View articles published in our quarterly membership newsletter, The Piedmont View. To become a PEC member or renew your existing membership, visit our donations page today!
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Giving Back
Jean Scott, 82, of Culpeper County placed her 118-acre tract of land on the Hazel River into a permanent conservation easement in 2010. Mrs. Scott’s donation will be an enduring legacy of conservation; a testament …
Cows, Not Condos
Bev McKay's family has been farming the land that he just protected in Clarke County for over 200 years. Mr. McKay raises dairy cattle on the property, as well as crops, such as corn and …
Walmart Picks Alternative Site for Orange Store
In late May, Walmart announced that it has chosen an alternative site for its store in Orange County — a successful outcome for preservationists who, for years, pressed Walmart to build its store at a …
Taxpayer’s Dollars, Developers’ Dream Road
This May – without any technical justification, without public input and without a recommendation from VDOT — an unelected body, the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB), approved a potential north-south highway between Leesburg and I-95 as …
Going Wild
At lunch during PEC’s Wildlife Friendly Habitats and Gardens Tour in Clarke County, the group was joined by a barn owl, a screech owl, and a red tailed hawk. The sharp-beaked raptors sent smaller birds …
Radioactive Rivers
Beneath the rolling landscapes of Culpeper, Fauquier, Madison and Orange are deposits of the radioactive mineral uranium — potential mine sites. In the 1980s, companies filed mining leases on thousands of acres of land in …
Scenic Byway Bridge–Wider, Faster, Straighter?
When Rap Owings and his family learned about VDOT’s plan for the bridge near their farm in Banco, on Route 231 west of Madison, they were concerned. VDOT was planning to take out the existing …
A Walk Through Bird and Butterfly Paradise
Fifteen years ago, Bruce Jones’ research led him to the discovery that, in his words, “Native plants are the basic building blocks for the whole ecology of our area.” So, he and his wife Susan …
Building Fences for Cleaner Streams
Farmers are using a unique incentive program coordinated by PEC to substantially expand water quality protections in our region. The program helps cover their costs for fencing livestock out of streams …
A Wasteful Bypass and a Better Plan
VDOT gave plans for the Charlottesville Western Bypass an F. So why spend half a billion dollars on it?That's the question that PEC posed to Charlottesville and Albemarle residents though ads in local papers and …
