Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay (Alliance) is a regional nonprofit organization that builds and fosters partnerships to protect and restore the Bay and its rivers. It is a coalition of educators, scientists, farmers, recreational enthusiasts, environmentalists, businesses, government officials, and citizens across the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The Alliance has been a leader in facilitating these groups to come to consensus on positions and programs that help to protect the Chesapeake Bay. Known as “The Voice of the Bay,” the Alliance continues to be a source of unbiased information, able to act as a neutral party on all Bay watershed issues. The Alliance maintains offices in Baltimore; Harrisburg, PA; Washington DC and Richmond, Virginia. Some Virginia programs include:
The James River Sojourn is a 7-day on-the-water traveling educational event for up to 125 paddlers.
James River Sojourn
The James River Sojourn is a partnership project coordinated by the Virginia office of the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and follows on four previously successful James River Sojourns, as well as nearly 20 years of Alliance sojourns on the major tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. Working with local and regional organizations, the James River Sojourn is a 7-day on-the-water traveling educational and publicity event for up to 125 paddlers, with this year’s theme being Rediscovering Conservation: Land Use Along James River, Then and Now. The journey will start on the Rivanna River and travel down the James to and through Richmond, ending up at Dutch Gap Conservation Area. Dates are June 16-23 and additional information is available at www.AllianceChesBay.org.
Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring.
The staff of the Alliance Virginia office works with watershed and monitoring groups around Virginia to provide training of volunteer citizen in chemical and bacteria monitoring. Once certified under the Alliances Quality Assurance Program Plan, these volunteers contribute to DEQ’s biennial reports by providing Level III data (equivalent to DEQ sampling) for several parameters. This year, the Alliance is launching its Train-the-Trainer program to help groups expand their capacity to train and certify water quality monitors locally. The Alliance is also supporting the emerging Virginia Citizens for Water Quality (VCWQ) in order to provide coordination among citizen water quality monitors around the state. As in previous years, the Alliance is signatory to the Partnership Agreement between DEQ, DCR, and several other groups, which affirms a joint commitment on the part of state agencies and volunteer monitoring interests to utilize and support volunteer water quality monitoring efforts in Virginia.
Restoration and Water Quality Protection
Much of the work of the Alliance involves partnerships with local and regional groups to help build capacity for undertaking restoration activities. In 2006, the Alliance helped the Rappahannock Wildlife Refuge Friends in Warsaw, VA increase its membership and capacity to support the Rappahannock River Valley NWR. The Alliance recruited Northern Neck volunteers to design and install a native plant BayScapes garden at the Refuge headquarters. Volunteers became new members and have agreed to long term stewardship of the garden at the Refuge. In a similar project at Presquile NWR, the Alliance worked with partners to host a series of planting days in which 250 volunteers planted 3500 trees to stabilize the NWR shoreline along the James River and provide habitat for wildlife. The Refuge now has a cohort of willing volunteers to assist with additional tasks in the future
Following on the successful design and installation of Richmond’s first green roof on the SunTrust building, the Alliance is now working with Union BankShares to promote the green building technologies, including an extensive green roof and other stormwater and LID features at its new corporate center in Caroline County. To help encourage local businesses to incorporate conservation landscaping into their facilities, the Alliance is working with partners to design and host a “BayScapes for Corporate and Public Facilities” workshops each fall..
Since 2003, the Alliance has been working with the Center for Watershed Protection and the National Homebuilders Association under a program called Builders for the Bay to host a series of better site design Roundtables in all the Bay states. These roundtables provide a successful format in which local community stakeholders, the building industry, and local government staff and officials review codes and ordinances to evaluate how water quality can be protected during development. In Virginia, Charles City County completed a Builders Roundtable in 2003. The Alliance is presently working with the Virginia Beach Green Ribbon Panel to complete a roundtable process that is focusing on redevelopment.
For further information about any of these projects, please visit http://www.alliancechesbay.org/
Links Referenced
- www.AllianceChesBay.org
- http://www.alliancechesbay.org/
- http://www.alliancechesbay.org/
- http://www.alliancechesbay.org/
Location
http://vcnva.org/anx/index.cfm/1,122,493,0,html
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