Rappahannock County, Virginia

2008 Piedmont Alternative Energy Expo

The 2008 running of the annually scheduled Expo is slated for May 17, 2008 and features 44 exhibitors, including 17 new to the Expo this year.

Help us get the word out about Expo. Click here for the 2008 Expo Press Kit.

Visit the 2008 Expo home page for all the details and a map to the Fairgrounds.

RLEP's first executive director hired

RLEP is pleased to announce that PAM OWEN has been selected as executive director, our first staff employee in our 38-year history. Pam is a dedicated environmentalist with strong ties to Rappahannock County. Please stop by RLEP's new office in the Theatre Building at 291 Gay Street in Washington to congratulate Pam and to share your ideas and concerns on our environment. The office phone number is 540-317-1449.

It has long been an RLEP goal to strengthen our effectiveness by hiring permanent staff to help design and implement environmental programs, studies, and activities that will promote the RLEP mission of preserving the county’s natural, cultural, and historic features and resources.

A wild day in Sperryville

Four hundred people did something wild at the Sperryville Schoolhouse on Saturday, February 9 – they attended the second annual Wildlife Habitat Open House, put on by the Biodiversity Task Force of RLEP, in partnership with the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) and the Rappahannock Friends and Lovers of Our Watershed (RappFLOW). [more]

Living in bear country—
A privilege and a responsibility

	Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.

If there is one wild animal which defines the special character of living in Rappahannock County, it must be the American black bear, Ursus americanus. In fact, bears are so common in the county that it's easy to take them for granted—but this was not the case just a few generations ago. [Read more]
Virginia's Department of Game and Inland Fisheries posted an informative video, "Living with Black Bears in Virginia," on their website in September 2007. Rappahannock resident Bruce Jones is one of the interviewees.

RLEP supports opposition to power line

With help from directly affected landowners in five local counties and Concerned Culpeper Citizens (CCC), RLEP has organized a grassroots coalition of landowners with the goal of defeating Dominion Resources' proposal to build a monstrous 500-kilovolt electric transmission line through our counties. The Power-line Landowners Alliance, or The PLA, comes to the fight with a case that no other party is likely to present—that a massive new power line along the proposed route through Rappahannock, Culpeper, Fauquier, Prince William, and Warren Counties is an extraordinarily bad idea that will have a devastatingly serious and permanent adverse impact on citizens who live or own land along the line. [Read more]

	Existing Dominion tower. Photo by Carl Zitzmann.

So many lies, so little time: Dominion Power submits application for new power line in county

Let's start with some cold, hard facts:
Emitting roughly 33 million metric tons of carbon annually makes Dominion Power the 20th largest polluter in the S&P 500 stock index. If Dominion were a country, it would rank 34th out of the 192 countries in the United Nations in terms of pollution. [More]

	Dominion towers at Grimsley Road. Photo by Richard Lykes.

RLEP/PLA's capital campaign to fight power towers

RLEP and the Power-line Landowners Alliance (PLA) are collecting donations to fight Dominion’s proposal. The funds will be used to fight the proposed construction of a mammoth, new, unnecessary power line in Rappahannock and Culpeper Counties. The new power line would only serve to enrich Dominion executives and shareholders at the expense of local, rural landowners.

Please consider a monetary gift to help support this worthy, critical cause. Please be generous. Put your dollars to work here, defending against this threat locally. The costs of expert technical briefs and legal defense are very large. Visit the PLA website to learn more about the fight.

Please send your donation to:
RLEP - STOP Power Line
PO Box 94
Washington, VA 22747-0094

Forests under siege: Nonnative insects are threatening our trees

	The emerald ash borer is on its way from the Midwest and likely to have devastating consequences for Virginia's native ash trees. Photo courtesy SNP.

Three insects are threatening trees in our area: the hemlock wooly adelgid; the gypsy moth, which attacks oaks; and emerald ash borer. Forest pests thrive when tree health is already compromised by other stressors—from other biological assaults to air pollution, acid rain, and increasing cycles of drought. Learn more about these forest pests and how to fight the devastation. [Continued]