Blacksburg Woman Fights Against Virginia Tech Building Plans
by Gwen Sheldon
Original release date: April 10, 2012
Blacksburg resident Rebekah Paulson has a simple message for the community: “We have to save the trees.”
On March 30, the trees in Stadium Woods were just beginning to bud. The 11-acre old-growth forest behind Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech is a diverse collection of plants and animals. Slim, young plant roots intertwine with those of thick, hundred-year-old oaks.
Paulson stands in front of the forest, approaching every dog walker and stranger who ventures near. “Did you know?” she often begins. “Did you know they are going to cut down the trees?”
She then tells anyone who stays to listen about the fate of the forest.
The Fate of the Forest
Virginia Tech has plans to flatten part of Stadium Woods to build an athletic building. A Washington Post article outlines an area of four acres in the woods where the athletic facility is planned.
Ty Hodges, junior at Virginia Tech and sports reporter for the ESPN Blacksburg radio station, said the new facility would improve the football program.
“The goal is to eventually connect the newly built locker room, the outdoor practice field, and the new indoor facility,” Hodges said. “At the end of the day, this debate comes down to sentimentality versus utility. I believe that the campus will get more benefit from this facility versus a quarter of these woods.”
Old Growth
On April 9, John Seiler, a forestry professor at Virginia Tech, said that a new ground survey determined that the size of the forest is smaller than originally reported by the forestry department. What was once thought to be a 15 to 20 acre woods was discovered to be much smaller.
“It’s actually a little over 11 acres,” Seiler said. “The larger number came from an estimate from Google maps of the overhead canopy of the forest.”
Seiler estimates that the area of impact from the building would affect up to 50 percent of the forest. “God himself is the only one who could drop a building onto the forest without harming a single tree around it,” he said.
Seiler said that an old-growth forest has both live and dead plants, providing a self-sustaining cycle of nutrients for new growth. “In theory, Stadium Woods could sustain itself forever,” he said. “This building they are planning has a life span of 50 years.”
Paulson said the fact that Stadium Woods is an old-growth forest was the driving motivation behind her efforts to save it. Before she lived in Blacksburg, Paulson worked at the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C., where she assisted in a project that mapped the gradual loss of the earth’s old-growth forests.
“[Stadium Woods] may be the only one of its size in the east coast, maybe in the country, with this many old growth trees,” Paulson said. “When I found out that the woods was an old-growth forest, I said ‘this is crazy, let’s build the practice facility somewhere else and save the woods’.”
A Race Against Time
In November of 2011, Paulson said she read an article in The Roanoke Times that detailed Virginia Tech’s plans to build an athletic facility on the old-growth forest behind Lane Stadium. “I immediately started writing letters and getting the word out,” Paulson said.
Paulson is now co-organizer of the group Friends of Stadium Woods. The group website features facts about the woods and a link to an online petition for community members to sign. As of April 10, the petition has over 5,000 signatures.
Paulson said she began activism for nature at a young age. “There was this one favorite cigar tree I had and it was going to be cut down…to widen the road,” Paulson said. “And I said ‘I will climb in that tree and sit there so it won’t be cut down.’ They didn’t cut it down. I saved that tree.”
Now, Paulson is trying to save acres of trees. This time, she is not working alone. Dr. Jeff Kirwan, a retired Virginia Tech professor, is assisting Paulson and other members of the Friends of Stadium Woods.
“I worked on a project to classify all the trees in Stadium Woods,” Dr. Kirwan said. “I realized that people didn’t know what they had [in the woods]. People need to know what they have so they can appreciate it. Otherwise, they’ll just throw it away.”
In 2011, Virginia Tech created a committee to review the plans to build the athletic facility on the forest. With the committee set to make a decision in the beginning of June, Paulson is in a race against time to get the word out to the community.
On March 30, the trees in Stadium Woods were just beginning to bud. The 11-acre old-growth forest behind Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech is a diverse collection of plants and animals. Slim, young plant roots intertwine with those of thick, hundred-year-old oaks.
Paulson stands in front of the forest, approaching every dog walker and stranger who ventures near. “Did you know?” she often begins. “Did you know they are going to cut down the trees?”
She then tells anyone who stays to listen about the fate of the forest.
The Fate of the Forest
Virginia Tech has plans to flatten part of Stadium Woods to build an athletic building. A Washington Post article outlines an area of four acres in the woods where the athletic facility is planned.
Ty Hodges, junior at Virginia Tech and sports reporter for the ESPN Blacksburg radio station, said the new facility would improve the football program.
“The goal is to eventually connect the newly built locker room, the outdoor practice field, and the new indoor facility,” Hodges said. “At the end of the day, this debate comes down to sentimentality versus utility. I believe that the campus will get more benefit from this facility versus a quarter of these woods.”
Old Growth
On April 9, John Seiler, a forestry professor at Virginia Tech, said that a new ground survey determined that the size of the forest is smaller than originally reported by the forestry department. What was once thought to be a 15 to 20 acre woods was discovered to be much smaller.
“It’s actually a little over 11 acres,” Seiler said. “The larger number came from an estimate from Google maps of the overhead canopy of the forest.”
Seiler estimates that the area of impact from the building would affect up to 50 percent of the forest. “God himself is the only one who could drop a building onto the forest without harming a single tree around it,” he said.
Seiler said that an old-growth forest has both live and dead plants, providing a self-sustaining cycle of nutrients for new growth. “In theory, Stadium Woods could sustain itself forever,” he said. “This building they are planning has a life span of 50 years.”
Paulson said the fact that Stadium Woods is an old-growth forest was the driving motivation behind her efforts to save it. Before she lived in Blacksburg, Paulson worked at the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C., where she assisted in a project that mapped the gradual loss of the earth’s old-growth forests.
“[Stadium Woods] may be the only one of its size in the east coast, maybe in the country, with this many old growth trees,” Paulson said. “When I found out that the woods was an old-growth forest, I said ‘this is crazy, let’s build the practice facility somewhere else and save the woods’.”
A Race Against Time
In November of 2011, Paulson said she read an article in The Roanoke Times that detailed Virginia Tech’s plans to build an athletic facility on the old-growth forest behind Lane Stadium. “I immediately started writing letters and getting the word out,” Paulson said.
Paulson is now co-organizer of the group Friends of Stadium Woods. The group website features facts about the woods and a link to an online petition for community members to sign. As of April 10, the petition has over 5,000 signatures.
Paulson said she began activism for nature at a young age. “There was this one favorite cigar tree I had and it was going to be cut down…to widen the road,” Paulson said. “And I said ‘I will climb in that tree and sit there so it won’t be cut down.’ They didn’t cut it down. I saved that tree.”
Now, Paulson is trying to save acres of trees. This time, she is not working alone. Dr. Jeff Kirwan, a retired Virginia Tech professor, is assisting Paulson and other members of the Friends of Stadium Woods.
“I worked on a project to classify all the trees in Stadium Woods,” Dr. Kirwan said. “I realized that people didn’t know what they had [in the woods]. People need to know what they have so they can appreciate it. Otherwise, they’ll just throw it away.”
In 2011, Virginia Tech created a committee to review the plans to build the athletic facility on the forest. With the committee set to make a decision in the beginning of June, Paulson is in a race against time to get the word out to the community.