Valley Conservation Council helps protect land & expand the Shenandoah National Park

Valley Conservation Council (VCC), a Staunton-based nonprofit that preserves and protects the natural resources of the greater Shenandoah Valley region, recently aimed its conservation expertise to help bring protection to almost 1,000 acres of mountain land adjacent to the Shenandoah National Park that will eventually become part of its borders.

A portion of the nearly 1,000 acres acquired by SNPT, including Tanner’s Ridge in Page County (Credit: Sherri Tombarge)

Throughout late 2020, VCC assisted the Shenandoah National Park Trust (SNPT) in the acquisition of 967 acres of land on Tanner’s Ridge in Page County in the largest land acquisition of its kind in decades that will eventually expand the Park into mountain land it currently borders.

SNPT, who had the necessary funds and a group of willing sellers, was looking for a land trust and called upon VCC for assistance last summer. In the months that followed, VCC assisted SNPT through the process of acquiring three properties totaling 967 acres.

The acquired land will eventually be conveyed to the Shenandoah National Park to provide public access for all to enjoy the breathtaking mountaintop views, strenuous hikes, and pure clean water. In the meantime, VCC has also accepted a conservation easement on the property and with it has taken on the responsibility for ensuring the land remains intact and unchanged until it is transferred to the care of the National Park.

By protecting this land, VCC is protecting the headwaters of Naked Creek, ensuring pristine water quality in the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. The waters of Naked Creek flow from this newly protected mountain land into Hawksbill Creek, then to the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, running through Page and Warren counties to join the main stem of the Shenandoah at Front Royal and on to the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. Along the way, these streams and the groundwater that connects them provide drinking water to millions of people, from the town of Luray all the way to the DC metro area.

SNPT purchased the land with funds from a grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) that resulted from a settlement with a DuPont manufacturing plant in Waynesboro that was dumping waste into the South River, an upstream tributary of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. The suit yielded a number of public benefits to make up for the damage, including $20 million to buy and protect land that would ensure better water quality in the future.