Stimulus funds Nelson County’s Crabtree Falls improvements

Crabtree Falls in Nelson County will receive some improvements through federal stimulus funding announced Wednesday by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.

Webb announced that $1.9 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been approved for trail and trail-bridge maintenance in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests.

The forests have nearly 2,000 miles of hiking trails, according to Webb’s office.

Chris Rose, a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Forest Service, said the agency proposed several projects for stimulus funds throughout the forests’ 38 counties in Virginia.

Rose said Wednesday that Forest Service officials still were checking the list to see which projects received funding.

Among trails in the three counties near Lynchburg — Bedford, Amherst and Nelson — only Crabtree Falls showed up immediately, Rose said, and no details were available about how much money was allowed at Crabtree or how it would be used.