Dear Supporter of Rock Creek Park:

The Klingle Valley Park Association asks for your help to protect an important forested watershed area of Rock Creek Park. We ask your organization to write a letter in support of preservation of the Klingle Valley Park to Vanessa Burns, the Director of the DC Department of Public Works. DPW has recently begun a final Environmental Assessment to determine the future of the Park.

In 1995, after extensive review, and at the urging of the National Park Service, the DC Department of Public Works decided the abandoned paved roadway in Klingle Valley Park be closed to motorized vehicular traffic, to repair the drainage-related damage to tributary ecosystem and to rehabilitate the sloping Valley of spring-fed wetlands, wildlife and tall tree forest as a multi-purpose use recreational area.

Now that federal funding for this project has finally become available, the DPW is, by law, undertaking a NEW Environmental Assessment study. THE OUTCOME OF THIS ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT WILL DETERMINE THE FINAL DISPOSITION OF THE PARK! TWO OF THE OPTIONS UNDER STUDY INCLUDE RE-OPENING THE OLD KLINGLE ROAD, fully or partially, after 10 years.

THERE IS NO CERTAINTY THAT THE 1995 DECISION PROTECTING THIS VALUABLE FOREST WATERSHED EXTENSION OF ROCK CREEK PARK WILL BE RE-AFFIRMED! DPW OFFICIALS CANDIDLY TELL US THAT WE NEED TO RALLY POLITICAL SUPPORT AGAIN!

So please take a moment to read our enclosed Mission Statement. And if you agree with us, the National Park Service, and the DPW review of 1995 that Klingle Valley Park should be restored and rehabilitated as a recreational green space, PLEASE WRITE A LETTER OF SUPPORT TO DPW DIRECTOR VANESSA BURNS.

FYI: The National Park Serivce, which owns land along the length of the Valley, has taken an unusually strong public stand in support of preserving Klingle Valley Park. On November 30, 1994, the Park Service recommended to the DPW that the Klingle roadway "be replaced with a permeable surface trail .... or (that) the area be restored to its natural state" in order to "protect the tributary and Rock Creek" from storm water damage and erosion. The Park Service added that "road closure affords us an opportunity to provide additional recreational resources to the public while taking positive steps to improve the environment by additional protection of the valuable green space in the District of Columbia."

As an organization, we are endorsing the National Park Service's unusual offer "to accept transfer of the right-of-way if the road were closed and all improvements made to drainage and sewer facilities."

Your support is URGENTLY needed. Please send a letter -- within the next two weeks if possible -- urging the DPW to stand by its March 1995 decision to permanently close Klingle Road to motorized traffic and to rehabilitate the watershed as an ecologically sound, recreational park.

For your convenience, we are enclosing a draft letter from which you may wish to extract elements in writing your own letter. Also available are copies of the DPW's March 1995 letter of decision and the National Park Service's November 30, 1994 recommendation.