RURAL
NELSON AGENDA
Tuesday,
May 7, 2002
7:30pm
– Rural Nelson’s Office – 622 Front Street
-Welcome and Introductions – Al Weed
-Speaker – Steve Talley, Canaan Valley Institute. Steve will give an
overview
of the many regional sustainability programs offered by the
Institute
and how they might benefit Nelson County. Visit their
website
at www.canaanvi.org
-Treasurer’s Report – Al Weed
-Fund Raising - Al Weed – Volunteers needed for information table at
Nelson
Farmer’s Market the 4th Saturday of each month 7:30am-12noon
-Comprehensive Plan Update – Al Weed – encourage Supervisors to move
forward
with a Public Hearing and adopt a Plan
-Member Announcements
-Design Ordinance Task Force – Volunteers needed – First meeting set
for
Wednesday, May 29 at 6:00pm at Rural Nelson’s Office on Front Street
-Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) Task Force – Volunteers needed
-Other Business – Next Rural Nelson meeting Tuesday, June 4 at 7:30pm
at
the office
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kim
T. Cash
Field
Officer
Rural
Nelson, Inc.
P.
O. Box 401
(622
Front Street)
Lovingston,
VA 22949
434.263.5000
Email:
info@ruralnelson.org
www.ruralnelson.org
RURAL NELSON MINUTES
TUESDAY, MAY 7th, 2002
RURAL NELSON OFFICE
NEXT MEETING: TUESDAY, JUNE 4th 2002
The meeting was called to order at 7:35 p.m. Al Weed welcomed
everyone, and we all introduced ourselves.
The speaker for the evening was Steve Talley, from the Canaan
Valley Institute, present to give an overview of the many regional
sustainability programs offered by the Institute and how they might
benefit Nelson County. Their website is: www.canaanvi.org, for those
wanting to investigate further. Steve began by explaining how he
learned about Rural Nelson, which was through our impressive website.
Canaan Valley is sponsoring a conservation design workshop in Maryland
Wednesday, June 5th, to which Rural Nelson will be invited, at the
expense of Canaan Valley Institute. Up to three people will be able to
go from Rural Nelson. A letter will be forthcoming.
The Institute is a nonprofit organization, with its main office in
Davis, West Virginia. It is committed to enhancing the ability of the
mid-Atlantic region's residents to improve their quality of life. They
work mainly on watershed projects. They believe that good science
ought to drive decision making, that local groups know best, and that
the collaborative process provides lasting consensus-based solutions.
They feel that the key to collaboration is inclusiveness.
The service area of the Institute is the mid-Atlantic highlands,
found in the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West
Virginia. Ninety percent of their funding is from EPA, with the
remainder coming from NOAA. The organization began as a task force
tackling the question of what the community wanted when EPA said no to
a power plant in the Canaan Valley. The Institute grew out of this
task force. There is an outreach team, a geospatial team, an
operations team, and a resource team. The Institute likes to think of
itself as broker of needed information.
The Geospatial team uses GIS and GPS, and concentrates on mapping,
which can help communities look at possibilities for their future. The
resource team specializes in watershed sciences, their specialty being
natural stream channel design. This team uses officers from EPA and
NOAA who are paid by those agencies. The operations team provides
administrative support and event planning, and gives away small grants
of up to $5,000 on a quarterly basis. They work with groups that are
local in nature, trying to provide linkage to the outside resources
that are needed. Assistance can be specific to a particular project or
ongoing. Applications for grants are user friendly and
straightforward. Their main targets are community watershed
organizations, interpreted broadly - for instance, sustainable
agriculture would fall into that category. Steve mentioned the VDOT
mitigation project on the Rockfish River, which is using natural stream
channel design to rebuild the river. The Institute also facilitates
meetings, workshops, discussions, and regional summits. They do stream
cleanups and assessments, and cleanups of dump sites, i.e. hands-on
community projects.
Steve went into how GIS can be used to our purpose, showing maps
from Inwood, West Virginia which mapped impervious surface increases
over the years, and allowed the locality to envision its future.
Nelson County has a lot of data, but does not have GIS to marshal it.
A fair amount of Nelson County data is already on the Institute
website. They will be able to supply a GIS map of the Rockfish
Watershed. Steve emphasized that the Institute is very accessible. If
we have a project they will send experts to come discuss it.
He showed us a stream clean up and water quality assessment
project at Paint Creek, West Virginia, and another flooding project at
Upper Knapps Creek in West Virginia. Both projects depended on GIS
mapping. In Hampshire County WV, near Winchester, VA, the Institute
helped with a land planning project.
Then Steve moved on to the Friends of the Rockfish River Project,
which culminated in a watershed management plan that is now being
implemented. The Institute helped with administrative issues, with
developing a short-term action plan, and with providing funds to help
move the plan forward. In the short-term action plan the Friends are
working on membership recruitment, website development, ground water
characterization (being done by a Virginia Tech student), a watershed
kiosk, a white paper on septic tank pump-out in the county, and a
Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program Tour.
Steve took questions, and was asked if the Institute would help
fund a festival similar to that done recently in Waynesboro that was
organized to celebrate the Shenandoah watershed. The answer was yes.
He commented that EPA tries hard to direct funds to local community
efforts, as long as those efforts involve implementing the Clean Water
Act. Al Weed pointed out that it's hard to fight development without
the resources that GIS gives you, even with the new Comprehensive
Plan. It was pointed out that Nelson badly needs to digitize its tax
maps. Steve said that he would have an officer from the Institute come
talk to us about how to approach this problem. It was suggested that
we could do the work if provided with the materials. Their officers
are good at envisioning the future when fed the data already gathered,
such as making it clear what the build out would be if development was
maximized in a certain area of Nelson County. This could be a very
useful tool for Rural Nelson. Diane Easley, head of the Friends of the
Rockfish Watershed, said how useful it would be to their group to have
digitized mapping of the properties that border the Rockfish River.
Steve finished up by saying that the advocacy question is important to
their board, as the Institute does not lobby for or against specific
issues. When they work with groups they are not the decision makers,
they work with others to help them make decisions.
After a five-minute break, Al Weed gave the Treasurer's Report.
To date this year we have received $9,725 in contributions, and have
spent $7,891. We have $12,561 in the bank. April, perhaps because of
tax time, has not been a good month for donations.
For fund-raising and interest-raising purposes, volunteers are
needed for an information table at the Nelson Farmers' Market in
Nellysford the fourth Saturday of each month, 7:30 a.m. until noon.
Member Announcements: Al asked if anyone was interested in going
to the June 5th Canaan Valley Institute Workshop. If so, please call
or email Kim Cash or him. Nelson County Soundscapes will be performed
at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 30th, at Tye River Elementary School.
Original student pieces have been put to music by a group from
Nashville. Dialogue sessions will follow the main presentation.
Reservations will be required.
Volunteers are also needed for a Design Ordinance Task Force. The
first meeting is Wednesday, May 29th at 6 p.m. at the Rural Nelson
office. They will be looking at a tourism overlay map, and working on
a design ordinance to take to the Planning Commission. Volunteers do
not have to be members of Rural Nelson. Architects are needed, as are
those with a sense of the history of the county.
Al pointed out that there is finally a realization that money
needs to be spent on conservation. In the new Farm Bill there is money
allocated for it. The purpose of the Purchase of Development Rights
Task Force is to have an entity in place to deal with conservation
money when it does come through. Volunteers are needed for such a task
force. At our Rural Nelson meeting in July we will be talking about
PDR's and conservation easements.
Al pointed out that Nelson County's bicentennial is five years
away in 2007, and how good it would be to have Lovingston, as the
county seat, in an organizing mode for the celebration on that date.
Al and Kim thanked the following people who showed up at the rodeo
to help serve beer, earning Rural Nelson $700! They were: Barbara
Barton, Catherine Campbell, Charlie Wineberg, Serelda Elliot, Lee
Albright, Paulette Albright, Jeanie Scott, Ginny Sonne-Peterson, Peggy
Whitehead, Dick Whitehead, Dan Hamilton, Lynn Hamilton, Deborah
Harkrader, John Byrne, Glenn Clayton, Uri Levy, Tim Lewis, Kathy
Quelland, and Walt Berg.
Al showed on the map where the new Nature Conservancy 755-acre
conservation preserve is, just passed his winery in Fortune's Cove. It
was given by Jane Heyward, and its five-and-a-half mile hiking trail is
open to the public. Al reported that the parking lot has been full
since the preserve opened last week.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:25 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Mary Buford Hitz
Secretary
Rural Nelson, Inc.
P. O. Box 401
(622 Front Street)
Lovingston, VA 22949
434.263.5000
Email: info@ruralnelson.org
www.ruralnelson.org