The Rockbridge Area Conservation Council

Community education on local conservation issues: hosted zoom seminars and posted recordings online on: pfas "forever chemicals", star gazing, dark sky lighting, givesolar program, how to create a carbon sink, biochar, rotational grazing, the virginia green program, and composting; responded to inquiries on conservation easements; collaborated on the design and managed sandy the sea turtle's educational display on reducing plastic waste including at rc's community festival booth; provided technical review and expert input on the lexington planned unit development (pud) ordinance and w&l master plan revision; served on the technical advisory committee (tac) for the pcb tmdl for the maury river; partnered with the garden club of virginia on a state-wide conservation forum on pfas; provided educational materials for the public library's summer reading program on oceans of possibilities; hosted a solar happy hour with solar united neighbors (sun) to kick off the ready, set, solar program in rockbridge; developed a white paper recommending provisions for commercial-scale solar power plant arrays in rockbridge; published the ridge and river newsletter quarterly and established a blog on local conservation issues.

Other outreach and program services: facilitated a meeting with uncas trail property owner and maury service authority to address concerns about discharges from the potw; organized and participated in the rockbridge waste reduction roundtable; publicized local conservation events at the natural bridge state park and elsewhere in rc's bi-weekly ecoevents calendar; supported the friends of brushy hills; revised the rockbridge conservation brochure and launched a new website; continued to participate in the virginia safe wildlife corridor coalition on behalf of the arcadia wildlife corridor; participated in the rockbridge area outdoors partnership; participated in the virginia conservation network pfas working group and contributed to the 2024 our common agenda whitepaper; attended vcn and valcv updates on conservation issues and alerted rc members of opportunities for public comment; collaborated with main street lexington on the caught green handed program; assisted deq with public outreach meetings to develop tmdls for mill and moores creeks; celebrated rc's 48th year of conservation with a public gathering for the 2024 annual meeting and presentation of annual conservations awards; and continued participation in and membership support of the rockbridge farm bureau, rockbridge lexington buena vista chamber of commerce, valley conservation council, and virginia conservation network.