There are plenty of ecological and historical reasons to keep land next to major waterways from becoming overly developed. And then there are security reasons — and the funding they can bring to such efforts.
Since 2017, the U.S. Navy’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program has invested more than $20 million to help conserve nearly 6,000 acres of working farms and forests on Virginia’s Northern Neck.
That’s because the peninsula’s King George, Westmoreland and Northumberland counties each border the lower Potomac River just downstream of the Naval Support Facility at Dahlgren, where a Naval Surface Warfare Center is also located.
Preserving landscapes near military installations can prevent unnecessary conflicts with housing developments whose residents might want to live near the water but not near noisy jets or weapon testing ranges. And on the lower Potomac, airplanes looking for flight paths as they take off from the Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland provide another incentive to preserve less developed portions of the Northern Neck.
Groups like the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, Northern Neck Land Conservancy and Trust for Public Land have been building relationships with landowners in these forested and farmland-dotted corridors near historic areas for years.
But as development pressures have increased over the last decade, the Navy funding has “boosted” their efforts, said Lynda Frost, a senior project manager at the Trust for Public Land. In many cases, the federal funding is matched with landowner donations in easement values that are exchanged for state tax credits through the Virginia Land Preservation Tax Credits program. The result is a layered package of incentives for landowners.
The funding has helped partners reach an important milestone: Nearly eight miles of the lower Potomac shoreline are now protected through conservation easements in Westmoreland County. The latest spate of conservation projects on private land took place around an existing cluster of already preserved historic and natural resources.
On the shoreline already are Westmoreland State Park, the Stratford Hall Historic Preserve and the George Washington Birthplace National Monument, which is run by the National Park Service. Those publicly and privately preserved lands together define what is called the Northern Neck National Heritage Area. They also maintain natural shorelines that benefit water quality far more than the hardened versions that would accompany development.
But Washington’s birthplace has two large creeks running to the Potomac on either side, and much of the development pressure that had been limited to Potomac shorelines has also migrated to these smaller waterways. The next stream northwest of those, Mattox Creek, is now lined with waterfront homes featuring private boating docks.
“Like most localities in the [Chesapeake Bay region] that have beautiful river shorelines, these areas are under pressure for subdivision development,” said Estie Thomas, an easement manager at the Virginia Outdoors Foundation. “You can see the development on the doorstep of the Westmoreland County line.”
With the help of REPI, much of the creek-side land around Washington’s birthplace has now been preserved from such development. That’s something land conservation partners are celebrating, especially as the visitation center prepares for the country’s 250th birthday next year.
Dean Horner’s family has lived on land along Popes Creek, just east of Washington’s birthplace, since before the Civil War. They have earned land-based livings for generations now, from logging and milling to farming and marine construction.
“I’m kind of the last down the line, and when I go that’s pretty much it,” Horner said. “I did not want to see it get developed.”
By phone from his front porch, Horner said he could see geese and ducks in one of the ponds that’s taken shape over the years, many of them aided by beavers. One field was blanketed with milkweed this year, along with the monarchs that visited them on their way down the East Coast. Properties near his that are owned by other family members have also been preserved, adding up to more than 2,000 acres in all, he said.
A combination of REPI funds and tax incentives will help to preserve his property as it is today — a mix of forest and leased farmland — for years into the future.
“I don’t have any children,” he said. “I’m investing the money back into the land … to better this place.”
When asked if he notices the Navy’s presence that helped pay for this preservation, Horner gave an emphatic yes.
“I notice it,” he said, adding that some of the ammunition he’s heard tested in the past “rocks the house.”
REPI is just one of the programs the military uses to protect land that is deemed necessary for national security. The U.S. departments of Defense, Agriculture and Interior also collaborate on a Sentinel Landscapes program that prioritizes land near military installations for protection from development, pulling from a range of federal funds to work with state and local partners.
The Chesapeake region already includes three Sentinel Landscapes — on both shores of the middle Bay, along the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers in Virginia, and a wide swath of Virginia’s Tidewater region — to prioritize land protection around military assets.
But bringing private landowners to the table of conservation still wouldn’t happen without on-the-ground liaisons, like those who have laid the groundwork on Virginia’s Northern Neck.
“A lot of it is word of mouth and building trust,” Frost said. “When you stay put in one geography, as Estie and I have, you get to be known. They talk to each other and say, ‘This is a good program, and these are the people to go to.’”