The Dooms Crossing river access project is the culmination of years of collaboration between federal agencies, state partners, and local businesses. Completely funded through grants, this premiere addition to Augusta County Parks and Recreation department’s offerings improves opportunities for recreation, fishing, tubing and boating.

Dooms Crossing is located between river access points in Waynesboro and Crimora. Dooms Crossing is approximately 3 miles downstream from Basic Park in Waynesboro and about 4.5 miles upstream from Crimora Park and enhances the connection between points along the water trail from Waynesboro to Grand Caverns and access sites further north. 

In February 2018, the engineering office in Augusta County’s Community Development department received two grants as part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) process, which provides funding for restoration of wildlife habitats that were impacted by the release of mercury from the former Dupont facility in Waynesboro over 70 years ago. Mercury entered the South River and South Fork Shenandoah River as well as the habitat next to the rivers and impacted the fish and wildlife living in these habitats as well as the recreational use of the rivers for many years.  

County engineers combined the two separate grants for a total funding amount of $481,555 to restore and preserve the waterway with $100,000 of the funding to go towards providing citizens with opportunities for recreation. The Dooms project actually completed at a lower cost than the funds applied for, and the final cost of the project was $276,013 for restoration and $100,000 for recreation. Work began in September 2021 and Dooms Crossing opened in May 2022. 

Phase I of the project centered on improving water quality and fish habitat. Augusta County worked with the DWR and VDEQ to remove the remnants of a failed dam at Coiner Mill and associated log jams, which created navigational hazards for boaters and impediments for fish migrating upstream to the headwaters of the South River to spawn.  

Additionally, the dam had been interfering with natural stream processes that were leading to severe bank erosion. Six hundred feet of eroding bank upstream of the former dam needed to be restored, a formidable task that redirected the use of remnants from the dam to reinforce the bank from additional erosion. The bank area was seeded and live stakes using three different tree species were also planted to stabilize the area, provide a riparian environment, and improve fish habitat and water quality for the long term. This project included acquisition of more than six acres of floodplain property at the site of the former, historic Coiner Mill Dam and development of an access roadway. 

Phase II of the project focused on recreational enhancements for Dooms and Crimora Park. Grant funding for a total of $100,000 was received through the DuPont NRDAR settlement for improved recreational access at Dooms Crossing. The DuPont NRDAR settlement provided for $120,000 in funding for recreational river access improvements at Crimora Park.    

At Dooms, enhancements included constructing a gravel trail from the parking area leading to the river access point and a boat launch ramp. A parking lot with eight parking spaces and one parking space that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides parking for visitor access. Dooms Crossing river access opened in April 2022. 

The project at Crimora Park focused on improvements to current river access. Crimora Park is located along the South River at the site of the former Crimora Elementary School. The park boasts 500 feet of accessible river frontage and more than two acres of flood plain open space. It is approximately 4.5 miles downstream from Dooms Crossing, which opened in May 2022 and is the closest public put-in, and 7.5 miles downstream from Waynesboro’s Basic Park access. 

In September 2019, the Parks and Recreation department administered a survey to gather public input on recreational river access in the county, particularly focusing on the South River. Survey outcomes helped to focus initial staff efforts in submitting grant requests to the DuPont NRDAR settlement. Survey results also indicated considerable interest for new or improved river access on the South River at Harriston, Dooms Crossing, and Crimora. Since readily available land could not be identified at Harriston, staff submitted grant proposals for both Crimora and Dooms Crossing and received funding for both.

The DuPont NRDAR settlement was established as a result of DuPont, an industrial facility in Waynesboro, releasing mercury into the South River between 1929 and 1950. The effect of that release continues to this day and has greatly impacted the entire Shenandoah River watershed. The settlement, negotiated and administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Secretary of Natural Resources in 2017, offers $42 million to be used for restoration projects that specifically restore natural resources and services injured by the mercury release.

Several grant/project categories have been established for the settlement, one of which is recreational fishing access. One of the greatest impacts of the mercury release was damage to the fishery in the Shenandoah River watershed, which includes the South River. That damage resulted in fewer fishing trips and diminished value of the rivers in the watershed as a recreational resource. Both of the grants awarded to the county for Dooms and Crimora were allocated through this recreational fishing access category.