Supervisor Laura TeKrony introducing  two conservation Initiatives

In an interview with Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains Supervisor TeKrony (Little River District) outlined two initiatives she will be pursuing over the next several months.

Department of Energy and Environment – At the April 16^thBusiness Meeting of the Board of Supervisors (BOS), Ms. Tekrony will propose a Board Member Initiative (BMI) to study establishing a Department of Energy and Environment for Loudoun County.

Currently the expertise that the BOS needs to address the many complex and technical issues associated with meeting both the energy needs of the County and the environmental goals are scattered throughout many departments, particularly the Department of General Services. The proposed BMI will authorize the study of consolidating the various technical experts into a single Department and as necessary bring on additional expertise to address the exceedingly complicated issues the County is going to face in the coming years.

Loudoun’s existing data centers are currently demanding dramatic increases in energy and the demands will only increase. The County is struggling with the location and environmental impacts of several new and exceedingly large power lines to meet the needs. Dominion Power has warned that blackouts are a strong possibility in the County and Dominion Power says it needs to locate 44 new substations throughout the county in the next couple of years.

All of this has huge implications for the environment, for protecting prime soils, and our wine and tourism industries.

Both DC and Montgomery County have Departments of Energy and the Environment. Loudoun should be leveraging best practices.

Supervisor Tekrony anticipates Board support for her proposed BMI initiating a study and would like to see a department established during the term of the current Board.

Purchase Development Rights (PDR) Demonstration – At its March meeting, the BOS eliminated funding for two of the three positions associated with initiating a PDR program in the County.

Supervisor TeKrony plus Kershner (R-Catoctin), Turner (D-Ashburn), and BOS Chair Randall (D-At Large) voted to oppose eliminating the funding but the motion passed 5 to 4 – see the 3/21/2024 edition of Happenings Around the Blue Ridge for more information.
Supervisor Tekrony is going to propose a small demonstration PDR program for one or two projects in Eastern Loudoun to show the value of a PDR program for the entire County not just the western, rural areas. The demonstration will probably focus on a parcel associated with the Potomac Heritage Trail.

22 Virginia localities currently have PDR programs including Clarke, Fauquier, Shenandoah, Rappahannock, and Stafford counties. The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) helps fund local PDR programs and recently announced awards totaling $875,000 from the Virginia Farmland Preservation Fund to six localities including Clarke, Fauquier, Shenandoah, and Stafford Counties.

Supervisor TeKrony anticipates that the small demonstration project that she will propose will help convince all Supervisors of the benefits of the PDR program for the entire County. LPM 

Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains Awards Science Fair Winners

Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains awarded two prizes to outstanding projects at the 42nd Annual Loudoun County Regional Science & Engineering Fair (RSEF).

The Fair was held in-person on Wednesday, March 20, at John Champe High School with the award ceremony held at the school at 7:00 PM on the 21^st.

Over 300 high school students from Loudoun County Public Schools participated in the Fair this year. Each was selected by their school to participate.

For each project, students were required to submit a slide presentation (12 slides max) plus a student narrated video presentation that summarizes the project.  The judging was determined in part by the quality of the student prepared “poster”, and in part by a discussion between the judges and the student.

This poster is similar to poster sessions at scientific meetings held by prestigious scientific organizations. The discussion with the judges is similar to those occurring at the scientific organization’s poster session and the interested attendees at the meeting.  This experience for the student is an excellent introduction to the world of practicing scientists.

Friends selected two projects among the 33 submitted Earth and Environmental Sciences projects for awards.

Arturo Romero was awarded first prize for his project examining the impact of winter temperature fluctuations on the germination of native Virginia plants. Emma Rosher was awarded second prize for her project examining the potential environmental impact of green roofs on 78 of Loudoun County’s Data Centers.

Mr. Romero is a junior at Freedom High School. He also takes classes at the Academies of Loudoun. Ms. Rosher is a senior at Independence High School.   

Each year the Science Fair is conducted by the Department of Instruction of Loudoun County Public Schools to stimulate student interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), encourage students to engage in research in STEM fields, and to provide students opportunities to present research to STEM professionals and the community.

Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains is again this year proud to have been a supporter of the Fair and to have awarded financial prizes to outstanding projects that promote an understanding and appreciation of our rich environmental heritage.

Clarke County Land Conservation Award Honors Dorsey Family 

More than 25 percent of land in Clarke County is preserved forever through the county’s conservation easement program.

Since 2015, the Clarke County Conservation Easement Authority (CEA) has recognized individuals and organizations that have contributed to the preservation of open space for generations to come. Tupper and Wendy Dorsey and their family are the 2023 recipients of the “Wingate Mackay-Smith Land Conservation Award.” The CEA honored the Dorseys on Feb. 9 during a luncheon at the Millwood Country Club.

Tupper Dorsey is the president of Moore and Dorsey Inc., a diverse family farming operation founded in 1929 by E. Blackburn Moore and Tupper’s grandfather Ralph N. Dorsey. For many decades, the business focused on the production, packing, and shipping of apples on a global scale. When the local apple industry began to decline in the late-20th century, Moore and Dorsey, Inc. adjusted, and the Dorsey family diversified its farming to produce various trees, grain, and sod.

The Dorsey family recently placed its 732-acre farm in a conservation easement. “If you farm, you always appreciate your land, but you look around and see all this growth,” Dorsey said. “Now I say thank goodness Clarke County leaders had the foresight to implement sliding-scale zoning.”

In 2002, the Supervisors created the county’s Conservation Easement Purchase Program to help fund the preservation of land with significant agricultural, natural, scenic, and historic resources. The Board also established the CEA to oversee the program. The CEA recorded the county’s first easement in 2003.

Dorsey believes in Clarke’s easement philosophy. “The fear with easements is you’ll give up flexibility and property value,” he said. “But in my mind, you don’t give up the value. Look a few years down the road. Open space has value now and will continue to increase in value. For people who farm, it’s also the kind of value that isn’t counted in dollars and cents. We appreciate the open space in Clarke County – it’s a beautiful place.”

The CEA created the “Land Conservation Award” in 2015 to honor Wingate Mackay-Smith, who served as the CEA’s first chairperson. She developed the criteria the Authority uses to value individual easements, and she created guidelines for accepting properties into the easement program. Mackay-Smith helped negotiate the Authority’s first easement purchase — historic Greenway Court — the colonial-era home of Lord Thomas Fairfax. LPM

This article draws heavily from an article in the March 2024 Clarke Monthly by Cathy Kuehner

Scrape for the Grape on Saturday, April 6, — Volunteers Needed!

The Loudoun Invasive Removal Alliance (LIRA) is sponsoring a volunteer day on April 6^th.

Our wineries, orchards and farms could use your help! The invasive Spotted Lanternfly is attacking Loudoun’s grapevines and fruit trees, putting our farms and wineries in jeopardy.

Please consider joining hundreds of volunteers to Scrape for the Grape on Saturday, April 6, and help our wineries and orchards fend off this invasive pest. You’ll be provided training and tools to scrape Spotted Lanternfly masses off trees before they hatch, as well as tagging the invasive Tree of Heaven for future removal. The invasive Tree of Heaven is what is attracting the equally invasive Spotted Lanternfly.

Bring yourself, bring your family, tell your friends.

As a thank you, the Wineries will provide a weekend of gratitude – they will be offering special promotions at their vineyards/breweries for all volunteers the weekend of April 6/7.

For volunteer locations and to sign up please visit their website,

Incidentally, the Tree of Heaven is also known by several other names including stinking sumac, Chinese sumac, varnish tree and stink tree, the plant releases a strong, offensive smell, particularly from its flowers.

April 20th and 21st Leesburg Flower and Garden Festival 

The 2024 Leesburg Flower & Garden Festival will be held Saturday, April 20th 10am–6pm and Sunday, April 21st 10am–5pm.

The festival is open to the public, FREE, and the celebration goes on rain or shine.

The award-winning Leesburg Flower & Garden Festival has become an annual rite of spring for the Washington DC Metropolitan area.  Transforming the streets of historic Downtown Leesburg, the festival showcases beautiful flowers, plants, and landscaping along with the best of gardening and outdoor living products and services.

The rooftop beer and wine garden, landscape display contest, three stages of entertainment, delicious festival food, mean there is something for everyone.

The Garden Patch children’s area is back in 2024.  It will be located on Town Green. LPM

People You Should Know

This is the first in a series of occasional articles highlighting the people whose decisions and activities directly impact the way in which we enjoy, use, celebrate and protect our wonderful Blue Ridge Mountains.

Mark Miller – Loudoun County Planning Commissioner

Mark Miller is the Loudoun County Planning Commissioner for the Catoctin District which includes most of the portion of Loudoun County in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

This is Mark’s second term on the Planning Commission. He was originally appointed in January 2020 and reappointed beginning in January 2024 by Catoctin Supervisor Caleb Kershner. His current term runs through 2027.

Mark is also the Planning Commissioner representative on the Zoning Ordinance Committee (ZOC).
The Planning Commission has nine members. Its’ primary responsibility is to make recommendations to the Board of Supervisors (BOS) on issues concerning land development ordinances, comprehensive planning, future land use policies, and the County’s Capital Improvements Program.

In addition to the individual zoning and rezoning requests it deals with on an ongoing basis, for the past several years the Planning Commission has focused on the rewrite of the Loudoun County zoning ordinance.

With the ordinance now adopted, the Planning Commission will turn its attention to the proposed Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPAM)- 2024-0002 and Zoning Ordinance Amendment (ZOAM)-2024-0002 for the Rural Policy Area.

At the March 5^th Business Meeting of the BOS, the Planning Commission recommended that the ZOAM address rural policy issues to include use restrictions in the Mountain Overlay District (MOD). Friends has long advocated for greater restrictions on new commercial development in the MOD and will be following this issue closely. 

The current schedule is that the Zoning Ordinance Committee (ZOC) will review draft language for the ZOAM August 2024 through January 2025 with final BOS approval of the ZOAM in September 2025.

Mark was born and raised in Miami, Florida. He graduated from the University of Florida before moving to Maryland to attend graduate school at the University of Maryland. He lives in Leesburg with his wife Ellyn, and son Jake.
Mark was Chairman of the Loudoun County Library Board of Trustees and a founder of the Smashing Walnuts Foundation, a childhood brain cancer research funding organization.

Mark owned and operated a small business in Ashburn for 6 years and now is a Real Estate Agent with Long and Foster.  LPM