DATE: Wednesday, September 3, 1997          TAG: 9709030066

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   60 lines

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN WETLAND AN UNSIGHTLY COVE AND BULKHEAD HAVE BEEN TRANSFORMED INTO A BOUNTIFUL MARSH, THANKS TO THE UNPRECEDENTED EFFORTS OF ACTIVISTS AND VOLUNTEERS.

OK, it's only one acre. Sure, there are hundreds of miles of shoreline in need of repair in the stressed-out Elizabeth River watershed. But you have to start somewhere. Right?

So here, in a little muddy cove of the Lafayette River, behind the Larchmont Library in Norfolk, activists and volunteers have indeed started. Under the banner of the Elizabeth River Project, a grass-roots conservation group, these hardy few have opened their hearts, and their pocketbooks, in hope of turning an unsightly bulkhead and adjacent parking lot into a natural semblance of its former self - a green, squishy, bountiful wetland.

A home to wildflowers, blue herons, crabs, waving grasses, shade trees. A setting. A respite. A living laboratory for students.

The project almost never happened a dozen times over. Nearly three years in the making, its premise was perhaps the biggest problem. Regulators never had heard of someone actually wanting to create a wetland; they literally did not know how to approve such a thing.

``They had no type of permit for this type of work,'' said Marjorie Mayfield, director of the Elizabeth River Project. ``There definitely was a learning process for all of us, inside and outside of government.''

Officially called the Birdsong Wetlands Restoration, the $100,000 project is named in memory of Ray S. Birdsong, a naturalist and biology professor at Old Dominion University.

Its driving force, however, was the sweat and persistence of three brothers: Josh, Walter and Sean Priest. Each was raised on the Lafayette, and each is involved in environmental science as professionals.

Their great uncle helped develop Larchmont into a prosperous neighborhood. But in the process, he also helped create the ecological problems that the wetlands project now seeks to reverse. Partly, there is penance in their toil.

On April 24, politicians and TV cameras gathered at the site for a ceremonial ground-breaking. The physical work, however, did not begin until about two months later, when volunteers donned rubber boots, grabbed shovels and dug into the soft earth.

Cord grasses have been planted, and a holding pond has been created for flood waters. Much of the crumbling bulkhead is gone, replaced by, well, nothing. The shoreline has been returned to a natural shelf; its only man-made imprint is a stone-lined canal that offers high waters an avenue to the retention pond.

Work is expected to continue through the fall, mostly ornamental stuff, some modest engineering and scant construction.

Yes, the wetland measures just one acre. But organizers hope its spirit and symbolism resonate throughout the watershed. ILLUSTRATION: COLOR PHOTOS BY BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot

1. Volunteers Bill Breeden, foreground, and Matthew Kurtz...

2. Rock is spread...

3. Jeff Salb...

4. Water flows into the Birdsong...

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