Author: pbepoa

 

 

P B E CCR 2024 approved final

At their meeting on December 17 the PBE POA Board of Directors approved revisions to the Rules and Responsibilities of Property Owners.  The revised document is available for viewing or download on the PBE POA Documents page.

Minutes of the December 17, 2024, Board of Directors meeting are posted on the Minutes page.

On September 30 we did some final work at the picnic area — here are photos.

Signs

We emplaced signs at several places around the area.

DANGER — STAY OFF THE ROCKS

We placed two of these signs as shown in  the photo.  One sign is at the foot of the stairs leading from the Potomac River deck into the water; a second sign is at the far western end of the bulkhead. A third warning sign will be placed in the water near the breakwater.

PLEASE KEEP THE AREA CLEAN

There have been a few instances of people fishing from the end of the Potomac River pier leaving cut bait and other mess on the pier.  This warning sign should help.

FIRE DEPT REFILL POINT

This sign — located on our Presley Creek dock — requires a bit of explanation.  Because the County does not have municipal water, there are no fire hydrants in the county.  In place of fire hydrants, our two volunteer fire departments have several water tankers that carry water to fires.  These tankers carry 2,500 – 3,500 gallons of water each.  The other pieces of fire equipment carry smaller quantities of water — 250 or 500 gallons.  Controlling even a moderate house fire can require over 15,000 gallons of water.

The tankers also carry a folded, collapsible water tank — similar to an above-ground swimming pool — with built-in hose connections.  If necessary, the tanker will deploy the tank, dump all the tanker’s water into the tank, then, the tanker will go to the nearest refill point.  These refill points are located around the county and consist of a large-diameter PVC pipe permanently laid into a creek or river.  The tanker connects to the refill pipe and pumps water from the creek or river into the tanker.  When filled, the tanker returns to the fire scene.

The local fire departments have these refill points mapped and they regularly train on locating and connecting to the refill points.  This sign is reflective and will make it easier for fire departments to locate the refill point in the dark or in bad weather.

New Grass

After we completed the work to raise the western end of the bulkhead, our contractor added topsoil, compacted, graded, and sowed grass seed.  Here is the western end of the picnic area with new grass sprouting under the netting.

Finally

We levelled and raked the pea gravel under one of the two new picnic tables.  Due to time constraints, the two volunteers had to put off levelling and raking gravel under the second picnic table for a few days.

The minutes of the September 13, 2024, Board of Directors’ meeting are posted on this page.

After a great deal of planning, measuring, and work during the hottest part of summer, our beach area is complete:

• Armor stone on gabion baskets to complete the breakwater
• Bulkhead levelling project complete
• New picnic tables

Here are photos from Saturday, Sep 7 — with 15 MPH winds from the North, temp dropping, big waves, storm likely on the way.

 

About the bulkhead:  Approximately halfway down the length of the bulkhead you will see vertical timbers.  We installed 75 of these with matching timbers on the inside of the bulkhead — total of 150 timbers bolted through with 3/4-inch galvanized bolts.  Horizontal timbers were placed inside the vertical members to provide a wall against the picnic area to stop soil erosion from the far half of the bulkhead.

At the time these photos were made a storm was brewing from the North.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that this storm will add sand to our small beach.

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Well, maybe not 100% complete.  We still need to:

• Install a few trim pieces on the ends of the tabletops.
• Treat the tabletops and seats with a wood preservative.

 

AS OF MONDAY, SEP 2

Grading and seeding

Our contractor spread and graded the sand that was piled on the picnic area after which he spread and graded soil over the sand.  He will let this settle for a few days after which he will return this week to spread topsoil and sow grass seed.

This photo shows the grading work to date.  Scroll to the bottom of the page for an explanation of this work.

Picnic tables

One old picnic table was removed and hauled to the dump; the other was disassembled and its pieces stacked out of the way in the picnic area to be removed later this week (when Joe’s truck is out of the shop).

On Labor Day, Frank Goyette and Joe Schlatter assembled one of the new tables and placed it on one of the gravel beds where the old wooden tables once stood.  They will assemble and place the second table later this week.

Here are two photos — the top photo is the new table in place, the second photo shows Frank working where the second table will be placed.  The parts of the second table are lying on the gravel bed in front of Frank.

A note about the picnic tables

While the first table is complete and the second will soon be in place, there is still a bit of finishing work to be done.  We need to (1) trim the boards on the table top and emplace strips at each end of the top; (2) remove rough areas on the boards as best we can; (3) emplace security chain on each table to deter anyone from hauling the tables away.

When you use these picnic tables:  We have done the best we can to remove any splinters or spots of sap from the wood.  However, this is fresh pressure treated lumber; small splinters may emerge, and, sap may seep from around knots in the wood.  Please watch for splinters and sap — a splinter can inflict a small but painful wound, and, sap is difficult to get out of clothing if you sit on or rub against a spot of sap.

What was the purpose of the work at the picnic area?

Level top of the bulkhead.  As shown in the photo below, the top of about 80 feet of the bulkhead was lower than the other half of the bulkhead.  This caused water to wash over the low portion of the bulkhead and carry soil into the river, thereby weakening the bulkhead and removing soil from the picnic area.  In fact, in this photo, at the far low end of the bulkhead, you can see soil crumbling over the bulkhead and into the river.  We needed to raise the low part of the bulkhead to the same height as the rest of the bulkhead.  Frank Goyette designed a structure to raise the top of the bulkhead —  the design worked well.  We installed the bulkhead extension with volunteers, taking about a month to complete the work.  With volunteer labor, our only expense was materials.

Level, grade, and seed the part of the picnic area behind the raised bulkhead.  After the bulkhead extension was installed, our contractor filled in the area behind the extension with sand topped with fill dirt and compacted the fill.  After allowing the fill to settle from a few days of rain, the contractor will dump, grade, and compact topsoil followed by grass seed.

Complete the breakwater.  In 2017 we installed one gabion basket – heavy galvanized wire basket filled with rocks – at the western end of the breakwater and three years ago Andy Cockrell installed another gabion basket at the eastern end of the breakwater, at the end of the observation deck.  We knew at the time that we would need to install armor stone over the gabion baskets to make a solid breakwater, however, finances would not permit the work at that time.

Our breakwater is now complete with two small openings for canoes, kayaks, waders, or swimmers to enter/leave the small lagoon in front of our bulkhead.  Meanwhile, we hope the finished breakwater at the end of the observation deck will prevent the sand on our small beach from washing away and will allow more sand to accumulate.

Sorry for the delay — the minutes from the June 5, 2025, PBE POA Board of Directors’ meeting are now posted at this link.

We now have water supply at our native plant and pollinator garden.  The garden is located on the left side of Newman’s Neck Road as you enter the neighborhood; it was established by the efforts of Sue Mc. in early 2019.

Since the garden was established the only way to water the plants was to load buckets of water into a vehicle, fill them, drive to the side of the road, then carry and dump the buckets into a galvanized cattle trough in the garden (see a photo on the garden page).

Now, thanks to six of our neighbors who volunteered time and labor, there is a frost-free hydrant at the garden with water available year-round.

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

• Frank G and Joe Mc for designing, planning, and engineering the project as well as supervising and doing a lot of manual labor.
• Joe Mc whose tractor and trencher saved us from having to dig a 500-foot long trench – and thanks to Joe Mc for his help with planning the project.
• Mike C, Seth C, Bruce H, and Joe S all of whom — along with Frank G and Joe Mc — provided the labor for the project.

The Annual Meeting of the Potomac Bay Estates Property Owner’s Association was held on Saturday, May 18, 2024, at a residence in the neighborhood as announced several times by blast email to all members and by announcements on this site.

Minutes and documents presented at the meeting are now online on the MINUTES page at this link.  The link will open in a separate tab.  Documents are in .docx, Excel, or .pdf format and can be viewed and/or downloaded.

The NASA Wallops Island installation from which rockets are launched is due east from our neighborhood, across the Chesapeake Bay on the Virginia-Maryland-Delaware Eastern Shore.  When a rocket is launched from Wallops Island, the launch is clearly visible from our neighborhood — best viewing location is on the deck over the Potomac River in the picnic area.

Here is a tentative schedule of launches from Wallops Island.

Mission: RockOn! (RockOn! and RockSat-C student missions)
Vehicle:  Terrier Improved Orion sounding rocket
Date:  June 20, 2024
Time:  Morning, TBA
Location: Wallops Island, Virginia
Visitor Center Viewing Area: Open, time TBA
Livestream: Link to be provided

Mission:  RockSat-X
Vehicle:  Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket
Date:  No earlier than August 13, 2024
Time:  TBA
Location: Wallops Island, Virginia
Visitor Center Viewing Area: Open, time TBA
Livestream: Link to be provided

Here is a link to the Wallops Island schedule website — notice that this site also lists launches NOT FROM WALLOPS ISLAND — be careful  — look at the LOCATION listed for each launch.  Also note that each launch is LIVESTREAMED — take a smartphone with you, connect to the Internet through cell service, and watch the livestream, which includes countdown, etc.

Here is a link to the video of a launch on January 24, 2023,  made by one of our neighbors.