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On December 1st,
2005, the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation voted unanimously to
award $500,000 to The Elizabeth River Project. The grant will help acquire
18.5 acres for a nature park on Paradise Creek in Portsmouth, VA.
Paradise Creek Nature Park is the cornerstone project in
the five-year watershed action plan to restore Paradise Creek. The
creek is a 2.9-square-mile tributary of the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth
River. Peck Land Company owns the land currently and pledges to donate 6.5
acres to the project.
This acquisition will
become part of a public park of up to 40 acres, which is the last large area
of open space available for park development along Paradise Creek. The park
will provide the only public access point to the creek.
Through a series of public
and private efforts developed and coordinated by The Elizabeth River
Project, the once heavily polluted creek is steadily improving. Efforts to
restore vegetation and reduce pollution in the creek are paying off and are
considered central to the group’s long-term plans to restore the river.
“This has put the wind in
our sails,” said Lyle Jackson, Paradise Creek Nature Park project manager
for The Elizabeth River Project, about the grant.
Marjorie Mayfield Jackson,
executive director of the Elizabeth River Project, emphasized that the grant
will help develop a stronger sense of public ownership.
“The thing about restoring
the creek is we can do all these projects,” she said, “but the key to
long-term citizen stewardship is that the public has to have access to the
creek."
The half-million dollar
grant to The Elizabeth River Project was one of 22 made by the Virginia Land
Conservation Foundation in this grant cycle and is the largest grant ever
made by the Foundation. As each grant does, this one requires a significant
match.
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