If there’s one thing that’s been bypassed in the ongoing push for new roads around DC and Charlottesville, it’s public process.
First, in May, the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) revived plans for a developers’ dream road around DC—the vast Outer Beltway. The unelected CTB brought back the Outer Beltway without consulting local governments, without a recommendation from VDOT, and without any public input.
What fears are separating children from nature? What happens when they reconnect?
When children first arrive at Rappahannock Nature Camp, they are afraid of bugs, the camp director, Lyt Wood, told me.
But, on the day I visited this summer, he opened up a hive of 30,000 honeybees while the children craned to see. The kids had brought long clothes and hats to camp for the occasion. They pulled netting over the rims of their hats and sealed their clothes at the wrists and ankles with blue tape. Wood doused the hive with smoke, then drew out frames that were packed with vibrating, crawling, humming bees.
In 1979, Bill Speiden was offered a lease for uranium mining and milling on his Orange County farm. That uranium hasn’t gone anywhere.
The debate over uranium mining and milling in Virginia is coming to a head, with a much-awaited study from the National Academy of Sciences due to be released in December. Proponents are pushing the General Assembly to end the state’s ban on uranium mining in the January 2012 session. The stakes are high; not just for southwest Virginia, but for the entire state—including the Piedmont.
When Brian Higgins joined PEC’s staff as our first full-time field officer for Culpeper and Greene, this summer, he had to hit the ground running in Greene County. For one thing, the county is considering a rezoning for a development of nearly 1,200 units—a single project that could increase the county’s population by 20%.