Posted on February 10, 2021
By mid-March, Timberlake residents hope to see the beginning of a dredging process — a long-awaited, much-fought-for effort to save Timber Lake from decades of damage and compounded sedimentation that threatens its health.
After a referendum held in November 2019, the Timberlake Watershed Improvement District acquired the power to tax its residents, and recently set a fiscal year 2021 tax rate of 15 cents per $100 of Campbell County real estate assessed value for the about 157 residents that live alongside Timber Lake.
This real estate tax will be in addition to the current county rate of 52 cents per $100 of assessed value, and is estimated to collect about $62,792 for the watershed improvement district annually.
The 2019 referendum gave the watershed improvement district the power to levy a tax and incur indebtedness or issue bonds necessary to cover the costs of dredging Timber Lake. Both referendums passed with about 90% of the vote from Timberlake landowners.
DD Gillett, president of the Timberlake Homeowners Association, said taxation was the only way the community would be able to equitably pay for the project and fight for the health of the lake. She’s been in the fight for about four years, but it’s a battle that has lasted a generation, with efforts to establish a watershed improvement district for Timber Lake going back to the 1990s.
“Overwhelmingly, this community has said, ‘Yes, we want this project to move forward’ and, ‘Yes, we are ready to financially support it,’” Gillett said.
The dredging project is estimated to cost about $550,000, and she said the 15-cent tax would last as long as it takes to pay off the loan, approximately 15 years.
“By initiating this conservation project, we are protecting the tax base, a $66 million tax base, for Campbell County,” Gillett said. “We are doing that for the county. But the county, as a whole, will not feel any financial impact from those efforts.”
Gillett said the association is still working its way through the permitting process, with a few boxes left to check, but hopes to begin dredging the lake in March, an undertaking that is only the beginning of the conservation efforts for Timber Lake. The lake originally comprised 80 acres, but now covers about 60 acres after decades of sedimentation shrunk its initial footprint.
After the dredge, which according to the public notice for an environmental permit will affect about 6 acres of open water, the dry sediment produced by the dredging process will be kept in a storage site owned by the homeowners association, the product of a rezoning request approved by supervisors in July.
Once silt is out of the lake, the next stage requires the watershed improvement district to develop a strategy to prevent the continued erosion and sedimentation buildup in the lake’s coves. Gillett said the effort would require retention ponds, which means again going before Campbell County supervisors and beginning to “open the doors” to that process.
“The project is not over. The dredging of this lake is the mere beginning,” Gillett said.
But if the lake’s history has taught her anything, said Gillett, it is that Timberlake is a driven community, one that is determined to conserve the lake for generations to come. Not only to preserve it as an environmental asset in the county, but to retain the value of residents’ properties.
According to Gillett, the lake was created in the 1920s by two men with a dream to create a resort area outside of Lynchburg. They used mules and their grit to create a packed, clay dam, one that would establish the then-80-acre lake.
“So roll the film forward, and look at what this community has been working on for 30 years,” Gillett said. “We are not using mules, but the determination and the passion to keep this community is still here.”
