Roanoke River Group
of the Virginia Chapter

A Publication for Members and Friends
of the Roanoke River Group of the Sierra Club

May-June 2005

April Smart Growth Workshop a big Success! - Our thanks go out to the many attendees and presenters, and a huge "thank you" goes to Pam Berberich, Annie Krochalis, and Bill Modica, whose hard work made this event a big success. For more about this campaign, go to http://virginia.sierraclub.org/roanoke/sprawl.html  

Member Survey Yields Wealth of Information - Results are in from our survey of Club members in the Roanoke metropolitan area, and the response rate was great! You ranked local conservation issues as follows: 1) controlling sprawl and promoting smart growth, 2) clean air, 3) national forest protection, 4) clean water, 5) protecting wildlife & habitat and 6) transportation (highways and rail). We will have more details of the survey results on our web site soon! This fall Sierra Club and Roanoke College volunteers plan to plant trees as a "thank you" gift to those who responded (and that will be a nice gift for our urban environment as well). Many thanks to Becca Draper, Roanoke Coll. Senior, who did so much hard work to make this happen. Click here for more about the survey.

Sierra Club Moves to Stop Timber Sale in GW National Forest (by Sherman Bamford) - If you enjoy hiking in Virginia's Barbours Creek Wilderness, be forewarned: There is a big, noisy timber sale planned next door. Naturally, the Sierra Club is alarmed about the logging and has filed an official "appeal" with the Forest Service in an effort to halt the project. . . . for more details, see the complete story here:  http://virginia.sierraclub.org/roanoke/forest.html  

Sierrans Active in Explore Park Issue - Local Club activists have been diligently working to ensure that Explore Park will remain a haven to wildlife and a venue for low-impact recreation for everyone -- not a big tourist amusement center! Click here for more details.

March Hiking Cold, Foggy, Fun - Our thanks to Diana Christopulos who led a small but hardy group of hikers on a two-part trek in the Peaks of Otter Recreation area in late March. It was so much fun we have scheduled several more hikes (see calendar link above) -- warmer weather is promised!

SIERRANS BRAVE FOUL WEATHER FOR EARTH DAY EVENT, LITTER PICK-UP -- Wind, rain and snow(!) greeted us for Earth Day Weekend, but we extend our sincere THANKS to the hardy souls that showed up to help with our Earth Day table (Bob Egbert, Diana Christopulos, Annie Krochalis, Grace Terry, Pete Krull) and Adopt-a-Highway litter pick up (Diana Christopulos, Gerry Oefelein, Judy Larson, Bob Egbert, Mark McClain). Contact Diana Christopulos (540-387-0930) for information on our next litter pick up (July).

GET SIERRA CLUB NEWS ON-LINE! We now offer a "paperless" newsletter service. To sign up: · Send an email to mmcbs@aol.com  - we'll send you an email each time a newsletter is posted to our web site, and also to announce important events/alerts, OR · Call us at 540-387-0930 (no need to disclose your email), then check our web site for all the latest!