With bankers and car executives vying for government bailouts, average people might dash for free money, too. But according to Ashley Studholme, who interns with Albemarle County’s water resources staff, a grant that pays people to plant trees and shrubs along county waterways has only “gained much momentum now, right at the home stretch.”
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In two and a half years, Albemarle County |
In June 2006, the county received a $140,000 Water Quality Improvement Grant from the Department of Conservation and Recreation. The grant reimburses landowners half the costs of new plants 200′ from the edge of perennial, intermittent or ephemeral streams in watersheds designated “impaired,” whether by sewage, eroded topsoil, fertilizer, or other pollution. In Albemarle, impaired watersheds center around the Rivanna, Mechums, and Hardware rivers. The grant supports up to 1,210 trees per acre, the thinking being that thick vegetation can almost halve the pollution that ultimately reaches streams. Denser foliage also increases habitat for wildlife, and depending on the location, can increase property values and decrease energy costs by shading homes.
Despite TV, radio, and newspaper ads, and even mailing information to property owners near streams, county staff note that most of the money is only now being claimed, about six months before the program ends and unused money has to be returned to the state. About $133,400 is allocated to 25 people for 29 projects—ranging from $150 to $25,000—that would collectively cover more than 10 acres. However, only 15 projects have been completed, which means many must rush to file for reimbursement after next spring’s planting season.
The backyard of one landowner, Kim Swanson, bristles with environmental ingenuity, including a pond to release rainwater through hoses and valves into her garden. Because that backyard terminates at a tributary of Meadow Creek, Swanson thought more plants might protect the fish, frogs, and occasional green heron she’s spotted by filtering heavy metals and motor oil that wash off pavement, such as from the nearby Whole Foods parking lot. Swanson’s project was approved, but she only recently heard about the grant, and so she took information on it to about a dozen neighbors whose property also abuts the same creek. As she suspected, nobody knew of the grant.
Studholme and coworkers write in a joint e-mail that “the county considers water quality protection to be a critical service, and even at a time of staff shortages we are finding ways to make sure that attention is being paid to water quality.” However, extending the buffer program beyond the grant period isn’t likely.
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