SIERRA

     The Chesapeake Bay Group is the best organized it has ever been. We are now ready to address new and challenging issues and activities. So what are these activities to be, that is what are our goals and objectives for the Fall of 2005?

     We begin by identifying issues at the local, state, and national levels with the emphasis on the local. Our position is, the better you understand the local issues, the better you can understand what should be occurring at the national level.

     Locally we are concerned about: landfills, wetlands, the Chesapeake Bay, sprawl and land use and transportation, political campaigns and our state parks and national wildlife refuges.

     In addition, we are formulating positions for energy conservation and dealing with emergencies. These are subjects that have individual opportunities for each of us to make contributions to the national efforts.

     On the state level the concerns are: funding for the maintenance and operation of our state parks, clean air legislation, national forest, I-81, and the spreading of waste treatment plant sludge on agricultural fields.

     We are also addressing some new issues and we are excited by our One for One campaign to save gasoline. In addition, we do believe we can go much further with a well informed program of energy conservation around the home. At our monthly meetings we will be presenting information on how best to conserve energy including means of installing home size wind mills and sun panels.

     One other new area that we think deserves attention is obtaining information and training on how to deal with events such as terrorists attacks. The federal government is so busy with the big picture that as yet it has not been able to do much at the individual level. That is where we are at and we think that it is important that we take some initiative and begin training ourselves.

     Last year our biggest success was obtaining additional funding for our state parks. The success was based on several factors including a major effort by the state wide organization ( Friends of Virginia's State Parks ) , their excellent leadership and contacts with the legislature and the agency for parks and our many letters. We aren't sure of the extent of our contribution for the final success of the joint effort, but we know that we were very active and we have every intention of doing even more this coming year. Our efforts will be guided by the able leadership of Judith Hinch.

     Finally, we plan to be active in a couple important political campaigns. Our participation will include: writing letters, stuffing envelopes, phone banks, and working the polls on election day.

     We hope you will find some activities of interest and concern to you. We further hope that you will join us in our efforts. Only with the greater participation of our 1,300 local members will be able to make the contribution that can make the difference. See you at the next meeting.

Fred Adams [Click to email comments, or call 467-2775.]