Spring 2022 Newsletter
From the President
The last week of March was one of the most eventful times we have ever witnessed in the fifty-three-year history of the Virginia Wilderness Committee (VWC). It was full of surprises. These extraordinary events began when Senator Tim Kaine introduced the Shenandoah Mountain Act of 2022 on March 23rd. This legislation includes our entire Shenandoah Mountain National Scenic Area (SMNSA) proposal with four embedded Wilderness areas, as well as Beech Lick Knob Wilderness. Then Senator Kaine asked to go on a hike with us in our proposed SMNSA a few days later. These two events kicked VWC staff and board members into high gear!
With the introduction of the Shenandoah Mountain Act of 2022, VWC saw the culmination of nearly two decades of work come to fruition. Lynn Cameron, co-chair of Friends of Shenandoah Mountain and VWC board member, has been the driving force behind the SMNSA since it was first agreed to by VWC board members and the Harrisonburg Mountain bicycling community in 2002. Lynn led the campaign to educate the public about the importance of protecting Shenandoah Mountain. The start was slow, but Lynn’s steady hand produced an ever-increasing list of endorsers.
In 2010, VWC embarked on a new effort to help direct the development of the Revised Management Plan for the George Washington National Forest. This effort led to the creation of the George Washington National Forest Stakeholder Collaborative (SC). The SC was guided by staff at The Nature Conservancy, a Virginia Forestry Association Board Member, and VWC’s Mark Miller. After eighteen months of pouring over maps and numerous long discussions, we came to an agreement. The SC recommended to Forest Planners a smaller SMNSA. This compact SMNSA protected the best of what Shenandoah Mountain had to offer. More importantly, the SC recommendation for the SMNSA was accepted by Forest Planners, a first for Forest planning in Virginia. The momentum for the permanent protection of Shenandoah Mountain was building.
This shift in momentum provided the necessary push for local governments to pass resolutions in support of the SMNSA. It took another decade to gather this important support, but who’s counting? In the end, this slow, steady campaign was finally pushed over the top with its introduction, and the story does not end there.
On March 26th, VWC and the Southern Environmental Law Center took Senator Kaine and his staff on a hike along the crest of Shenandoah Mountain. The weather was chilly, and the wind was blowing. Snow squalls came up suddenly and frequently, but the Senator would not be dissuaded. We hiked along the top of the mountain to the junction with the Jerrys Run Trail. The Senator set the pace, and it could best be described as brisk.
However, that was not the only highlight in March. In late January, VWC and the owner of one of the tracts of mineral rights under our Little River Wilderness proposal were able to make a deal. This cost VWC cash and a half pint of Mark Miller’s homemade maple syrup. This effort began nearly fifteen years prior when former VWC staff member Carol Lena Miller began digging through records at the Augusta County Courthouse. VWC was interested in acquiring the severed rights to ensure that the owners would not be able to exercise those rights in the future. However, the closer we came to possible legislation, the more important the acquisitions became. Finally, with the help of long-time VWC supporter and retired attorney John Sills, we were able to determine the owners of all three tracts under the Little River Wilderness proposal.
On March 31st, we closed on a 1,077-acre tract of mineral rights. This purchase was made possible by the contributions of The Wilderness Society, the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club, and private donations. After passage of the legislation, we will begin the process of transferring the rights to the Forest Service. Rights under the SMNSA and the embedded Wilderness within the SMNSA will be permanently withdrawn for lease. We now have our sights set on the other two tracts and hope to close on them later this summer. This one week in March was indeed significant in VWC’s efforts to permanently protect Shenandoah Mountain.
John Hutchinson, VWC President
With the introduction of the Shenandoah Mountain Act of 2022, VWC saw the culmination of nearly two decades of work come to fruition. Lynn Cameron, co-chair of Friends of Shenandoah Mountain and VWC board member, has been the driving force behind the SMNSA since it was first agreed to by VWC board members and the Harrisonburg Mountain bicycling community in 2002. Lynn led the campaign to educate the public about the importance of protecting Shenandoah Mountain. The start was slow, but Lynn’s steady hand produced an ever-increasing list of endorsers.
In 2010, VWC embarked on a new effort to help direct the development of the Revised Management Plan for the George Washington National Forest. This effort led to the creation of the George Washington National Forest Stakeholder Collaborative (SC). The SC was guided by staff at The Nature Conservancy, a Virginia Forestry Association Board Member, and VWC’s Mark Miller. After eighteen months of pouring over maps and numerous long discussions, we came to an agreement. The SC recommended to Forest Planners a smaller SMNSA. This compact SMNSA protected the best of what Shenandoah Mountain had to offer. More importantly, the SC recommendation for the SMNSA was accepted by Forest Planners, a first for Forest planning in Virginia. The momentum for the permanent protection of Shenandoah Mountain was building.
This shift in momentum provided the necessary push for local governments to pass resolutions in support of the SMNSA. It took another decade to gather this important support, but who’s counting? In the end, this slow, steady campaign was finally pushed over the top with its introduction, and the story does not end there.
On March 26th, VWC and the Southern Environmental Law Center took Senator Kaine and his staff on a hike along the crest of Shenandoah Mountain. The weather was chilly, and the wind was blowing. Snow squalls came up suddenly and frequently, but the Senator would not be dissuaded. We hiked along the top of the mountain to the junction with the Jerrys Run Trail. The Senator set the pace, and it could best be described as brisk.
However, that was not the only highlight in March. In late January, VWC and the owner of one of the tracts of mineral rights under our Little River Wilderness proposal were able to make a deal. This cost VWC cash and a half pint of Mark Miller’s homemade maple syrup. This effort began nearly fifteen years prior when former VWC staff member Carol Lena Miller began digging through records at the Augusta County Courthouse. VWC was interested in acquiring the severed rights to ensure that the owners would not be able to exercise those rights in the future. However, the closer we came to possible legislation, the more important the acquisitions became. Finally, with the help of long-time VWC supporter and retired attorney John Sills, we were able to determine the owners of all three tracts under the Little River Wilderness proposal.
On March 31st, we closed on a 1,077-acre tract of mineral rights. This purchase was made possible by the contributions of The Wilderness Society, the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club, and private donations. After passage of the legislation, we will begin the process of transferring the rights to the Forest Service. Rights under the SMNSA and the embedded Wilderness within the SMNSA will be permanently withdrawn for lease. We now have our sights set on the other two tracts and hope to close on them later this summer. This one week in March was indeed significant in VWC’s efforts to permanently protect Shenandoah Mountain.
John Hutchinson, VWC President
Shenandoah Mountain Act of 2022 introduced by Senator Kaine on March 23
By Lynn Cameron, Co-Chair, Friends of Shenandoah Mountain
Decades of work by the Virginia Wilderness Committee (VWC) and Friends of Shenandoah Mountain finally paid off when Senator Tim Kaine introduced the Shenandoah Mountain Act of 2022 on March 23rd, with Senator Mark Warner as a cosponsor. Senate Bill 3911 includes our entire Shenandoah Mountain National Scenic Area (SMNSA) proposal with four embedded Wilderness areas totaling 28,000 acres, as well as Beech Lick Knob Wilderness, a separate 5,764-acre Wilderness in northwestern Rockingham County. See the text of the bill and a detailed map of the SMNSA at friendsofshenandoahmountain.org. All this protected land totals about 98,000 acres – a big chunk by Eastern standards.
It is time to celebrate, and it’s also time to reflect on how we made it to this point. How did our desire to protect some of Virginia’s finest mountain treasures grow into a reality?
Ernie Dickerman himself was the inspiration for this Wilderness campaign. After Ernie died in 1998, Wilderness advocates, convened by Bart Koehler and Christina Wulf, gathered at the Dickerman farm in Buffalo Gap and hatched a plan to protect some of Virginia’s finest natural areas, with Shenandoah Mountain rising to the top of the list. There is no doubt Shenandoah Mountain is worthy of Wilderness protection, but we had some daunting obstacles to overcome.
Recognizing that Shenandoah Mountain had become a favorite destination for mountain biking, we began by reaching out to the mountain bike community to see if we could work together to develop a proposal that would respect their use and enjoyment of trails and still add some of the wildest and most remote areas to the National Wilderness Preservation System. This step took a leap of faith, but we met periodically for three years and hammered out hard compromises. In the end, we developed a proposal in 2004 and formed Friends of Shenandoah Mountain, a coalition to advance the proposal, co-chaired by a VWC board member and a mountain bike leader. The secret to our success was to draw boundaries and to keep most trails open to bike use, but protect the most remote, core wild areas as Wilderness. In addition, we made a slight boundary adjustment to the western edge of Ramseys Draft Wilderness that opened a section of the Shenandoah Mountain Trail (SMT) to multiple use. We managed to find the sweet spot where both sides got enough of what they wanted. This coalition has held together for 18 years.
This joint proposal was in itself quite an accomplishment, but we needed to expand our support to gain political momentum. In 2010, during the George Washington National Forest (GWNF) planning process, VWC reached out to stakeholders representing timber interests, game management, hunting, fishing, and recreation groups, and formed the GWNF Stakeholder Collaborative. Needless to say, this was a group of people who normally don’t see eye to eye; but thanks to participants who were respectful of other points of view, pragmatic, reasonable, and willing to compromise, we developed and signed a stakeholder agreement in 2011 that recommended a pared-down SMNSA. This included four embedded Wilderness areas, plus Beech Lick Knob and additions to Rough Mountain and Rich Hole Wilderness areas. Yes, the SMNSA was smaller, but it gained critical support of interests that ordinarily oppose any Wilderness. These recommendations for preservation were paired with support for an increase in timber management on appropriate locations across the GWNF. This agreement translates to more protection of special wild areas and more management of timber for wildlife – a win-win. Some would say to compromise is to fail, but we believed that it’s better to get what we can and have broad support than end up with nothing at the end of a long campaign.
In addition to our work with the mountain bike community and the GWNF Stakeholder Collaborative, Friends of Shenandoah Mountain reached out to civic organizations, faith groups, and businesses for endorsements. This required giving scores of presentations to groups and going door-to-door to ask businesses to endorse. Our grassroots support work yielded over 400 endorsements.
When the Forest Service finalized its 2014 GWNF Land and Resources Management Plan, it recommended the stakeholder-compromised version of our proposal. That recommendation gave a huge boost to our effort.
With agreements in place with the mountain bike community and the GWNF stakeholders, a recommendation from the Forest Service, and strong support from a wide variety of businesses and organizations, we began to reach out to local governments. Keep in mind that all the counties in which the SMNSA is located had gone on record repeatedly as opposing Wilderness. Then something unexpected happened! Back around 2010, a natural gas company from Texas applied for a permit to frack on private land in Rockingham County. Gas companies began leasing natural gas rights on private land and in some parts of the national forest. This changed attitudes toward land protection. No longer did local elected officials feel that national forests were sufficiently protected. They saw what was happening in other states, like West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and didn’t want it to happen in the Shenandoah Valley, especially in national forest watersheds that served as municipal water sources for cities, towns, and communities. So, altogether, the strong support we had built and the fear of what could happen to our national forests persuaded Augusta and Rockingham Counties, as well as Staunton and Harrisonburg to pass resolutions of support for the SMNSA, including the embedded Wilderness areas.
The growing tourism economy across the Shenandoah Valley and the increasing need for outdoor recreation opportunities also fed into local governments changing their minds about Wilderness.
With all this support in place, we reached out to Senators Kaine and Warner and Congressman Cline and asked them to introduce legislation. We deeply appreciate that both of our Senators were moved to champion the legislation we had long hoped for. We cannot thank them enough.
We still have a way to go before the bill is passed by Congress and signed into law, but for now, let us celebrate and give thanks to all who helped us along in a thousand ways. My wall of heroes would cover every room in my house. Many thanks to each and every one of you. The victory belongs to all of us.
We ask that you please write to Senators Kaine and Warner and thank them for introducing. S. 3911, The Shenandoah Mountain Act of 2022.
Senator Tim Kaine Senator Mark Warner
231 Russell Senate 703 Hart Senate
Office Building Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, D.C. 20510
It is time to celebrate, and it’s also time to reflect on how we made it to this point. How did our desire to protect some of Virginia’s finest mountain treasures grow into a reality?
Ernie Dickerman himself was the inspiration for this Wilderness campaign. After Ernie died in 1998, Wilderness advocates, convened by Bart Koehler and Christina Wulf, gathered at the Dickerman farm in Buffalo Gap and hatched a plan to protect some of Virginia’s finest natural areas, with Shenandoah Mountain rising to the top of the list. There is no doubt Shenandoah Mountain is worthy of Wilderness protection, but we had some daunting obstacles to overcome.
Recognizing that Shenandoah Mountain had become a favorite destination for mountain biking, we began by reaching out to the mountain bike community to see if we could work together to develop a proposal that would respect their use and enjoyment of trails and still add some of the wildest and most remote areas to the National Wilderness Preservation System. This step took a leap of faith, but we met periodically for three years and hammered out hard compromises. In the end, we developed a proposal in 2004 and formed Friends of Shenandoah Mountain, a coalition to advance the proposal, co-chaired by a VWC board member and a mountain bike leader. The secret to our success was to draw boundaries and to keep most trails open to bike use, but protect the most remote, core wild areas as Wilderness. In addition, we made a slight boundary adjustment to the western edge of Ramseys Draft Wilderness that opened a section of the Shenandoah Mountain Trail (SMT) to multiple use. We managed to find the sweet spot where both sides got enough of what they wanted. This coalition has held together for 18 years.
This joint proposal was in itself quite an accomplishment, but we needed to expand our support to gain political momentum. In 2010, during the George Washington National Forest (GWNF) planning process, VWC reached out to stakeholders representing timber interests, game management, hunting, fishing, and recreation groups, and formed the GWNF Stakeholder Collaborative. Needless to say, this was a group of people who normally don’t see eye to eye; but thanks to participants who were respectful of other points of view, pragmatic, reasonable, and willing to compromise, we developed and signed a stakeholder agreement in 2011 that recommended a pared-down SMNSA. This included four embedded Wilderness areas, plus Beech Lick Knob and additions to Rough Mountain and Rich Hole Wilderness areas. Yes, the SMNSA was smaller, but it gained critical support of interests that ordinarily oppose any Wilderness. These recommendations for preservation were paired with support for an increase in timber management on appropriate locations across the GWNF. This agreement translates to more protection of special wild areas and more management of timber for wildlife – a win-win. Some would say to compromise is to fail, but we believed that it’s better to get what we can and have broad support than end up with nothing at the end of a long campaign.
In addition to our work with the mountain bike community and the GWNF Stakeholder Collaborative, Friends of Shenandoah Mountain reached out to civic organizations, faith groups, and businesses for endorsements. This required giving scores of presentations to groups and going door-to-door to ask businesses to endorse. Our grassroots support work yielded over 400 endorsements.
When the Forest Service finalized its 2014 GWNF Land and Resources Management Plan, it recommended the stakeholder-compromised version of our proposal. That recommendation gave a huge boost to our effort.
With agreements in place with the mountain bike community and the GWNF stakeholders, a recommendation from the Forest Service, and strong support from a wide variety of businesses and organizations, we began to reach out to local governments. Keep in mind that all the counties in which the SMNSA is located had gone on record repeatedly as opposing Wilderness. Then something unexpected happened! Back around 2010, a natural gas company from Texas applied for a permit to frack on private land in Rockingham County. Gas companies began leasing natural gas rights on private land and in some parts of the national forest. This changed attitudes toward land protection. No longer did local elected officials feel that national forests were sufficiently protected. They saw what was happening in other states, like West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and didn’t want it to happen in the Shenandoah Valley, especially in national forest watersheds that served as municipal water sources for cities, towns, and communities. So, altogether, the strong support we had built and the fear of what could happen to our national forests persuaded Augusta and Rockingham Counties, as well as Staunton and Harrisonburg to pass resolutions of support for the SMNSA, including the embedded Wilderness areas.
The growing tourism economy across the Shenandoah Valley and the increasing need for outdoor recreation opportunities also fed into local governments changing their minds about Wilderness.
With all this support in place, we reached out to Senators Kaine and Warner and Congressman Cline and asked them to introduce legislation. We deeply appreciate that both of our Senators were moved to champion the legislation we had long hoped for. We cannot thank them enough.
We still have a way to go before the bill is passed by Congress and signed into law, but for now, let us celebrate and give thanks to all who helped us along in a thousand ways. My wall of heroes would cover every room in my house. Many thanks to each and every one of you. The victory belongs to all of us.
We ask that you please write to Senators Kaine and Warner and thank them for introducing. S. 3911, The Shenandoah Mountain Act of 2022.
Senator Tim Kaine Senator Mark Warner
231 Russell Senate 703 Hart Senate
Office Building Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, D.C. 20510
Senator Kaine Hikes on Shenandoah Mountain Trail
A few days after Senator Kaine introduced the Shenandoah Mountain Act of 2022, he decided to take a five mile hike in the SMNSA. Lynn Cameron, Mark Miller, and Kristin Davis of the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) were invited to join him. Senator Kaine was no stranger to the Ramseys Draft Wilderness area. He and his wife, Anne, had hiked in Ramseys Draft on their honeymoon.
After Senator Kaine and his staff arrived, we spent a few minutes looking at the SMNSA map and then set off to Jerrys Run at a fast pace. The weather was unusually cold for late March. As we hiked through snow squalls, wind gusts, and sunshine, the Senator noticed everything from spring wildflowers to scenic views and talked about past camping trips to Ramseys Draft. We had a good chance to discuss how special Shenandoah Mountain is and how deserving it is of protection. Upon our return, VWC President John Hutchinson was waiting at the scenic overlook to greet Senator Kaine and thank him personally. This hike was a wonderful way for VWC, Friends of Shenandoah Mountain, and SELC to celebrate introduction of the bill with Senator Kaine, our champion in the Senate.
After Senator Kaine and his staff arrived, we spent a few minutes looking at the SMNSA map and then set off to Jerrys Run at a fast pace. The weather was unusually cold for late March. As we hiked through snow squalls, wind gusts, and sunshine, the Senator noticed everything from spring wildflowers to scenic views and talked about past camping trips to Ramseys Draft. We had a good chance to discuss how special Shenandoah Mountain is and how deserving it is of protection. Upon our return, VWC President John Hutchinson was waiting at the scenic overlook to greet Senator Kaine and thank him personally. This hike was a wonderful way for VWC, Friends of Shenandoah Mountain, and SELC to celebrate introduction of the bill with Senator Kaine, our champion in the Senate.
One Down, Two to Go
In 2008, the Virginia Wilderness Committee (VWC) began exploring the possibility of acquiring privately held mineral rights under our proposed Little River Wilderness. Privately held mineral rights are minerals that have been severed from the land. Many of the original deeds go back to when the land was purchase by the U.S. Forest Service to create the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest in the early 1900s.
In essence, the Forest Service owns the land, but a private individual or company owns the subsurface minerals. This creates a myriad of management problems for the Forest Service, as the owner of subsurface mineral rights is assured of reasonable access to their rights, even in designated Wilderness.
VWC staff member Carol Lena Miller began the effort to purchase the rights at the Augusta County Courthouse where she began to research the title chain for each tract. Carol Lena might have been a novice in the field of title research, but she was a quick learner. In the end, she produced a series of title chains for the three tracts under the proposed Little River Wilderness. VWC was interested in the rights because the Forest Service only recommended about 9,000 acres for the proposed Little River Wilderness rather than the 12,500 acres that was supported by the Stakeholder Collaborative. The reason for this difference was subsurface ownership.
The effort to acquire the rights picked up steam again in late 2020. VWC hired a mineral appraiser to provide us with an understanding of the value of the subsurface minerals. In addition to the evaluation, VWC approached longtime supporter John Sills to review Carol Lena’s work. John is a retired attorney from Augusta County. He spent many hours digging through the records at the Augusta County Courthouse. John provided VWC with what he believed were relatively clear title chains.
Armed with both a clear sense of ownership and the mineral evaluation, VWC approached the owners of two tracts—Norfolk Southern and the McMullan family in North Carolina and Oklahoma. It took nearly a year of discussions with the McMullans, but we finally agreed to a price. In the meantime, VWC hired the services of Attorney Lisa Hawkins to assist with ensuring a clear title, preparing a bill of sale, and recording the deed when the sale was complete. We would like to say it was a smooth process, but along the way we hit several speed bumps. In the end, we were able to reach an agreement with the McMullan family for a 1,077-acre tract. On March 31st with the help of VWC members, the Sierra Club of Virginia, and The Wilderness Society, VWC purchased the first tract. We believe it is the first-time mineral rights have been retired on the George Washington National Forest since the early 1990s.
VWC will continue its efforts to purchase the other two tracts. We are currently in discussions with officials at Norfolk Southern about acquiring their tract. This 1,982-acre tract is adjunct to the McMullan tract. Acquiring the two tracts is significant because it protects the watershed of Coal Run and the Grooms Ridge from mineral extraction. The ownership of the third tract is still in question, and although the acreage is equal to the combined size of the Norfolk Southern and McMullan tract, most of it is outside the proposed Little River Wilderness. We will continue to pursue the possible acquisition of the tract; however, first we must ascertain ownership.
Like the recently introduced Shenandoah Mountain Act of 2022, VWC has been pursuing the mineral rights for a long time; our patience and persistence will continue to pay big dividends for VWC.
In essence, the Forest Service owns the land, but a private individual or company owns the subsurface minerals. This creates a myriad of management problems for the Forest Service, as the owner of subsurface mineral rights is assured of reasonable access to their rights, even in designated Wilderness.
VWC staff member Carol Lena Miller began the effort to purchase the rights at the Augusta County Courthouse where she began to research the title chain for each tract. Carol Lena might have been a novice in the field of title research, but she was a quick learner. In the end, she produced a series of title chains for the three tracts under the proposed Little River Wilderness. VWC was interested in the rights because the Forest Service only recommended about 9,000 acres for the proposed Little River Wilderness rather than the 12,500 acres that was supported by the Stakeholder Collaborative. The reason for this difference was subsurface ownership.
The effort to acquire the rights picked up steam again in late 2020. VWC hired a mineral appraiser to provide us with an understanding of the value of the subsurface minerals. In addition to the evaluation, VWC approached longtime supporter John Sills to review Carol Lena’s work. John is a retired attorney from Augusta County. He spent many hours digging through the records at the Augusta County Courthouse. John provided VWC with what he believed were relatively clear title chains.
Armed with both a clear sense of ownership and the mineral evaluation, VWC approached the owners of two tracts—Norfolk Southern and the McMullan family in North Carolina and Oklahoma. It took nearly a year of discussions with the McMullans, but we finally agreed to a price. In the meantime, VWC hired the services of Attorney Lisa Hawkins to assist with ensuring a clear title, preparing a bill of sale, and recording the deed when the sale was complete. We would like to say it was a smooth process, but along the way we hit several speed bumps. In the end, we were able to reach an agreement with the McMullan family for a 1,077-acre tract. On March 31st with the help of VWC members, the Sierra Club of Virginia, and The Wilderness Society, VWC purchased the first tract. We believe it is the first-time mineral rights have been retired on the George Washington National Forest since the early 1990s.
VWC will continue its efforts to purchase the other two tracts. We are currently in discussions with officials at Norfolk Southern about acquiring their tract. This 1,982-acre tract is adjunct to the McMullan tract. Acquiring the two tracts is significant because it protects the watershed of Coal Run and the Grooms Ridge from mineral extraction. The ownership of the third tract is still in question, and although the acreage is equal to the combined size of the Norfolk Southern and McMullan tract, most of it is outside the proposed Little River Wilderness. We will continue to pursue the possible acquisition of the tract; however, first we must ascertain ownership.
Like the recently introduced Shenandoah Mountain Act of 2022, VWC has been pursuing the mineral rights for a long time; our patience and persistence will continue to pay big dividends for VWC.