Of 339,000 acres protected in Va., only about 5,000 here

As Gov. Timothy M. Kaine nears the end of his term, officials and conservationists are hurrying to accomplish his top environmental goal - preserving 400,000 acres of land by 2010.

Kaine made his green pledge in April 2006, choosing the number in part to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and because he was worried about growth trends and their toll on nature and historic resources.

"If we continue as we have, Virginia will develop more land in the next 40 years than we have in the last 400 years," the governor said in a speech.

If he did not take action in this way, Kaine added, "the opportunity to do it will not be there for future governors and future Virginians."

As of today, the Kaine administration says it has permanently protected from development more than 339,000 acres of farms, forests, historic grounds and buildings, marshes, caves and bluffs, including sensitive areas along the Chesapeake Bay and other waterways.

With about $10 million left to spend, officials predict they will hit their mark by the time the governor leaves office in January.

"Oh, yeah, we're going to get there," Kaine said during a recent stop in Norfolk. "We've got some big parcels coming up, too."

The administration had to create a new accounting system to track land-protection trends, a painstaking task that fell to the state Department of Conservation and Recreation. DCR officials add up all land purchases and protected easements by local, state and federal governments, as well as by conservation groups and private land trusts, to come up with a monthly status report.

The governor has received a briefing on the effort each month since late 2006, said Nikki Rovner, a deputy secretary of natural resources, who helped piece the program together.

"Let's just say he's insisted we stay very focused on this issue," Rovner said.

Still, despite the flurry of activity, Virginia likely will fall far short of meeting a separate but related goal, agreed to in 2000, to protect 20 percent of all lands within the Chesapeake Bay watershed by 2010.

Maryland, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia already have met their Bay targets. But Virginia today is about 225,273 acres short, according to the most recent state statistics.

Under the Kaine initiative, much of the conservation activity has occurred in Northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley. At the same time, little action has taken place in Hampton Roads, according to state figures. No land, for example, has been set aside in Norfolk, Newport News, Hampton or Poquoson, according to the data, while 185 acres are listed as protected in Virginia Beach, 4,542 acres in Chesapeake, 66 in Suffolk, 40 in Portsmouth, seven in Franklin and 179 in Isle of Wight County.

Officials are not sure why the region has been so quiet, but several suggested a shortage of local land trusts that typically spread the word about land conservation and its financial benefits.

There is but one trust in the five cities of South Hampton Roads, according to state listings - the Elizabeth River Project, a Portsmouth-based environmental group more associated with cleaning up polluted water.

The Nature Conservancy, another environmental group, has been active in protecting land along the Northwest River in Chesapeake and the North Landing River in Virginia Beach, as well as wetlands around the Great Dismal Swamp and Stumpy Lake. But it is a statewide group with scant local presence; its nearest offices are in Richmond and on the Eastern Shore.

"You need a base, someone to forge partnerships with, a culture - and that just hasn't taken hold in Hampton Roads," said Rovner. "And I don't really know why."

Ironically, Virginia Beach has been a state leader in land conservation for years through a city program that pays farmers not to develop their lands. But farms enrolled in the program are not counted by the Kaine administration.

Topping Kaine's roster is Albemarle County, outside Charlottesville, where more than 25,000 acres have been preserved in the past 3-1/2 years, statistics show.

Rockbridge County, between Staunton and Lexington, has been a busy spot, too, with 20,233 acres conserved. An additional 19,000 acres are off limits to development in Fauquier

County, in the western suburbs of Washington.

And more than 12,000 acres have been shelved on the rural Eastern Shore, including several key tracts on the Chesapeake Bay.

Virginia is one of the few states that lacks a permanent, dedicated funding source to purchase sensitive lands outright. Maryland and Pennsylvania both have such money pots, as does North Carolina.

Several attempts to create a permanent fund have been defeated in Richmond, including a recent push by Kaine and another by his predecessor, Mark Warner, now a U.S. senator.

Opponents have successfully argued that such a fund would require a tax increase or, at least, the redirection of an existing tax.

So, without much money, how was Kaine able to move so quickly?

For one, at his urging, state lawmakers approved a $30 million land-conservation bond package in 2008.

The borrowed money has helped buy hundreds of acres of property to expand state parks and create new wildlife management areas, as well as 13 new nature preserves, said Joe Maroon, state director of conservation and recreation. One such preserve, measuring 3,800 acres, is in southern Chesapeake and is one of the single largest buys during the Kaine years.

Another new sanctuary, in Southampton County, is home to the largest known tree in Virginia - a 123-foot-tall bald cypress, nicknamed "Big Mama," thought to be at least 1,100 years old.

Mostly, the Kaine administration had to rely on tax incentives, first offered in 1999, that encourage property owners to donate "conservation easements" to land trusts or other environmental agencies.

Of the 339,000 acres preserved to date, about 80 percent are protected under a conservation easement, according to statistics and officials.

The easements are basically land contracts. They keep property in private hands, but the owners must agree to never develop their properties.

In exchange, they get to deduct 40 percent of their land's value from their state income tax for the next 11 years. Participants also are eligible for federal tax breaks.

In addition, land owners can sell their state tax deductions to the highest bidder, said Bob Lee, executive director of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, which specializes in easements.

This auctioning option, first granted in Virginia in 2002 and modeled after a program in Colorado, "has really caught on and helped encourage people to take advantage of their land's worth while also preserving it for the future," Lee said.

The outdoors foundation, created by the Virginia General Assembly in 1966, holds many of the conservation easements counted in the Kaine initiative - or more than 234,000 acres.

Some critics have said the 400,000-acre goal is just a more comprehensive accounting of what groups like the foundation and dozens of others in and out of government have been doing for years.

In short, a more accurate spreadsheet.

Others disagreed.

"Yes, we've always done this work, but never at this pace or scale," said Tom Smith, state director of the natural heritage program, which seeks to protect rare ecosystems, plants and animals.

Overall, supporters say

Kaine has managed to push a back-burner issue to the forefront, with bond money, personal energy and oratory skills.

"He talks about land conservation everywhere he goes," Lee said, "and people are interested. Our calls are way, way up."

Lee recalled how the governor had been canoeing somewhere near an especially scenic point and had begun talking to a local landowner who happened along. Kaine asked the landowner whether he knew about conservation easements, and the man said no.

"So I get this call saying the governor wants me to get this man some information, like, right away about our easement program," Lee said with a chuckle. "I had a packet out that day."

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com