Virginia Coastal Zone Management - Summer/Fall 2008

Coastal Clips:

• New Virginia CZM Program Staff - Coastal GIS Coordinator
• New Virginia CZM Program Staff - Coastal Grants Coordinator/Outreach Specialist
• New DCR/NH Staff - Coastal Natural Heritage Liasion
• 2007 Virginia Outdoors Plan
• NOAA Deploys “Smart Buoys” in Virginia
• Middle Penninsula Receives Boating Access Award

New Virginia CZM Program Staff - Coastal GIS Coordinator

Nick Meade joined the Virginia CZM Program as the GIS coordinator and coastal specialist in March 2008. Nick came to us from the Department of Conservation and Recreation where he worked in the award winning Natural Heritage Program.

Nick graduated from Longwood University in 2003 with a degree in biology. While enrolled in school, Nick performed botanical survey work for Longwood and archaeological survey work under a contract with Virginia Tech’s Conservation Management Institute. After graduation, he was employed by Wildlife Habitat Council in Maryland, where he started as a research assistant and then went on to manage their habitat certification program. Nick then came back to Virginia to take a position with DCR’s Natural Heritage Program, where he worked to track and share statewide land conservation data through DCR’s Conservation Lands Database.

Nick’s primary responsibility with Virginia CZM is to maintain and enhance Virginia Coastal GEMS. Nick will also organize Coastal GEMS training programs, support Virginia CZM staff and partners with GIS related needs, and represent Virginia CZM within Virginia’s GIS community.

New Virginia CZM Program Staff - Coastal Grants Coordinator/Outreach Specialist

Shannon Girouard joined the Virginia CZM Program as grants coordinator and outreach specialist in September 2008. Most recently, she worked with a local non-profit organization to improve their strategic planning, grant research and writing, and data collection efforts.

Shannon graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1992 with a bachelor of arts in government. She has a master’s degree in public administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. While a graduate student, Shannon worked with the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development administering state and federally-funded grant programs targeting homeless, low-income and special needs residents. She also has worked with Thomas Nelson Community College as a grants specialist where she performed grant research and writing and worked to formalize the college’s grants office.

In her present capacity with Virginia CZM, Shannon will coordinate grant-related activities, including federal reporting and maintaining financial and performance data for the program. She will also assist fellow staff with communicating the mission and goals of the program through publications, exhibits and web page development.

New DCR/NH Staff - Coastal Natural Heritage Liasion

Kristal McKelvey joined the Environmental Review Team at the Department of Conservation and Recreation Division of Natural Heritage in February 2008.

Kristal graduated from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, where she was a teaching assistant for the Department of Biology and Environmental Studies and an outreach and biological assistant intern for the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Virginia field office.

With funding from Virginia CZM, Kristal works with agencies, private individuals and consultants to assess the potential for proposed activities to impact natural heritage resources, and recommends ways to avoid or minimize these impacts. Kristal also provides training for coastal locality staff on tools such as the Natural Heritage Data Explorer mapping program, and consults with planners on incorporating natural heritage resource concerns into local comprehensive plans and permitting processes.

2007 Virginia Outdoors Plan

by Kim Hodges, DCR

The Virginia Outdoors Plan, the state’s guide to comprehensive outdoor recreation, conservation and open space planning, has expanded its focus in the face of rapidly changing population and land-use pressures. Compiled by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, and released every five years since 1965, the 2007 edition is Virginia’s ninth.

This 2007 edition contains information new to the plan. Local and state outdoor recreation resources and open space is related to land conservation, green infrastructure, and “nature-deficit disorder.” A growing concern, “nature-deficit disorder” was coined by author Richard Louv and addresses a growing trend - children increasingly disconnected from the outdoors.

The 2007 plan also contains more land conservation information, including planning region maps showing all protected lands in the area, which will assist Virginia’s land conservation organizations to target lands most suitable for conservation.

The plan calls for greater integration of green infrastructure planning into traditional forms of municipal planning.Green infrastructure is an environmentally inclusive approach to local and regional planning, which integrates outdoor recreation, open space, cultural resources and conservation lands into land use management decisions. The Virginia Outdoors Plan was written by DCR in coordination with federal and state natural resource agencies, local planning and recreation departments, the private sector and concerned citizens.

Copies of the plan were distributed to city, county and regional planners and major conservation organizations, and can be accessed at http://dcr.virginia.gov/recreational_planning/vop.shtml.
The VOP is also available on CD. Contact Beth Reed at (804) 786-5046 or beth.reed@dcr.virginia.gov.

NOAA Deploys “Smart Buoys” in Virginia

In the summer and fall of 2008, two new “smart buoys’ were deployed by the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office in the Rappahannock and Elizabeth rivers. Like the buoy deployed in Jamestown in 2007, these buoys will take observations of the Bay’s changing conditions and help mark the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail.

The Rappahannock buoy was deployed off Stingray Point, near Deltaville, VA to mark the 400th anniversary of Captain John Smith’s exploration of the region. In July 1608, Smith was stung by a stingray and nearly died, giving the peninsula where this incident occurred its name.

The three Virginia buoys are part of the Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System which collects weather, oceanographic and water-quality observations and transmits this data wirelessly in near-real time. These measurements, necessary to track Bay restoration progress, as well as historical and cultural information about the Bay, can be accessed at http://buoybay.org and by phone at 877-BUOY-BAY (877-286-9229). The system includes two buoys in Maryland and one in Pennsylvania.

Middle Penninsula Receives Boating Access Award

The Middle Pennisula Planning District Commission received a 2007 Recreational Boating Access Award from the Boat Owners Association of the United States (BoatUS) for creation of the Middle Peninsula Chesapeake Bay Public Access Authority (MPCBPAA). The award was one of seven distributed by BoatUS, the nation’s leading advocate for recreational boaters.

Virginia CZM has supported the MPCBPAA since 2003 with over $1.3 million in funding for development of the PAA organizational framework, land acquisition, enhancements to public access sites, an inventory of road endings in the Middle Peninsula that provide water access and the development of legislation that eliminates an obstacle for conserving these road ending for public water access when they are transferred from the Commonwealth Transportation Board (H.B. 2781).

The award was presented at the 2007 Working Waterways and Waterfronts: A National Symposium on Water Access Conference in Norfolk.