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The national Jamboree draws about 200,000 participants from across the country. (ASSOCIATED PRESS) |
The Boy Scouts of America is eyeing the Goshen area as the permanent home for its national Jamboree, an event that could bring more than 200,000 people to the area and an estimated $100 million in initial capital investment, according to the organization.
Mike Webb, director of the Rockbridge Partnership, which promotes local business and industry development, has a vision for how that might work.
“Campers could stay on the site and the parents could mosey down to Lexington and spend some money,” Webb said.
If chosen, Goshen will be a permanent part of a National Scouting Center that includes a permanent site for the Jamboree and a wilderness camp in Fayette and Raleigh counties, West Virginia.
The Jamboree, scheduled next for 2013, brings together thousands of Boy Scouts nationwide. The organization also expects the proposed site to include year-round facilities. The Goshen Scout Reservation, a 5,000-acre summer camp currently owned by the National Capital Area Boy Scouts based in Washington, D.C., would host the event.
But some local environmentalists are concerned about possible harm to the new site. The camp that would host the jamboree and become its permanent headquarters is on Lake Merriweather, just upstream from the section of the Maury River that flows through Goshen Pass, a popular local area for nature-related recreation.
The large infrastructure needed to house thousands of Boy Scouts and tourists could damage the environment, said Jay Gillam,interim coordinator of the Virginia Save Our Streams Program. He said he wouldn’t be comfortable with the organization putting in a sewage treatment plant, for example, upstream from the pass.
If Goshen is chosen, the county will try to balance any environmental concerns with economic development, said Rockbridge County Administrator Claire Collins. Collins said the county does not expect to put up any taxpayer money to pay for the infrastructure.
The large influx of people is also a concern for local officials.
Goshen Pass cannot support thousands of Jamboree participants, parents and vendors because of the narrow, winding road through the pass, Route 39, said Jean Clark, director of the Blue Ridge Tourism Council. She said participants would use Route 42 to approach the area and the road would need to be widened.
Because there are only about 2,000 hotel rooms in the Rockbridge area, the event would also be expected to bring visitors to Alleghany and Bath counties.
Goshen Mayor John Rorer said he expects the Boy Scouts of America and state and county governments to deal with crowds and logistical issues. He heard about the proposal about the time that it came out as a story in the News-Gazette.
The 2010 Boy Scout Jamboree will be at Fort A.P. Hill. It is expected to draw 43,000 scouts, and a similar number is expected for 2013. But parents, visitors and vendors will push the number of people closer to a quarter-million. The event normally occurs every four years, but the first in Goshen would occur a year earlier.
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