Wetlands Watch has been working in Southeastern Virginia to amplify efforts to get private property owners to practice better stewardship on their land.  The goal?  Help watershed groups expand their efforts, get local governments involved (and able to take credit for these practices in their Chesapeake Bay cleanup plans), and pitch the effort to the private landscaping and nursery sector (who can open new markets for conservation landscape design, native plants, etc.) to get their buy in.

Regional groups are already at work, with projects like the Elizabeth River Project's River Star Homes, Lynnhaven River Now's Pearl Homes, work starting with the Nansemond River Preservation Alliance, Lafayette Wetlands Partnership,  James City County's PRIDE program...and many others.

We recently received a contract from the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission (HRPDC) to pull this work together and to survey folks in the region who have tried things like rain gardens, native plants, rain barrels, replacing sidewalks and driveways with pervious surfaces, etc.

So we are running an on-line survey here to find out what works, what doesn't, and what is needed to make things work.  The survey runs through the end of March, at which time we'll share the results with the HRPDC and the cooperating watershed groups.  See a short story on the effort on WVEC channel 13 in Hampton Roads.

Our goal is to bring habitat restoration back into the Bay Cleanup effort.  Habitat work got pushed aside in the rush to reduce nutrient pollution.  If we can get property owners to practice conservation landscaping and put lawn back into habitat - in ways that also reduce nutrient and sediment pollution- we will have won!

Plans next are for a regional planning summit to take this work to the next level.