Press
Virginia Tech sports facility plan in Stadium Woods draws opposition
Darryl Fears, Washington Post, April 9, 2012
“On a frosty winter day, forestry Professor John R. Seiler grabbed a tool that looked like a giant corkscrew and twisted it into a huge white oak. He had a feeling that the woods near Virginia Tech’s football stadium were more than just a clutch of trees that burst into the school’s burnt orange and maroon colors in fall.”
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Stadium Woods
Roanoke Times, April 9, 2012
“The Washington Post had a good story this weekend about the ongoing Stadium Woods controversy at Virginia Tech. We plan to run a collection of letters on this topic in Sunday’s The Burgs. If you have a view, send it to letters@roanoke.com by Wednesday morning for consideration.”
Graduates, rally for the woods
Roanoke Times editorial, April 8, 2012
“There might still be time for Virginia Tech’s graduating class to organize and openly confront the proposed sacrifice of Stadium Woods.
“As a journalist, I covered a graduation in Cambridge, Mass., some years back. Harvard’s graduating class confronted corporate Harvard on the ethics of the South African Krugerrands (gold coins) that Harvard had been investing in for its corporate portfolio. Krugerrands, as many will recall, provided lifeblood support to South Africa’s apartheid government.”
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Stadium Woods group seeks public comment
Tonia Moxley, Roanoke Times, March 20, 2012
“A committee established to study the impacts of a proposed football practice facility on Virginia Tech’s Stadium Woods is seeking public comment.
The ad-hoc Athletic Practice Facility Site Evaluation Committee was constituted in January by university Vice President for Administrative Services Sherwood Wilson after a plan to build the practice facility on up to 5 acres of the 20-acre woodland grabbed the attention of conservationists, who banded together in a new group calling itself Friends of Stadium Woods.”
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Stadium Woods worth saving
Dr. John Seiler, Collegiate Times, March 19, 2012
“The Stadium Woods at Virginia Tech is in the fight for its life of 300-plus years.
Many people are aware that construction of a new Tech indoor athletic practice facility is planned in the north end of the old-growth white oak woods. Reasonable estimates suggest between three and five acres of the woods (20 to 35 percent of the total) will be directly affected (removed), with another two to three acres subjected to slow decline due to new forest edge effects, root damage and other natural forest adjustments.
No one is opposed to the facility and athletics makes a strong case for its need. However, most are opposed to placing it in rare, 300-year-old Stadium Woods.”
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The Burgs letters: Preserve Stadium Woods
Carolyn J. Kroehler, Roanoke Times, March 4, 2012
“I write to express my support for the preservation of the patch of old-growth forest behind Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech.
As a biologist who received a Ph.D. in botany from Virginia Tech, I recognize its value as wildlife habitat, oxygen producer, carbon dioxide and water absorber and provider of many other ecosystem services.”
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Stadium Woods worth saving from construction
by Chris Dunn, Collegiate Times, February 29, 2012
“Virginia Tech’s last remaining forest grove is in danger. What threatens the precious forest, which is home to trees that date back to the 18th century, is another sports facility the university wants to build.”
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Pictorial opinion: Stadium Woods
Roanoke Times, February 19, 2012
“Members of a Thursday morning hiking group recently enjoyed walking in Stadium Woods on the Virginia Tech Campus. Many of these century-old trees could be destroyed if Virginia Tech officials and the Board of Visitors approve a proposal to build a new indoor football practice facility on the site.”
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Letters: It’s not only the trees
by Duncan M. Porter, Roanoke Times, January 31, 2012
“It was good to see that Virginia Tech has set up a committee to study the impact of constructing an indoor football building on its Stadium Woods (“Stadium Woods to get reprieve during study,” Jan. 22). When I arrived at Tech in 1975 to teach plant taxonomy, I searched the campus to find suitable spots that students could walk to on field trips and study the local flora. Stadium Woods was (and is) the richest in species. An area near the Grove was second richest, but is now mostly destroyed.”
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WVTF's Beverly Amsler interviewing Eric Wiseman at Stadium Woods, Feb 1, 2012
WVTF news report by Beverly Amsler, February 10, 2012
“Developers are butting heads with land preservationists on the Virginia Tech campus. University officials want to build an athletic practice facility smack in the middle of a forest that could have one of the highest concentrations of old white oak trees in the Eastern U.S.”
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Look, and see a woodland archive
Roanoke Times editorial by Liza Field, December 11, 2011
“I hope the 20-acre Stadium Woods of Virginia Tech will remain intact and life-bringing – not be converted into yet another inert, cost-heavy structure.”
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Editorial: Preserve Virginia Tech’s Stadium Woods
Roanoke Times, November 20, 2011
“One can easily lose oneself in the beauty of Virginia Tech’s campus. It lies in the Hokie stones, on the Drillfield, at Lane Stadium and the Duck Pond. It emerges from the mix of manmade and natural wonders. Cutting down part of Stadium Woods would reduce that beauty and ill serve the campus community.”
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Effort to spare Virginia Tech’s old trees is sprouting
by Tonia Moxley, Roanoke Times, November 14, 2011
“Part of stadium woods, a 20-acre forest fragment that has a whole ecosystem and trees hundreds of years old, near Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech is in danger of being cleared to make room for a new indoor athletic training facility.”
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Stadium Woods: Natural heritage in the heart of Virginia Tech’s campus
by Andreza Silva de Andrade, Virginia Tech News, November 9, 2011
“For well over 200 years, regal oaks have stood on a knoll that now borders Virginia Tech’s Lane Stadium. The 57 ancient oaks, each measuring more than 3 feet in diameter, form part of a unique, old growth forest in the heart of campus.”
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Take Action!
Over 5,000 people have signed the online petition to save Stadium Woods. Please sign and tell your friends!
The Roanoke Times plans to run a collection of letters about Stadium Woods in the Sunday 4/15 edition of The Burgs. Send your thoughts to letters@roanoke.com by the morning of Wednesday 4/11!
Comments From the Petition
Latest Blog Posts
Famous big tree searchers visit Stadium Woods
Big tree searchers Byron Carmean and Gary Williamson visited Stadium Woods April 6 to see the new state champion choke cherry, as well as look for other notable trees in the area. The two naturalists, whose discoveries have resulted in the purchase of no less than three natural areas in Virginia, found the woods to [...]
by jeff on April 7, 2012 in Uncategorized
APFSEC accepting your comments until April 4
Here is how I responded to the two rather narrowly focused questions posed by the Athletic Practice Field Siting Evaluation Committee: 1. Do the woods have special significance for campus or local community life? Yes- as of today, 1,909 Blacksburg residents have signed the on-line petition opposing the siting of the athletic practice facility in [...]
by jeff on April 2, 2012 in Uncategorized