Group wants F.T Valley's scenic beauty saved

Expansive views of sprawling farms, forests and mountains are the local resources most valued by many Madison County residents, according to a local group.

The “Friends of the Hughes” organization aims to educate landowners about how they can protect these valued resources, according to one of the group’s organizers, Etlan resident Susan Cable.

“We value our natural resources and we want to do whatever we can to conserve those resources,” said Cable, who is also the founder and a current member of the board of directors of the Blue Ridge Foothills Conservancy.

The Friends of the Hughes is a partnership between landowners in the Hughes River watershed – which includes areas of Madison, Rappahannock and Culpeper counties – and the Blue Ridge Foothills Conservancy, Piedmont Environmental Council Rappahannock County Conservation Alliance and RappFLOW. These nonprofit organizations focus on land conservation, improving water quality and other environmental and community planning issues.
The group recently sent out a survey to 400 landowners in the watershed, including residents in the Nethers and Etlan areas. The survey questioned landowners about what aspects of the community they value most and what water quality threats they deem most serious, according to Cable.

About 20 percent of residents responded to the survey – providing information from almost 100 people, most of whom reported living in Madison County, she said.

“The landowners spoke loud and clear that the characteristic they most value is the extraordinary scenic value of the F.T. valley – the farmland, the forest land and the mountains. It’s that landscape that everybody is so devoted to, and is so in love with,” Cable told The Eagle.

Water, land a concern

Survey responders also noted that they treasure their areas’ lack of traffic and quality of water and air. Residents reported concerns about the quality of their well water and ensuring that there is an adequate supply of drinking water.

Potential water problems survey respondents hope to avoid include bacterial contamination, trash and the level of nutrients in their waterways.

Etlan resident Robin Rider, who is also active in the partnership, believes it’s important that the area stays “open, clean and agricultural,” she said.
“This is what makes it such a valuable and gorgeous place to live and work. It is also the reason that people frequent Madison County…they are here to soak in the long views and buy the products that we have that are a byproduct of our agricultural heritage and extremely hard work,” Rider told The Eagle in an e-mail response.

Respondents deemed the most serious watershed threats to be land parcel subdivision, pesticides and herbicides, loss of farms and conversion of forestlands, according to Cable.

“In my opinion, the current subdivision ordinances in Madison County will not sustain the long-term viability of farming in the county,” Cable said. “Chopping up” land can lead to forest fragmentation and the loss of property suitable for farming, she said.

“We regard the viability of farming paramount to the future of the valley,” she said.

Now that the group has identified landowners’ concerns, they plan to provide interested residents with a “tool kit” of actions they can voluntarily take to contribute to conservation and protecting waterways, according to Cable. She also hopes that the partnership will help “develop a sense of community and obligation to one another” and help people realize that “what you do to your land, you do to the watershed and to your neighbor’s land.”

Program voluntary

Cable stressed that the Friends of the Hughes partnership is not connected with the “Total Maximum Daily Load,” or TMDL, study the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the department of conservation and recreation are doing of the same watershed.

Once water quality in a certain area falls below state standards, these departments are required to create a plan for how landowners can improve waterways.
“The Hughes River Partnership project is a private initiative undertaken by private landowners and private nonprofit conservation organizations, whereas the TMDL program is a governmental effort,” Cable told The Eagle.

TMDL plans are “state mandated and at some point can carry mandatory things to do,” according to Cable. “Our project is completely voluntary,” she said.
(According to representatives from these state departments, TMDL plans offer suggested actions that landowners can voluntary take to reduce pollution, it does not establish any new authority to force residents to take these actions, they say.)

Rider feels that the support of the local farming community is essential to successfully protecting the environment here. Involving state and federal agencies with these local efforts often involves “political [and] financial agendas that are counter to those of us who live and work here,” she said.

“If we can show that we have identified ways to improve but not severely impact everyone’s right to their own property decisions and not to financially burden them with mandates, we can most likely get the support we need to protect the area in question from all the citizens who live, work and play here,” Rider told The Eagle.

Cable did point out that the majority of survey responders supported using public money to aid watershed protection and land conservation.
The Friends of the Hughes has organized neighborhood gatherings to discuss the survey’s findings and steps the landowners can take to address their concerns.
The group’s upcoming meeting in Madison County is set for 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 19 at Doug and Kim Parsons’ home in Etlan. For information or to RSVP, call (540) 948- 3854 or e-mail bpastore@pecva.org or susancable@nexet.net.

Another meeting set for 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26 will be in the Slate Mills/Popham’s Run area in Rappahannock County. To RSVP to that meeting, e-mail rcca1@earthlink.net or call (540) 987-9118.