Work continues on Lewes’s Fourth Street Preserve, even as several permits are going through the approval process.
The 30-acre site is owned by the city and work has been underway for several months to make it into a protected space for native animals and plants. One priority is developing trails throughout the area for people to enjoy.
Jim Ford, a member of a task force overseeing the implementation of the site’s master plan, told members of the city’s Fourth Street Preserve subcommittee they have been able to work on some of the trails.
“We're going to do what we can do, where we can do it,” he said. “So we're going to get into the areas, fill in the trail. There's been mowing that's occurred with the city.”
More work on the trails depends on heavy equipment, and in order to bring in bigger machines, permits from the federal government are required. One of those permits would give workers permission to operate noisy machinery closer to the home of a bald eagle pair that moved into the preserve.
“The proximity that we're allowed, the public's allowed, to encroach into this area will be determined by this permit,” Ford said. “I know the permit's been submitted.”
Another set of permits, issued by the Army Corps of Engineers and DNREC, would allow the construction of culverts to allow heavy equipment to cross ditches on the site to continue work on the trails. While the plan originally incorporated bridges, members of the task force now prefer culverts because they are easier to construct and less intrusive.
City officials are working with members of the state’s congressional delegation to expedite the permits.
Work on a groundwater study is also on the horizon. Scott Wilkinson, a member of the task force, says that the site’s five monitoring wells will be checked monthly for the next year.
“It's going to guide us strategically to put the right plants in the right place and ultimately increase the survival rates,” he said.
The task force plans to put in some 700 native plants, pollinators, and trees in the coming months.
