Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy

If you love our work then tell the world! You have an exciting opportunity to help LOUDOUN WILDLIFE CONSERVANCY make even more of a difference in our community.

GreatNonprofits – a site like Amazon Book Reviews or TripAdvisor – is a website where people can share their stories about nonprofits that have touched their lives.

Won’t you help us raise visibility and support for our work by posting a review of your experience with us? All reviews will be visible to potential donors and volunteers. It’s easy and only takes 3 minutes! Go to:

http://greatnonprofits.org/organizations/reviews/loudoun-wildlife-conservancy

With your help, we can gain greater visibility in the community.

As you sit down for that delicious holiday dinner, surrounded by friends and family, take pause to think about how that food made it to your table and give thanks to wildlife for making it all possible — and see the petition to support bats below.

Bats are an unsung hero in our agricultural practices – they eat millions of insects that fly over our crops.  Read this article to learn more: Bats worth Billions to Agriculture.

Show your appreciation for bats and thanks for the work they did in bringing you a great holiday dinner.  Take this action posted by Bat Conservation International:

WNS continues to spread each year, with dire consequences for North American bats. We want President Obama to include WNS funding in his Fiscal Year 2013 budget. With current economic constraints, however, he needs to hear from the public about the devastating impacts of WNS. So we are using the White House’s new “We the People” petition tool to make our request.

White House staff will review our request – but only if we obtain 25,000 signatures by November 25!

The November 25 deadline is just around the corner! Click here to sign.

If you already have a whitehouse.gov account, click “Sign In” at the bottom of the petition page, enter your information and then click “Sign this Petition.” If you are new to the whitehouse.gov webpage, click “Create an Account” at the bottom of the petition page.

After you enter your information, an automated email will be sent to verify your new account. Once you have set-up your account, click the above link again and then click “Sign this Petition.” When you sign-up for a whitehouse.gov account you can select whether or not you want to receive emails from the Administration.

We know it is not easy to register on this site, but remember, you only need to do it once.

While you’re giving thanks (and signing the petition), also remember our pollinators - whether your menu is vegetarian or omnivorous, pollinators played the critical role needed to make sure that you would have apples, corn, beans, squash and more to enjoy. And don’t forget, that turkey or duck is (was) vegetarian so it needed to eat vegetables that the pollinators helped produce as well.

Let’s all be thankful this season for our wildlife – we’re all connected.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Bat Conservation International sent this action alert and it’s important enough that we all should take the couple of minutes to take action.  Bats are integral to our lives and our future and are worthy of our resources to help save them:

Bats are as much a part of Halloween as jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating. But some parts of the United States have almost no bats left – they’ve been killed by an epidemic called White-nose Syndrome (WNS).

Please keep the bats in Halloween by helping to stop this disease.

Tell the White House to fund the fight against WNS.

WNS continues to spread each year, with dire consequences for North American bats. We want President Obama to include WNS funding in his Fiscal Year 2013 budget. With current economic constraints, however, he needs to hear from the public about the devastating impacts of WNS. So we are using the White House’s new “We the People” petition tool to make our request. White House staff will review our request – but only if we obtain 25,000 signatures by November 25!

The November 25 deadline is just around the corner! Click here to sign.

If you already have a whitehouse.gov account, click “Sign In” at the bottom of the petition page, enter your information and then click “Sign this Petition.” If you are new to the whitehouse.gov webpage, click “Create an Account” at the bottom of the petition page. After you enter your information, an automated email will be sent to verify your new account. Once you have set-up your account, click the above link again and then click “Sign this Petition.” When you sign-up for a whitehouse.gov account you can select whether or not you want to receive emails from the Administration. We know it is not easy to register on this site, but remember, you only need to do it once.

After signing, spread the word by asking your friends and family to sign on, too.

You may remember the posting we did on the Unison Battlefield this past April:

http://www.loudounwildlife.org/blog/2011/04/new-battlefield-historic-district-being-created-and-celebrated/

This location has some wonderful wildlife habitat and Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy was one of the organizations that supported its establishment as a historic district.

Here is the good news from last Thursday, Sept 22:

Today the 8000 acre Unison Battlefield Historic District was officially approved for listing on the Virginia Landmarks Register and recommended for listing on the US National Register.

At a joint meeting of the State Review Board and the Historic Resources Board the board members and DHR staff took particular notice of the important historic value of this district, and of the particularly pristine landscape, containing over 100 contributing historic structures.

As you all know this is a key landmark in the five year effort to gain recognition for this very special place in Loudoun County.  While this listing and the expected future listing on the National Register do not impose any restrictions on landowners, they do provide a powerful incentive to protect and preserve this landscape and the historic buildings, farms and roads within it.  Over 50% of this historic area is already in conservation easement and we look forward to protecting more.

Thank you all for your support for this important project.
The Unison Preservation Society 

The Board of Supervisors approved the rezoning of the property now known as Stonewall Secure Business Park.  Read an article here.

A lot of our members sent in emails – and a couple of us came out and spoke on Monday night.  I think we needed more of us out there in person to speak on this.

This property is environmentaly significant for all the reasons outlined in our action alert . It also formed a key building block in our County’s Transition area.

What is the vision for Loudoun now? Years ago, I recall the bumper sticker, “Don’t Fairfax Loudoun.” What is happening to our County? What unique features will we actually protect for the future? Will we protect any?

The loss of this habitat is significant — from the mature hardwood forests to the sensitive wetlands, and all the wildlife that lives there.

Once the forest has been cleared, and the wetlands have been filled and graded, people will forget it was ever there.  The wildlife will be gone. You and I will remember though, at least for awhile.

Thank you to all of you who sent in your comments.

Please take one minute to call your Supervisor (703-777-0100) AND send an email (bos@loudoun.gov). Please let them know how you feel about the proposed rezoning for Stonewall Secure Business Park. Come to the Public Hearing on Monday (July 18, 6:30 pm, Government Center, Leesburg) and bring your email. Raise our voice for wildlife!

Approval of this rezoning request, located between Leesburg and Ashburn, on Sycolin Rd, would result in clearing of 190 acres of mature hardwood forest, wetlands and archeological sites and construction of a 3.9 MILLION square foot business park/data center (TWICE the size of the Dulles Town Center)!

Furthermore, approval of the rezoning violates our County’s Comprehensive Plan and Transition Plan, and sets a precedent for further rezoning in this critical area.

Currently, this property is zoned as low density allowing up to 19 residential units with 70% open space required because this area is WIDELY RECOGNIZED for its unique environmental and cultural features. Current zoning needs to stay in place.

Our Position: Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy requests that the Board of Supervisors deny rezoning for the Stonewall Secure Business Park. This area is an extremely critical and environmentally sensitive area and the development use proposed is inappropriate for this location. This land needs to be preserved as a Transition Area as currently zoned. Our opposition to this rezoning is as follows:

1) Destroys Environmentally Sensitive Area: This property contains high quality mature hardwood forest and a SIGNIFICANT area of sensitive wetlands. These are incredibly productive habitats for wildlife that also play a key role in filtering our water supply. If approved, thousands of trees will be clear-cut. It also contains a culturally significant archaeological site which includes a 19th c. pottery kiln, the likes of which are not found elsewhere in the County.

You cannot reproduce this combination elsewhere once destroyed.

2) Causes Potential Harm to Water Supply: This location is in the heart of the watershed for the Goose Creek and at least half of this property drains in to the Goose Creek above the drinking water intake. Development at this extreme removes all protection and natural filtration of water running into our water supply. Furthermore, the significant amount of steep slopes here increases the potential for the development to impact our streams.

3) Further Threatens Likely Wood Turtle Populations: Wood Turtles are a State Threatened species and are known to live in waterways adjacent to this property. This habitat is ideal for Wood Turtles and we expect that Wood Turtles will be found if surveys were performed at the right time of year. This survey has not been completed. Wood turtles require BOTH streams and forest to survive. It is not enough to simply protect the stream. Clear-cutting forest WILL impact any populations present. Wood Turtles spend most of the spring and summer in mixed or deciduous forests, fields, and riparian wetlands. Then they return to streams in late summer or early fall to their favored overwintering location.

4) Further Degrades our Ecosystem: Removing that much forest and destroying that much open space will further contribute to our air pollution problems. This is a huge area of undeveloped habitat which links with other forested properties designed to protect our environment. The removal of forests and their replacement with pavement and rooftops results in the “heat –island” effect where heat is trapped by blacktop and radiated out, intensifying air pollution.

5) Guts Ability to Pursue our Comprehensive Plan: This proposal contradicts what Loudoun residents have endorsed for years and worked cooperatively to establish in the Comprehensive Plan. Our Comprehensive Plan established safeguards for our environment and the Transition Area, where this property sits, was one of these. Approval of this rezoning violates that Plan in ways beyond the environmental impacts and sets the precedence for further violation.

6) Not Needed for Loudoun: Other sites in Loudoun would support a secure business park/data center, already have adequate road infrastructure to support them and are not in such sensitive environmental locations. Rezoning at this location does not fill any unmet needs. It only destroys something remarkable.

This property was zoned as low density allowing up to19 residential units with 70% open space required because this area is WIDELY RECOGNIZED for its environmental and cultural significance. We ask the Board of Supervisors to DENY the Stonewall Secure Business Park rezoning and retain the existing designation and policies for the Transition Area.

As many of you know, our bat population is being obliterated by a disease called White Nose Syndrome.

I received an action alert from Bat Conservation International which is working to get funding for scientists to research and combat the disease. Here is their alert, if you would like to take action as well:

Thanks to all of you who wrote your Senators a few months ago asking them to support the Wildlife Disease Emergency Act, which would expedite the federal government’s response to wildlife disease crises. The bill is still undergoing review.

Now we need your help again. Congress is preparing the federal budget, and White-nose Syndrome is one of many causes vying for a share of the shrinking pool of federal funds. But despite tight finances, the White-nose Syndrome epidemic cannot be ignored.

As you did last year, please urge your Congressional Representatives to support funding in next year’s federal budget to combat White-nose Syndrome.

Writing to Congress is easy. Click here for a sample letter and your members’ contact information. Feel free to tailor the letter to your own style and to describe how much bats mean to you.

We appreciate your support and continued action. Your participation is critical in helping members of Congress understand the gravity of White-nose Syndrome to our nation’s bats and its impact on our ecosystems and economy.

Unfamiliar with this horrible plague that’s wiping out our bats? Here’s a link that explains it and shows how it’s marching from North to south, east to west.  It hit Virginia last year and hit Kentucky this year.

I Scream, You Scream,

We all Scream for  Clean Streams!
Rally In Support of The Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

Where: The Loudoun County Government Center, Leesburg, VA

When: Rally Outside from 6:00 – 6:45 PM then Stand Up For Streams Inside @ 7:00

Clothing: WEAR BLUE for Clean Streams

Free Ice Cream for the First 150 people!

More Details: www.loudounstreams.org

First: gather outside for a rousing rally with a performance by local singer/songwriter, Andrew McKnight (www.andrewmcknight.net), and

Then: come inside the Board Room and stand up to show the Supervisors that you support the CBPO as a step toward cleaner streams, cleaner water, and lower water bills.

Is Clean Water worth an hour of your time?
We think so. Please join us on May 2nd.

Please email your Supervisor today (bos@loudoun.gov).

Virginia’s Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) is working a fast track to designate the Outer Beltway project as a Northern Virginia North-South Corridor of Statewide Significance. This corridor would run North-South through eastern Loudoun.[see map]

What does this mean for us in Loudoun?
It would incorporate an Outer Beltway into our Comprehensive Plan and Transportation Plan and potentially drive decisions on how our county is developed — putting the priority of this highway, which does not address Loudoun needs, over any sort of habitat protections that Loudoun may want to sustain.

An Outer Beltway will have significant environmental impact.
Multi-lane highways like an Outer Beltway, are typically built through natural open space because those areas have the least impact on existing human activities.

If this Outer Beltway were built, it would mean huge habitat destruction for Loudoun, including loss of important wetlands and forests, and expansion of the sprawl we are already facing.

Supervisor Burton’s Resolution:
Loudoun County Supervisor Jim Burton (Blue Ridge District) is leading the charge to protect the County’s interests. He has written a resolution opposing the CTB’s power grab, which will be voted on at our Board of Supervisor’s meeting on Tuesday, April 19. The CTB may be considering their action the next day, April 20, in Richmond, and proponents have suggested that Loudoun County is supportive. The Burton action will tell them otherwise. [read the resolution here]

Our Position:
The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors should oppose creation of a Northern Virginia North-South Corridor of Statewide Significance. We need to retain local control over the development of our county so that wildlife habitat can be protected and the environmental health of our county is put at the forefront.

Please email your Supervisor on or by Monday, April 19. They need your input on this critical issue. If the CTB gets their way, it could alter the face of Loudoun in a single stride.

Additional background, including a map and the text of Supervisor Burton’s resolution is available on http://www.citizensctp.us/

Please call or email your Supervisors today and urge them to Support the Burton Resolution, to protect Loudoun County’s right to determine its own land use future. You can send an e-mail message to your Supervisors at bos@loudoun.gov

The following article was prepared by Joe Coleman, President of Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy. We need to dispel the inaccuracies being proliferated around this much needed ordinance. This article helps to do that:

For over a year now, Loudoun County has been working on an ordinance to protect our streams by preserving vegetated streamside buffers.

Vegetated streamside buffers, or riparian buffers as they are also know, are strips of grass, shrubs, and ideally trees and shrubs along the banks of rivers and streams. They serve as a buffer between our uses of the land and the water itself, and are the last line of defense for water quality.

To understand how a buffer works imagine drinking a cup of coffee made without a filter or even one with half a filter; think of all the sediment that would end up in your coffee.

Unfortunately, the people opposed to this ordinance are using fear tactics and mistruths in an attempt to derail this effort. They falsely claim that there is no sound science supporting buffers when there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of documents based on extensive scientific research that demonstrate the effectiveness of streamside buffers, and especially forested buffers.

By cherry picking some of these reports, they claim they prove their point of view, when the opposite is true. The opposition claims a streamside buffer ordinance will harm property values and the county’s finances when it has done neither in the 84 Virginia counties that have already adopted the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance. Seven of those 84 counties have Triple-A bond ratings and most of them received that rating after they adopted the Ordinance.

Obviously, it did not harm their finances or their ability to balance their budgets. Although Loudoun County is not required by law to adopt the ordinance, a 2003 report, Implementation of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission of the Virginia General Assembly, states (pages 90 – 91) that “hundreds of studies have been done on the impact of vegetative buffer and forest buffers on water quality” and “the hundred-foot buffer zone that is used in the Bay Act is within the typical range that is described as effective in the scientific literature…”

The report goes on to state “the expansion of the program could assist in minimizing nutrient and sediment influxes to waterways …” It is not surprising that one of the country’s fastest growing counties, Loudoun, is the first jurisdiction listed each time expansion of the program to non-Tidewater areas is mentioned.

During the Board of Supervisor’s stakeholders meetings, the opposition found people to represent Homeowners Associations that not only have no lots impacted by the ordinance, but also their “representatives” neither lived there nor had any legal connection with the HOA. Under those circumstances one has to wonder how many valid members of the Homeowners Association were aware this was occurring. Recently their attacks have become more strident and outrageous.

They have personally attacked, named and demanded that county employees who were explaining why the ordinance was valid and important be fired. They are even claiming that these employees will be investigated by the State Attorney General.

It is obvious that they are interested in intimidating those same employees into silence and hope the Board of Supervisors will be swayed by their threats. One can only hope that reasonable people will see the absurdity of this sort of campaign and let their representatives on the Board of Supervisors know how upsetting the outrageous behavior of the opposition is and how important it is that the county adopt the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance now.