David Fuss welcomed
everyone and invited all participants to partake of a catered dinner by David’s
Last Chance. Those in attendance were: Robert Gibson, Frank Herrin (King and
Queen); Mike Anderberg (Friends of Dragon Run); Anne Ducey-Ortiz, Rick Allen
(Gloucester); Prue Davis, Dorothy Miller (Essex); Andy Lacatell (The Nature
Conservancy); Hoyt Wheeland (VA Dept. of Conservation and Recreation); David
Milby (VA Dept. of Forestry); Rebecca Wilson (Division of Natural Heritage –
DCR); David Fuss, Lewis Lawrence (MPPDC)
While participants
were eating, David told the group that the Memorandum of Agreement to
participate in the SAMP had passed the MPPDC and Essex County. It will soon be
considered by King and Queen, Middlesex, and Gloucester Counties. David also
shared the news that the Dragon Run is now listed on the VA Dept. of Environmental
Quality’s Impaired Waters [303(d)] list for pH, fecal coliform, 2 fish tissue
samples of mercury, and 1 fish tissue sample for lead. DEQ and other experts
believe that the impairment is due to natural causes.
Following
consultation with Andy Lacatell of The Nature Conservancy, David proposes to
submit a grant proposal to the Dept. of Conservation and Recreation’s
Chesapeake Bay Watershed Office. The proposed project will document the effectiveness
of local land use policies within the Dragon Run Watershed in achieving
commitments in the Chesapeake 2000 Agreement (C2K) and incorporate improvements
to those policies into a locally supported watershed management plan.
Specifically, the project will contribute to the development of the Middle
Peninsula Planning District Commission’s Dragon Run Special Area Management
Plan project by: 1) filling data gaps in a comprehensive environmental
inventory; 2) evaluating the consistency, enforceability and effectiveness of
land use policies of the four counties within the watershed; and 3)
disseminating this information to local decision-makers and landowners. The
group felt that submitting a proposal was a good idea. David indicated that the
Steering Committee would consider it on August 21.
EPA Watershed Initiative
Andy Lacatell of The Nature Conservancy
informed the group that TNC would be lobbying the Warner administration to
select the Dragon Run as one of its nominations for the U.S. EPA’s Watershed Initiative.
This new funding program will fund 20 watersheds with $21 million over 2-3
years. The focus is on watersheds where active watershed management and
planning are occurring. The funding might be used for environmental inventory
work, purchase of conservation easements, and related activities. David sought
guidance on this issue from the group, in light of past efforts to designate
the Dragon Run as a Scenic River. The group was generally supportive of the
idea, but felt that the idea needed to be presented properly and consider how
suspicious landowners will react. David indicated that the Steering Committee
would consider it on August 21.
Story of the Dragon Run
Andy Lacatell of The Nature Conservancy
suggested to David the idea of a project called “The Story of the Dragon Run.”
This project would be similar in nature to a project done on the Eastern Shore
of Virginia by the Edgewise partnership between William and Mary, Virginia
Tech, and The Nature Conservancy. The idea is to document the people, the
history, and the culture of the region is a succinct ~20-page report to
distribute to residents of the watershed. It might include library and museum
records, county records, and personal interviews with residents. The project
would be done by students and would not cost very much to produce and
distribute. David asked the group for guidance on this topic. The group thought
that this project was consistent with the goals of the SAMP and might help to
bring more people to the table to discuss SAMP issues. Furthermore, county
museums are a great source of information, stories of family history would be
interesting, and large land grants could be followed through county deed books
to see how land was developed over time. The report’s distribution should be
limited and not widespread outside of the localities.
Possible Action Plans
The discussion now shifted to developing
possible action plans to achieve the goals and objectives of the SAMP project.
An idea was proposed to make presentations/updates to Boards of
Supervisors/Planning Commissions about Dragon Run/SAMP issues to get them in
“the swing of things.” For example, it was noted that in Middlesex, the Board’s
collective actions do not represent the Supervisors’ individual beliefs or the
county comprehensive plan. The hope is to open their minds to other options,
such as other tools besides zoning for accomplishing protection of forest and
agricultural land.
Following up on this idea, it was noted that
local governments can influence how private, state, and federal programs are
implemented locally. If Boards of Supervisors were educated about these
programs, then they could shape and direct the way that they play out at the
local level. The following ideas could be communicated to the Boards:
·
Identify tools
and programs that can fund those tools
·
Awareness of
activities that will affect local government operations in the future (e.g.
Friends of Dragon Run, The Nature Conservancy, Farm Bill, etc.)
·
Envision
specific, rather than general, ideas in the comp plans
·
Encourage
landowners to work with non-profits to meet conservation goals
·
Encourage more
interaction between localities and PDC’s during comp plan updates because
consultants do not always get a lot of community involvement
·
Opportunity to
bring joint perspective to Boards/Planning Commissions about thinking of the Dragon
Run as a watershed
Other ideas about presentations surfaced:
·
Some vehicles
for information exchange exist now (e.g. Local Planners and PDC meetings)
·
When
addressing Boards/Planning Commissions, one will need to think about whether
the tools are useful county-wide or just in the Dragon Run Watershed
·
Maybe it would
be best to just do presentations to the Dragon Run Steering Committee and the
PDC to exchange relevant information, since these entities are tuned into these
issues already
·
Topic presentations
could be given to Boards. An example is open space preservation (e.g. what’s
happening with open space preservation in the county; opportunities even if
Boards cannot contribute money)
·
Resolutions or
Letters of Support would be more forthcoming with these types of
topic/informational presentations
·
Steering
Committee reps could present quarterly updates to Boards, which might be best
delivered by landowner members
Adjourn
The meeting was adjourned.