Volunteers help clean up Portsmouth cemetery

PORTSMOUTH

Daniel Causey left the city in his sawdust.

The 32-year-old from Virginia Beach wasted little time when he heard Saturday about a request for help clearing downed trees at an abandoned and partially city-owned cemetery.

While the local government assessed the damage, researched funding options and waited for the earth to dry, Causey fired up his chain saw.

By midafternoon Tuesday, he had cut up several of the large logs and branches that had blocked paths and fallen onto stones at the Mount Calvary Cemetery complex.

He and a friend, Jason Gilbert, also had labored for several hours Sunday.

For Causey, a regular volunteer with community clean up and recycling efforts, the task wasn't complicated.

"Gotta do it," he said. "Knock it out."

He drove to Mount Calvary after reading an article in The Virginian-Pilot about Christina Carlton, a volunteer at the graveyard. She was fed up with the city's lack of movement on damage from the nor'easter in November, so she asked the City Council publicly last week to do something about it.

Carlton had cut up some of the debris herself, but she was about to deploy with the Navy.

City Manager Kenneth Chandler said he would look into the request. He reported to the council three days later. Some of the downed trees were not on city-owned property, but one of them was. The one on city property would be cut up and removed "once ground saturation conditions improve," Chandler wrote.

Staff also would look into a damaged portion of the cemetery fence and solicit estimates for that and tree removal costs, he wrote. There was no money in the budget for that, but staff asked the Virginia Institute of Government about other localities' practices for cemetery maintenance funding.

The city owns Mount Calvary and a nearby potter's field, and it is trying to acquire two adjoining cemeteries that have been abandoned. The cemeteries were used by black residents and include famous names such as educator I.C. Norcom.

Several people offered to help after hearing about the damage. Among them was a member of the Class of 1970 at Norcom High School in search of a service project for its 40th reunion.

Much work remains. The Golden Key Honour Society at Old Dominion University and other volunteers plan to join the cause.

The Sheriff's Office, which has used inmate labor at the cemetery before, had said weather was holding up the job because the soil was too soft for heavy equipment.

Causey used a 14-inch chain saw.

Dave Forster, (757) 446-2627, dave.forster@pilotonline.com