ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 12, 1997 TAG: 9702120114
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARILYN W. LAYER
THE VIRGINIA General Assembly is in session, and a lot of people are seeing green. Not green like the color of money, but rather the color of our natural resources.
There has been self-congratulatory talk about how well Virginia is doing with protecting its natural resources, but is it just talk? Those who work with our natural resources at the grass-roots level have seen little meaningful action and very little funding to back up any such talk.
Despite the rhetoric and spin doctoring, this administration has isolated itself from the real world of natural-resources problems with which Virginians expect the state's agencies to be engaged. Instead, it has been spinning its wheels on never-ending bureaucratic shuffling.
As far back as the Wilder administration, conservation funding has been cut - and it wasn't a lot to begin with. Virginia spends less than one penny out of every tax dollar on conservation and natural resources. That's unfortunate when you take into account the economic importance of our many natural-resource-based industries, such as agriculture, forestry, seafood and tourism, as well as the everyday quality of life.
Our state's predominant land use is steadily changing from rural to more suburban/urban, making the conservation of our natural resources even more important. Every poll released over the past several years has shown that Virginians want and expect clean water and clean air, and are willing to pay for them. So what is happening with conservation in Virginia?
Virginia has 46 Soil and Water Conservation Districts, which are subdivisions of state government, part of local government, and run by locally elected directors who volunteer their time to identify and solve conservation problems. They generally employ small technical and secretarial staffs to run the day-to-day operations of the district.
Directors make up the second-largest group of elected officials in the state, and comprise the only elected group that receives no salary. Each year, we volunteer more than 33,000 hours of our time. We have established local, state, federal and private partnerships to help us get the most conservation value for the least amount of cost to the taxpayer. Preferring voluntary over regulatory action, we use "carrots" not "sticks" - and it works!
SWCDs have the job of reducing nonpoint-source water pollution. Our work includes a variety of programs that each SWCD tailors to meet the needs of its community. We provide cost-share money and technical assistance to farmers to help them install the most effective Best-Management Practices. These BMPs help reduce sediment, nutrient and chemical runoff from their fields.
In more suburban/urban areas, we work with homeowners to reduce the amounts of fertilizers and pesticides they apply to their lawns. In the Chesapeake Bay Basin, SWCDs write Agricultural Water Quality Plans, as required by the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. These Bay Basin Districts are becoming involved in Virginia's Nutrient Reduction Strategies and will play an active role in the formulation of these plans.
Districts have responsibility for 103 dams used for flood control across the state. Many of these dams are 40 years or older, with a life expectancy of 50 years. The state has not provided any maintenance or repair funds to districts for these dams, which are a vital part of Virginia's infrastructure. Nine dams owned by SWCDs were damaged during Hurricane Fran, but, fortunately, did not fail.
Another, more recent responsibility districts have been asked to shoulder is our involvement throughout Virginia with the new Agricultural Stewardship Act. SWCDs will be called upon to investigate local complaints of water pollution within a strict time frame and work with the farmer on fixing the problems that caused the pollution.
As you can see, SWCDs are directly involved in a variety of conservation programs.
Unfortunately, state funding for SWCD programs needs to be a lot stronger. Virginia is divided into bay and non-bay basins. Currently, the only funding for the state cost-share program for bay districts is federal; no state money is spent on land- or water-based projects. In the non-bay basin, covering about 48 percent of the state, Virginia allocates a paltry $21,000. In 1992, $350,000 was allocated for this same basin. Many SWCDs have no full-time technician or secretarial support. Most of those with full-time staff are able to offer only a minimum salary and few or no benefits.
To make matters worse, Virginia has lost natural-resource agency employees with thousands of years of technical expertise among them because of the "right sizing" of state government. Morale has suffered, and management is a strict "command-and-control" type, with decisions made only at the top. This "we know what's best for you" philosophy means that the decisions are made by those farthest away from their ultimate impact.
In 1996, the administration attempted to split up the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the primary state agency with which we deal, and parcel out its programs to other agencies. This would have been a bureaucratic disaster for districts, as we would have had to deal with more than four state agencies for our funding and program oversight. There was a huge outcry from the district directors and grass-roots organizations, and this attempt was stopped by the General Assembly.
That effort and others have taken a lot of time and energy away from SWCDs' main purpose, getting conservation on the ground. This nightmare awakened directors and grass-roots groups across the state to the fact that if anybody was going to fight for conservation funding, it would have to be us. At the 1996 annual meeting of the Virginia Association of Conservation Districts, a nonpartisan group of which every district director is a member, there was a sense of solidarity for this action.
Districts and the association have gone to the General Assembly to ask for additional funding for conservation. We are seeking money to perform a detailed examination of district dams to determine what needs to be repaired as well as to capitalize a SWCD Dam Maintenance and Repair Fund. We are requesting additional money to fund Agricultural BMPs in the non-bay portion of the state, and for technical assistance. This would help fund the first full-time technical position that some SWCDs have ever had. It would also provide other staff positions where needed, provide more up-to-date equipment, and help pay the rent to maintain office space.
The bottom line to you, the taxpayer, is that SWCDs are the most cost-effective means of getting conservation practices where they need to be, on the ground. Every dollar that an SWCD receives is leveraged locally, federally and privately so that it goes as far as it can be stretched. Districts are a shining example of grass-roots government at its best, with locally elected citizens volunteering their time to make local decisions about local issues.
They have earned and deserve the respect of Virginians across this state, and they deserve to be funded at a level that allows them to do what they were elected to do with a minimum of bureaucratic interference. Let's make the rhetoric a reality.
Marilyn W. Layer of Mechanicsville is first vice-president of the Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts.
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