A week after a chemical spill in West Virginia left 300,000 people without running water, a group of Charlottesvillians are holding a water drive and plan to truck it over the state line starting on Thursday, January 16. “It’s a crisis,” said Ian Babcock, founder of the new nonprofit Catalyst Productions, which is teaming up with […]
Charlottesville’s second Better Business Challenge, a year-long sustainability competition for local companies, wraps up in May, but founder Teri Kent wants business owners to know there’s still plenty of time to get onboard—and save a lot. Kent, creator of local environmental blog Better World Betty, kicked off the first challenge in 2012 as a way […]
Starting in February, two dozen locals will give their Tuesday nights over to the study of rocks, plants, and birds—and together will pledge to devote nearly 1,000 hours annually to environmental study and education. They’ll be 2014’s class of Rivanna Master Naturalists, the newest members of a statewide corps of highly trained volunteers. Charlottesville is […]
Gardeners can be a fussy and opinionated lot, which makes them hard to shop for. As Christmas approaches, here are some gift ideas for the gardener in your life. Fruit trees. Winter is the best time to plant fruit trees. Because the trees are dormant, their chances of survival and getting well [...]
Albemarle County officials have accepted a 410-acre land gift they initially rejected, approving a plan to partner with a local nonprofit that will maintain the new southern Albemarle park as a nature preserve and a site to release rehabilitated wildlife. “We’re very, very pleased that the land [...]
Teri Kent runs Charlottesville’s Better World Betty, a non-profit organization and online resource for locals looking to shrink their impact on the environment. Every month, Betty—Kent’s ’50s-housewife-meets-earth-goddess alter ego—answers the most burning eco- questions from our readers about [...]
It’s just after 6am Eastern Standard Time on a Wednesday in early December, and about a dozen journalists, environmental scientists, and educators from four time zones are popping in and out of an AOL chat room. There’s some small talk about the weather in Bozeman, Montana and Montevideo, [...]
Charlottesville is giving a shot in the arm to its nascent electric car scene, something officials believe will be good for the local environment—and the local economy. The city is now accepting applications for a new mini-grant program that will steer $50,000 from an existing public green [...]
Love is in the air for white-tailed deer this month. Unfortunately for humans, there’s nothing romantic about a smashed car, and deer-vehicle collisions soar in November as the randy animals roam through woods, over fields, and into roadways during the peak of their mating season, which [...]
Each week, C-VILLE’s Green Scene page takes a look at local environmental news. The section’s bulletin board has information on local green events and keeps you up to date on statewide happenings. Got an event or a tip you’d like to see here and in the paper? Write us at news@c-ville.com. Fall [...]
Cale Jaffe is the Director of the Virginia Office of the Southern Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit leveraging the power of the law to protect the environment of the Southeast. www.southernenvironment.org. Both President Obama and Governor McDonnell have highlighted “all-of-the-above” [...]
On his 78th birthday last week, Montgomery “Bird” Woods led a four-wheeler tour of some of the 410-acre Red Hill property he explored as a boy and is spending his retirement enjoying with his partner, Jose Lambert. “This was a loading dock for apples,” Woods said, pointing out a tumble of rocks [...]
They’re the city’s oldest citizens. Within their thick bark and internal rings that map the years, the city’s heritage trees carry a record of history. Now a city board is leading the charge to have special trees in the community protected forever to allow future generations to enjoy them as [...]
The Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards have a message for you: Plant trees in the fall. They also have everything you need to get that done. The volunteer group, known as CATS, is launching its first-ever autumn tree sales, offering hundreds of hardwoods at rock-bottom prices at the October 12 [...]
Each week, C-VILLE’s Green Scene page takes a look at local environmental news. The section’s bulletin board has information on local green events and keeps you up to date on statewide happenings. Got an event or a tip you’d like to see here and in the paper? Write us at news@c-ville.com. Nuts [...]
Each week, C-VILLE’s Green Scene page takes a look at local environmental news. The section’s bulletin board has information on local green events and keeps you up to date on statewide happenings. Got an event or a tip you’d like to see here and in the paper? Write us at news@c-ville.com. [...]
At a forum sponsored last week by 15 local environmental organizations, the eight candidates vying for four empty seats on the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors fielded questions about their environmental priorities. While candidates’ party affiliations were evident as they talked about [...]
It’s a warm, early fall day, and Lonnie Murray and I are preparing for a scramble. We’re in a remote hollow in far southwest Albemarle County at the invitation of the landowner to explore a granite outcrop that nearly a decade ago was listed as one of the county’s top biodiversity hotspots. [...]
After a dozen years of planning, VDOT has awarded Nelson County $750,000 to begin restoring what was once the world’s greatest railroad engineering effort: The Claudius Crozet Blue Ridge Tunnel. “When it was built, it was the longest tunnel in the nation, and the longest mountain tunnel in the [...]
Teri Kent runs Charlottesville’s Better World Betty, a non-profit organization and online resource for locals looking to shrink their impact on the environment. Every month, Betty —Kent’s ’50s-housewife-meets-earth-goddess alter ego—answers the most burning eco-questions from our readers about [...]
The symptoms of Chronic Wasting Disease in deer read like something out of a horror movie: emaciation, a lolling head, an odor of rotting meat, and—invisible until autopsy—a spongy degeneration of the brain. CWD is a prion disease affecting cervids—elk, moose, and our own white-tailed deer. [...]
Local environmental groups have teamed up to challenge the long-term plans of the state’s largest power provider, Virginia Dominion Power, citing a report released last Tuesday by third-party energy think tanks. The report, commissioned by Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition, which includes [...]
Each week, C-VILLE’s Green Scene page takes a look at local environmental news. The section’s bulletin board has information on local green events and keeps you up to date on statewide happenings. Got an event or a tip you’d like to see here and in the paper? Write us at news@c-ville.com. Hawk [...]