Exploring Wild Virginia
In this member highlight, the Coalition’s Virginia State Lead, Pat Calvert, sits down with the Calandra Waters Lake and David Sligh of Coalition member Wild Virginia. The following was edited for length and clarity.
Tell us about your organization and your mission
With our headquarters in Charlottesville, Wild Virginia is a grassroots statewide nonprofit dedicated to protecting and connecting Virginia's wild places. We work through advocacy, influence, and education on water quality and habitat connectivity. Wild Virginia also promotes connecting people to the outdoors, because we believe people want to protect the places they know and love.
Within our water quality program we work to ensure that regulations are properly enforced by state agencies. Wild Virginia brings a unique legal lens to its approach, collaborating with partners to empower the public to address threats to their wild places, such as those from the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
What is one of your current projects you are the most excited about?
Our Campaign for Virginia's Water Future, is a long-term effort to insist that regulators fully enforce water protection rules, where they have failed to do so for decades. In particular, we are pushing for implementation of narrative criteria in all Virginia regulatory actions, which would address serious statewide problems with turbidity/solids, algae blooms, color, and for toxic pollutants for which numeric criteria are not yet adopted. Also, we are advocating adoption of numeric criteria for turbidity/solids, nutrients, and per- and polyflouroalkyl substances (PFAS). Since late 2020, more than fifty groups have joined Wild Virginia in Campaign initiatives.
What issue area do you hope to focus on in the future? How is it relevant for clean water restoration?
We are currently seeking applicants for our new Clean Water Advocates program and welcome any interested individuals throughout the Commonwealth. We will train a first group of Advocates this summer and fall in basic knowledge and skills needed to effectively advocate for protection and restoration of waters, through state regulatory processes. For years, we've recruited, trained, and supported members of the public to advocate for clean water, alongside of and in concert with our efforts. The Advocates program will involve a motivated core of people to work with us on an ongoing basis, doing specific tasks in the year following their training.
What do you hope to gain from being a member of the Coalition?
We have and will continue to work with and learn from the broad array of water protectors in the Coalition. For a small group like Wild Virginia, the gathering of knowledge, perspectives, and approaches within one umbrella organization, from grassroots watershed groups, statewide and regional groups, and national organizations is a great resource. We also value the chance to pass on our ideas and methods to others within the larger collective. It is often useful to compare the programs of the various Bay states to see what works and what does not and to use that knowledge in our work.
Pat Calvert is the Director of Clean Water and Land Conservation Programs at the Virginia Conservation Network and the Choose Clean Water Coalition's Virginia State Lead