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Virginia conservationists want Gov. Mark Warner to use part of a federal tax rebate to help purchase the Crow's Nest peninsula in Stafford County and other threatened natural areas around the state.
The Nature Conservancy and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation want $100 million of a one-time $415 million federal-aid windfall earmarked for conservation projects around the state. They are requesting $60 million for the state Water Quality Improvement Fund and $40 million for the Virginia Land Conservation Fund.
The federal windfall is Virginia's share of $20 billion being returned to states under the new tax-cut law.
Whether any of the money will go toward conservation programs is unclear. Warner has said his top priorities include raises for state employees and more money for law enforcement, Medicare and education.
Warner spokeswoman Ellen Qualls said yesterday that the governor is consulting with legislators and his cabinet about how the money should be spent, and that any decisions probably won't come until after the June 30 end of the fiscal year.
"We want to caution people not to get their hopes up," she said.
Crow's Nest is one of two high-priority projects that could be advanced with the money, according to an announcement Thursday by the Nature Conservancy and Bay Foundation.
"Without proper action and adequate funding, the commonwealth stands to lose out on several urgent land-conservation opportunities," Michael Lipford, Virginia executive director of the conservancy, said in a statement. "If that happens, significant natural resources, forests and watersheds throughout the state will be lost forever."
Efforts to protect Crow's Nest have been going on for years. The state has already committed $5 million toward purchasing a 1,500-acre chunk of the 3,800-acre tract along Potomac and Accokeek creeks. Owned by a Northern Virginia investment partnership, the land is one of the last large undeveloped tracts in the county and is home to rare plants and animals, a large heron rookery and virgin forest.
Negotiations are ongoing among the landowner, the Trust for Crow's Nest--a local preservation group--and the state, which wants to buy the land as money becomes available. The total cost could be in excess of $22 million.
The Bay Foundation and Nature Conservancy also say that 26,000 acres of forest along Dragon Run, a tributary of the Piankatank River, should be protected. The groups suggest $4 million of the federal money should be used to buy a first installment of the ecologically valuable marsh land along the Rappahannock watershed in Middlesex County.
Water-quality and pollution-abatement initiatives are short of money, the groups said in asking for $7 million to clean up tributaries draining into the Chesapeake Bay and $53 million to help meet new nutrient-reduction goals. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus encourage algae growth and rob oxygen from the water; they are considered the main cause of bay pollution.
Earmarking $40 million to the land-conservation fund, the groups said, would provide only half of what Virginia will need to meet its commitment to permanently protect 20 percent of the bay watershed by 2010.
"What we're saying is that natural-resource protection and preservation is a core function of government," said Chuck Epes, a spokesman for the Bay Foundation's Virginia office.