanding that the document
assembled to save West Point was significant as the first environmental impact statement ever
implemented in our state to save a natural, historic place. It proved effective along with a
battery of urgent telegrams in halting the bulldozers which had already intruded at West Point,
unfortunately not before they had sheared off the front porch of the McCown -Mangum House,
which ultimately came to be placed on the National Register.
Those who wish to protect and keep the Eno an unspoiled river again find themselves in a
pivotal moment. Fifty years on West Point yet again lies under threat, this time from the
proposed massive 379 house development adjoining the river, which so callously has been
assigned either the name West Point or Point Ridge Park, either name citing the very location it
would harm. Words Jean Anderson wrote in the 1970's in the environmental impact statement
apply today to describe the significance of Black Meadow Branch and Black Meadow Ridge.
"As the Eno River runs between present day Guess and Roxboro Roads, it passes by a
succession of islands and over two major falls. By Roxboro Road a pair of companion streams
enter the river on the south bank which are known as Black Meadow Branch and White
Meadow Branch. One deed dated 1794 gives directions "to cross the meadows to a stake above
the meadow spring." From early deeds like this one, there is evidence that the meadows which
give the Meadow Branches their names were in existence in an extensive way before the white
man came to settle. And there is further evidence from local people that these meadows were
once occupied by a huge Indian settlement. ... The old mill standing by the Eno river just west
of Roxboro Road is all that is left to us of some 24 mills that once dotted the river ... The history
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of [each of] these mills, of the land it stood on, its owners and millers is noteworthy; none,
however has held so long and prominent a place in the history of this area as the mill and its
surroundings at Roxboro Road."
In 1976 the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources held a week long Bicentennial
Folklife Festival at the newly created city park of West Point on the Eno, a celebration attended
by thousands from across the state. My mother jubilantly announced from the stage that the Eno
River Association had just stopped a high rise office building from being built on the site as
hundreds of people cheered. Years of hard work followed to create and preserve the historic
park. The mill had to be rebuilt from the ground up as it had had been swept away in a flood
before the site could be secured. The McCown -Mangum House was restored by the Junior
League, who donated both funds and their volunteer labor. It was blessed by the gift of original
family furnishings from the Mangum family. The Pack House, which had been the studio of
Victorian photographer, Hugh Mangum, was restored as a photography museum in his honor,
the glass negatives he left behind placed in archival care at Duke as a public resource by gift of
his daughter and descendants. Mangum has recently come to be world famous for his
captivating photographs of black and white citizens of North Carolina and Virginia. Though he
worked in the Jim Crow South, he clearly did not operate a segregated studio. The images he
made of the Sennett Hole, the milldam, and the house and mill are all the more precious a
resource.
Rebuilding the traditional operational gristmill took years. Architect Peter Warner drew the
plans to rebuild the mill, informed by some of Mangum's photographs. Significantly one image
shows the mill awash in flood waters at the turn of the 19th century, the curious silhouette of a
fish weathervane atop. He designed a high open foundation so the new mill might, it was
hoped, better withstand any future flood. Master British millwright, Derek Ogden, rebuilt the
massive oak hurst frame independent of the building to support the millstones. Black Meadow
Branch is actually a millstream. Notably the mill's race, the waterway which turns the
waterwheel, is jointly fed by Black Meadow Branch, which emerges from the high grounds of
Black Meadow Ridge, and also by Eno waters corralled by the milldam. What happens on the
ridge is certain to affect the mill.
In those efforts initiated half a century ago, nothing was easily accomplished. It took the
involvement of hundreds of people, most of them volunteers, and had the support of
thousands. My mother was still Head of the Mill Committee at the time of her passing in 1995,
hard at work in the consecutive endeavors to stop Eno Drive and to save Occoneechee
Mountain in Hillsborough from development. Unquestionably if she were still here she would
be battling the proposed development of Black Meadow Ridge, which is a terrible threat to the
Eno. That threat is magnified by the reality of global warming and climate change, which now
brings increased rainfall and flooding.
The hard surfaces of a major development, where natural forest land has long gone
undisturbed, is a direct hazard for both the park and the river. Much of that land has been
identified as containing four Keystone Parcels crucial for protecting watershed. Covering that
land with the hard surfaces of the proposed development would cause sedimentation and run-
off unacceptably detrimental to the ecological balance and purity of the river. It would hinder
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the protection of native plant and animal life now thriving in the park. It would bring the dual
threat of sewage mishaps and run-off pollution. It would bring flooding on a scale never before
known at West Point. There is some question as to whether West Point Mill, itself, would be left
standing as it sits squarely in the path of this massive artificial alteration of the surrounding
landscape. The denuded, developed land above the river will have become an unabsorbant,
impermeable hardscape - no longer the landscape it should remain.
Mangum himself photographed the most remote place in the city park at West Point, the
legendary Sennett Hole, which is named for the renowned eccentric miller who had a mill there
in colonial times and left many tales behind. (He lost his own mill to a flood.) Cramming a line
of modern, high -end houses on the blasted crest of Black Meadow Ridge over looking the path
to the Sennett Hole, which is the biggest and deepest swimming hole on the river, would be an
unconscionable intrusion on a natural place long beloved for privacy and recreation. Those
privileged few will get a stunning view to the greater loss of the community that treasures this
quiet, remote place in the heart of Durham.
Now, with no regard for the huge public effort that has taken place for decades to protect the
Eno, a single developer has been endowed by a single City planner, who signed off irregularly
(if not illegally) on a pet development - endowed with the power to irreparably damage a place
that was so hard fought for and so hard won by so many. Whether that egregious event
occurred by lack of oversight, by ignorance, or by complicity, there has been no process of
public input as to the effects of his development on West Point and on the natural and
historic place he intends alone to alter forever. It is an outrage that an excavator has already
been launched to cut a destructive swath across that land without any formal process of citizen
input and without careful governmental oversight. In 1969 at the time the battle to save West
Point had just begun Eno Drive loomed, as did the plan to dam the river, and my father, Holger
Nygard, admonished the then city council about another such incursion against the river.
Although the issues he cites were the reservoir and road, we now face similar destruction from
a massive development which overshadows West Point. Printed in a story on the front page of
"The Durham Morning Herald," the words with which he addressed city officials ring true
today and the harm the new development would bring are unsurprisingly as ever "tarmac and
water."
"Both the distantly proposed reservoir and the imminent thoroughfare as things are presently
planned would do Durham's river, the Eno, irreparable damage," Nygard said.
Pointing out the historic significance of the ... River, he said "It is first recorded in 1654 by two
gentlemen from Virginia ... Our earliest explorers, John Lederer, John Lawson, and Arthur
Needham, walked along the Eno and had colorful adventures on its banks, these very banks
around Durham that the city administration is wishing to put under tarmac and water."
Leveling the city council directly in his sight, Nygard charged, "the city administration has long
been aware that it is a unique area studied for its botany by both Duke and UNC. Yet this area
within the last two months with the full understanding of our city officials has come into the
hands of developers. In the last two months this area, which is too steep to build upon, has
become a dumping spot for garbage and the trunks of large trees uprooted from the new
development. This is outright negligence on the part of the city administration permitted in the
spirit that since nobody knows nobody will care."
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The health of the Eno again lies in the balance. Black Meadow Ridge has been identified as a
rare pocket of biodiversity at a critical time when the world is experiencing calamitous habitat
and species loss. While West Point itself is a protected pocket of flora and fauna, it is highly
vulnerable to the loss of adjoining habitat on Black Meadow Ridge. Substantial habitat loss on
the ridge will have a direct detrimental impact on natural habitat in the West Point parkland.
There are a multitude of compelling reasons for the City of Durham to preserve Black Meadow
Ridge. As Jean Anderson wrote the name Black Meadow Branch testifies to the presence of
indigenous people long before any white man was here. It is a rare thing that amid the
burgeoning traffic and commercial and residential property of Durham there is still such an
untouched place, former meadowland once cleared by the Eno Indians who gave the river their
name. Black Meadow Ridge also contains the historic black Holman Family Cemetery which
should be caringly kept for posterity. A preserved Black Meadow Ridge "would be a place to
visit for recreation and reflection, to consider the mixed blessings of our past which are
inextricably a part of present day Durham." These are words my mother wrote in 1974 about
the place called West Point whose larger surroundings include the Black Meadow Branch and
Warren Creek, Eno tributaries emerging from Black Meadow Ridge.
The City of Durham now has a dual opportunity and responsibility to hold the line and protect
Black Meadow Ridge from development. By doing so they will continue to protect the Eno
River, which was saved by the herculean effort of a great many people. By doing so they
continue to protect Durham's historic park at West Point, itself so hard won. By doing so they
will continue to protect the water quality of the Eno which the City of Raleigh downstream
depends on.
The Eno, Durham's and Hillsborough's river, is a treasure, one which requires your care to keep
it so. West Point on the Eno, the historic park, is also a treasure. Do not allow one person with
improperly garnered "permission" to heedlessly alter these historic, natural places forever to
his own ends. That no proper environmental assessment has taken place is an utter travesty. Do
not allow the travesty of a governmental misstep in 2016 to lead to environmental tragedy and
perpetual loss. The value of the natural river to the City of Durham, to Raleigh, and to the larger
state is incalculable. The Eno and its environs must be kept protected for current and future
generations.
Yours truly,
Jennifer K. Nygard
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