Rappahannock County, Virginia

The year of the frog

Unfortunately, there are no banner breeding years for far too many of the world's 5,000 species of frogs. At least one-third of them are threatened with extinction, according to the World Conservation Union (known for short by its old acronym, IUCN). To publicize the plight of the world's disappearing frogs and toads, 2008 has been designated as the "Year of the Frog." [more...]

2008 Piedmont Alternative Energy Expo

The 2008 running of the annually scheduled Expo was held May 17, 2008 and featured 44 exhibitors, including 17 new to the Expo this year.

The weather was appropriately sunny and breezy, and almost 600 attendees from the Piedmont region and beyond were present to enjoy the event and learn about green technologies. The solar race car drew lots of visitors, as did the energy cycle. Many of the kids – and their parents – displayed their ability to generate electricity for light bulbs by pedaling the energy cycle. Not an easy job for the long haul! Read more

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, came to the fight with a case that no other party presented—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's plans 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]

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]