Page 28 – Virginia Outdoors Foundation

Rockingham farmers help protect headwaters of “showcase” Smith Creek watershed

Bartholomew and Christina Johnson of Rockingham have made a significant contribution to water quality protection in the Smith Creek Watershed by donating an open-space easement on their farm to VOF.

The 48 acres near Keezletown contain a large portion of the headwaters of Smith Creek. The easement requires existing stream buffers to be permanently maintained on the property. The buffers help to maintain the water quality by limiting development and livestock access, which can cause sedimentation and pollution.

Smith Creek is one of three watersheds in the nation designated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service as a “Showcase Watershed.” The goal of the designation program is to produce measurable improvements in water quality within a specific geographical area. To do this, NRCS is working with state and local agencies to engage more than 90 percent of the farmers in these watersheds, giving them the technical and financial tools to enhance clean water practices on their farms.

From 2010 to 2017 in the Smith Creek Watershed alone, the NRCS program helped farmers manage nutrients on more than 5,826 acres, plant 3,223 acres of cover crops, implement rotational grazing on 726 acres, and install over 26.1 miles of livestock fencing.

To date, VOF has protected more than 1,300 acres in the Smith Creek watershed.

“The Johnsons have a small farm, but they have so much frontage on Smith Creek and one of its major tributaries,” says VOF easement specialist Laura Thurman, who worked on the project. “Plus, it contains brook floater, a species of mollusk that the state of Virginia lists as ‘endangered,’ so we knew it needed protection.”

The easement also prohibits division of the property — another protection important to Bart Johnson.

“I grew up here, and it’s always been this little pocket of really nice farms that are still intact and very scenic,” he says. “I would like to see it stay the same.”

VOF announces new year-round public visitation hours at the preserve

After reviewing our visitation data and annual management goals – and receiving valuable input from the surrounding community, preserve visitors, partners, staff and volunteers – we are excited to announce that there will NOT be a 2018 winter closure this year at the preserve! Instead, we will have a slightly earlier hour of closure (4:30pm), from November 15th to March 15th each year (to coincide with the lack of afternoon daylight). Our days of operation will remain the same (Friday, Saturday and Sunday).

As a reminder, we at VOF-BRMNAP are perpetually tasked and dedicated to mitigating and minimizing the impacts of public visitation on the preserve’s ecosystem. Our goal is to be able to perpetually offer a truly great place to come experience the magic and wonder of nature – no matter the season! The Virginia Outdoors Foundation worked with DCR-Natural Heritage to permanently protect what is now VOF-BRMNAP to provide us all with an incredible opportunity to utilize this preserved space as a living classroom, laboratory and museum – a natural oasis in the ever-changing corner of the world that is Northern Virginia.

We could not do this without your support and want to thank you all for supporting these goals!

Please plan on visiting this winter and showing us that you support and appreciate our new OPEN winter schedule and, while visiting, please do keep in mind that BRMNAP is a nature-focused preserve (rather than a recreation-focused park). Mindful and careful visitation practices will help ensure that we can sustain these increased hours of access and keep our preserve’s ecosystem healthy and our trail network maintained!

Looking forward to seeing you all on the trails! Though don’t forget to bring those scarves, mittens and coats – it is looking like it may be a cold one this year!

New, year-round hours for the preserve are as follows:

8:00am – 6:00pm March 16^th – November 14^th

8:00am – 4:30pm November 15^th – March 15^th

Corduroy roads found under old trail system at the preserve

If you have hiked along BRMNAP’s Green Trail, you may have noticed an old road bed that has been somewhat-recently exposed by rainwater-driven erosion at its juncture with the old Mountain Access road. The exposed logs (shown in the accompanying photos) closely resemble a corduroy road, a popular type of road construction used during the American Civil War. Corduroy roads are characterized by logs laid perpendicular to road direction and they were implemented where goods or people needed to cross through water-saturated, muddy or swampy areas.

The recent exposure of this historical roadbed at BRMNAP serves as just one form of evidence of the now state-designated Natural Area Preserve’s peopled past. While the road beds recent exposure opens an intriguing avenue of research into the preserve’s cultural history, it also brings up challenges for trail maintenance.

A healthy ecosystem is comprised of native plants and animals that exist and interact in a balance along with abiotic factors (such as water and geologic features). VOF-BRMNAP staff actively manage the preserve to help maintain this balance by monitoring natural communities and minimizing human-use and impact. Despite protecting the preserve from human impact and change, the natural environment still perpetually alters the landscape on its own. Sometimes this natural dynamism fosters the exciting discovery of new cultural or environmental features, but these changes can also present new management challenges.

The small logs that compose the corduroy road were exposed by the rainwaters that run down the mountain after each heavy rain event. While erosion (of all types) is a constant threat to the trail system at BRMNAP, rainwater erosion has, over the past few years, caused the lower portion of the Mountain Access Road to be largely comprised of uneven substrate and perennially wet areas. It has become obvious that this presents an obstacle to preserve visitors and because of this, we are in the process of re-routing the trail network along this section. This re-route will keep hikers off this less suitable trail, while still winding visitors through all-of-our unique natural and cultural treasures. We will be sure to update you all here (and in the form of appropriate signage) as soon as this project is completed!

VOF-BRMNAP staff (with an extremely healthy dose of volunteer contribution!) are dedicated to maintaining (and occasionally creating) sustainable trails on the preserve that provide visitors with a place to observe flora, fauna and historic/cultural remnants in a balanced, natural setting.
We are currently trying to discover as much as we can about our cultural holdings at BRMNAP. If you are interested in volunteering (with trail work or potential citizen-science monitoring projects), or if you have any information on the history of this corduroy road (or any cultural resources held within the preserve), please send an email to our Preserve Technician, Summers Cleary (scleary@vofonline.org) or our Preserve Manager, Joe Villari, (jvillari@vofonline.org).

VOF board chair seeks protection for Land Preservation Tax Credits at IRS hearing

On Nov. 5, VOF Board Chair Eleanor Weston Brown spoke at an Internal Revenue Service hearing in Washington, D.C., to address a proposed regulation that could cause unintended negative consequences for Virginia’s Land Preservation Tax Credit (LPTC) program.

Brown, a tax attorney, said that a proposal to treat state and local tax credits as a payment would reduce the ability of donors to fully utilize federal tax deductions for easement and land donations. In Virginia, donors are eligible to receive LPTCs worth 40 percent of the donation, and may also deduct up to 100 percent of the donation’s value on their federal income taxes. The IRS proposal would not allow donors to claim a federal deduction for the 40 percent received in LPTCs.

The proposed regulation is designed to address recent developments in State and Local Tax (SALT) policy, in which some states have used tax credit programs as a workaround to a $10,000 cap on federal deductions for SALT taxes. If enacted it would take effect retroactively to August 28, 2018.

“The proposed regulation significantly undercuts the stated goals of Congress in enacting tax deductions for land conservation,” said Brown. “VOF urges the IRS to reconsider the proposed regulation as it applies to state tax credits for land conservation.”

Specifically, Brown asked the IRS to exempt such credits from the rule. If they do not, she asked that the effective date be moved to 2019 to allow VOF to complete as many as 75 easement projects that are already underway, and whose landowners began the process under the old rules. She also said that if the rule is enacted and LPTCs are not exempted, that the reductions in tax liability should be given basis.

Brown was joined at the hearing by VOF Executive Director Brett Glymph, as well as representatives from Virginia United Land Trusts, the Land Trust Alliance, and the Piedmont Environmental Council.

A copy of Ms. Brown’s written comments to the IRS are available below.

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VOF holds community input forum for Hayfields at Highland Center

Dozens of residents and community leaders attended a forum at the Highland Center in Monterey on October 9 to provide their thoughts on potential future uses of Hayfields Farm, a 1,034-acre property in Highland County acquired by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation in 2017.

The forum was facilitated by Stantec, an architecture and planning firm contracted by VOF to guide the planning process. Stantec staff, assisted by VOF staff, presented information about the property and conducted exercises to learn people’s hopes and fears for the property, which must be maintained as permanent open space. [wpfilebase tag=fileurl id=559 linktext=’A copy of the presentation can be downloaded here’ /].

Two main themes emerged from the community. The first is a desire for there to be some level of public access to the property’s natural resources, which include fields, forests, trails, ponds, and a one-mile stretch of the Bullpasture River. The second is to see the property generate economic activity for the community, in the form of jobs, tourism, tax revenue, or a combination of the three.

Specific ideas that were floated during the forum included using the site for educational or institutional research, a state park or campground, a venue for arts or retreats, or a wellness or rehabilitation center. The biggest fears among community members were that nothing would happen with the property, or that development would negatively affect the natural beauty of the area. Some residents mentioned traffic and loss of dark skies as specific concerns.

The forum was the first step in a process of engaging local, regional, and state stakeholders from a broad spectrum of interests to determine what the highest needs are that could be served by a large open-space property, what kinds of solutions could meet those needs, and which partners in the public and private sectors could be brought together to achieve our goals. VOF and Stantec will be reaching out to other potential stakeholders over the coming weeks, including people and organizations in the areas of healthcare, education, recreation, and economic development.

“While conserving open space is the primary objective of the Hayfields project, it’s important that we explore ways to help address other needs in the Commonwealth,” says VOF deputy director of stewardship Martha Little, who is overseeing the planning process. “We want to maximize the public benefit of Hayfields, and getting there will require innovation, partnerships, and thinking big.”

Enrichmond hosting several community meetings on Evergreen project

During October, the Enrichmond Foundation will host public meetings throughout the City of Richmond to get input from family members, community leaders, volunteers, and anyone else interested in the conservation and restoration efforts at historic Evergreen Cemetery. Visit https://enrichmond.org/events/historic-evergreen-cemetery-a-community-conversation/ for dates, locations, and times.

The meetings are a continuation of Enrichmond’s planning process for the property, which it acquired in 2017 and is the resting place of more than 10,000 African-Americans dating back to the 19th century, including notable Richmond leaders such as Maggie L. Walker and John Mitchell, Jr. The Virginia Outdoors Foundation has been working with Enrichmond to record an open-space easement on the cemetery, to ensure that the overgrowth, vandalism, and trash that plagued it for decades will not be part of its future. VOF has allocated $400,000 of public funding to protect and restore Evergreen along with the neighboring East End Cemetery.

The public meetings will be facilitated by volunteer members of Evergreen’s Executive Planning and Review Team (ExPRT committee), as well as Enrichmond staff. VOF trustee Viola Baskerville, who has family members buried at Evergreen, serves on the ExPRT committee.

Says VOF Executive Director Brett Glymph, “Enrichmond has done a remarkable job assembling a team of family members, volunteers, and other partners to ensure that we restore dignity to this national treasure in a way that’s consistent with the vision and values of the Richmond community.”

VOF announces new grant program, seeks proposals for forest conservation

The Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) has created a new program that will administer funds derived from legal and regulatory actions that result from impairment to Virginia’s natural resources.

The need for the program arose following mitigation agreements between the Commonwealth of Virginia and the developers of two natural gas pipelines — Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Mountain Valley Pipeline — in which VOF was named a mitigation partner and asked to administer $39,650,000 to offset forest fragmentation caused by pipeline construction.

The new program, called TERRA, initially will house two funds named the Forest CORE Funds, one for each pipeline’s impact region. VOF will provide grants to state agencies, localities, and other public bodies as well as private 501(c)(3) conservation groups that work to protect, connect, and restore forest resources through conservation easements, acquisition, reforestation, or enhancement activities. An interagency workgroup comprised of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, Department of Forestry, Department of Transportation, Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Department of Environmental Quality, and Virginia Outdoors Foundation worked together to define the scope of the mitigation grant program, guide VOF’s administration of the funding, and set timelines and project criteria.

VOF now is accepting proposals for the first round of grants for the Forest CORE Fund covering the Mountain Valley Pipeline region. This round seeks to disburse $3 million of the fund’s total of $15 million. The request for proposals, which includes guidelines and application materials, may be found online at https://www.vof.org/terra/fcf-mvp/ or obtained from program manager Emily White. The deadline for applications is October 31, 2018.

A grant round for the Forest CORE Fund in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline region will be established in early 2019 using $24,650,000 from the mitigation agreement between the Commonwealth and ACP.

VOF will host a workshop for applicants on September 12 at the Vinton Library in Roanoke County to discuss the project selection process in detail and answer questions from potential applicants. Interested attendees need to register in advance as space is limited. Click here for event details, including a link to register.

As part of the process of developing the grant criteria, VOF sought input from a broad group of stakeholders in the Mountain Valley Pipeline region, with a high priority on communities most directly impacted by the project. Stakeholders include all directly impacted localities, planning districts, soil and water conservation districts, land trusts covering the region, local foresters, as well as the U.S. Forest Service. In addition, input was sought from Virginia’s United Land Trusts, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund, and the other mitigation partners named in the agreements (U.S. Endowment for Forestry & Communities, the Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts, and Virginia Endowment for the Environment). VOF also posted the draft grant materials online for public input on August 9, 2018 and received written and verbal comments at its August 22 board meeting when the materials were adopted.

“We have set a high bar for transparency and accountability in the development of this program, and we’ll maintain that commitment throughout the selection of the projects, just as VOF does for all of its conservation work on behalf of the public,” says VOF Executive Director Brett Glymph.

VOF will continue to seek and welcome input from stakeholders as it refines the Forest CORE Fund programs for future grant rounds. Anyone interested in providing feedback should email Emily White at ewhite@vofonline.org, or submit their comments through our online form at https://www.vof.org/comments/.

VOF seeking input for development of new grant initiative

The Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) Board of Trustees will meet on August 22 at Boar’s Head Resort in Charlottesville to consider draft criteria and guidelines for a new grant initiative being administered by VOF on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The initiative is funded by mitigation agreements between the Commonwealth and the developers of two large natural gas pipelines and addresses forest fragmentation resulting from pipeline construction. The first round of grants will be available for projects in a region affected by the Mountain Valley Pipeline. A grant round for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline region is expected next year.

As one of the agreements’ Forest Mitigation Partners, VOF is responsible for developing grant criteria and overseeing the project selection process. VOF is developing two funds, one for each region, which will be housed in a new program. These funds will each have their own application and selection process. Draft documents outlining criteria, scoring, and guidelines for the first fund, called the Forest CORE Fund (MVP Region), can be downloaded here.

VOF has placed a high priority on public engagement and community participation in developing the initiative. Over the past three months, staff have been traveling through impacted communities meeting with local governments, planning districts, land trusts, and conservation partners seeking ideas on how to best address forest fragmentation, as well as the needs of the impacted communities. VOF has also been soliciting feedback from other state agencies on how to structure and administer a strong grant program based in science but built with community support.

VOF is making the draft documentation available to the public prior to the August 22 meeting in hopes of receiving additional public input. There is no deadline to provide input, but VOF is encouraging people to provide written comments by noon on August 21. Input received after August 22 will be reviewed and considered for subsequent grant rounds.

Please direct input or questions to Emily White, ewhite@vofonline.org, (434) 282-7154.

VOF’s first easement in Alexandria ensures public access to historic property

The Murray-Dick-Fawcett House in Old Town Alexandria is now permanently protected for the public by historic preservation and open-space easements held by the Virginia Board of Historic Resources and the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF).

The easements were acquired thanks to $1.25 million in grants from the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation and VOF’s Preservation Trust Fund.

The easement held by the Board of Historic Resources protects the historic house and garden and will be administered by staff of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (VDHR). The Board of Historic Resources holds 19 other historic preservation easements in Old Town.

VOF’s easement ensures that the garden will be permanently open to the public, and is the foundation’s first open-space easement in the City of Alexandria.

The completion of the easements comes approximately one year after the City of Alexandria acquired the property from its owner, Joseph Reeder, using the grants and an equity donation from Mr. Reeder. The city granted Mr. Reeder a lifetime tenancy as part of the acquisition, and he will open the house to the public for special events several times a year. Eventually, the house will be converted into an educational center focused on domestic life in the 18th and 19th centuries.

“This project has been a perfect partnership with VDHR,” says VOF Executive Director Brett Glymph. “Together we are protecting the fascinating historic structure and its adjoining open space. Most importantly, we are helping the City of Alexandria make this treasure accessible to the public for generations to come.”

Built circa 1775 for Patrick Murray, with distinct building campaigns in 1785 and 1796, the Murray-Dick-Fawcett House has long been recognized as worthy of preservation. In 1936 the Historic American Buildings Survey documented the property for its architectural and historic significance, and in 1966 the property was designated as a contributing resource to the Alexandria National Historic Landmark District. The district, now known as Old Town, is a destination for an estimated 3 million visitors a year.

Even within the historic context of Old Town, the house is unique. It is the only existing vernacular, middle-class frame dwelling of its period, and one of the few remaining examples of such a dwelling in any urban setting in Virginia.

The adjacent open-space garden area is also significant. From 1775 until 1970, it served a variety of commercial uses. It was the site of the original owner’s commercial livery, and later re-purposed as a grocery, a laundry, and finally a two-story school/office building used by a nearby church. Preserving the space enhances the historic setting of the house and maintains the historic Old Town streetscape.

The garden is currently open to the public, providing a welcome respite along busy Prince and S. St. Asaph streets. The house will be open to the public on a limited basis at first, with expanded access to follow. Together, VDHR and VOF will steward the house and its open-space, and the City of Alexandria will maintain the house as required by the terms of the easements. The Office of Historic Alexandria will operate the site as part of the city-owned museum system.

VOF partners with Shenandoah nonprofit to conserve Valley’s Germanic heritage

Virginia’s Germanic heritage story starts with a title dispute. Anxious to settle the Shenandoah Valley, the Colonial Government at Williamsburg began selling off pieces of land west of the Blue Ridge in the 1730s. However, there was a catch: this land had already been claimed from across the Atlantic by the British Lord Thomas Fairfax. He would file suit, but lost his case in 1786, decades after his death.

The eventual winners of the suit were the farmers who had bought the land — descendants of immigrants who had originally settled in Pennsylvania from areas around the Rhine River in what we now know as Germany. These families had migrated to the Shenandoah Valley in search of more land to cultivate, bringing with them practices that would form the bedrock of early American farming culture.

This history is being preserved in part by Hottel-Keller Memorial, Inc. (HKMI), a nonprofit educational organization that owns the Hottel and Keller homesteads in Shenandoah County. HKMI runs the Shenandoah Germanic Heritage Museum on the site with volunteers from the Shenandoah County Historical Society.

“When Bill Jake Keller left the property to HKMI, his vision was to have a working farm and a museum building so that future generations could see how people used to live off the land, using technologies that influenced modern farming,” says Karen Cooper, the founding president of HKMI.

Thanks to a $400,000 grant from the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s Preservation Trust Fund, the site is now protected permanently with an open-space easement. The funding will be put toward the construction of a dedicated museum building, the restoration of the farmstead, and the expansion of educational programs that demonstrate pre-Civil War Farming practices.

The architecture that remains on the site is central to Keller’s vision. The remains of the old Hottel and Keller homes illustrate the layout of a typical Shenandoah Rhinish house, and the 1750s-era spring and loom houses are perfect examples of 18th-century know-how. Additionally, period artifacts remain that can tell the story of daily life on the farm.

“We have a good collection of items that would be useful in the early American kitchen, as well as old tools and other items that may have been used for carpentry, cigar molds and various other items. We are just now learning how to interpret many of them,” Cooper states.

The property’s natural functions are also essential to the project. “We want to encourage and preserve the habitat that exists here for migratory birds, butterflies and bees, get rid of invasive plants, and replace them with native ones,” she says. Future plans also include creating a trail on the property that would connect with the Big Blue trail in the adjacent George Washington and Jefferson National Forest.

“As we see more and more housing come up in this area, we really feel that there should be something preserved so that people can imagine what life might have been like back then,” Cooper adds.

Laura Thurman, a VOF easement manager who served as the project lead, agrees. “If you drive by this place, you remember it,” she says. “It exemplifies what is wonderful about the Valley—farmland next to mountains, springs and streams and the stories of the families who lived here before us. I love that this place will be shared and that the folks who own it feel such a strong sense of stewardship.”