Citizens conference for restoring urban streams to be held in June

BLACKSBURG, Va., May 6, 2009 – Restoring degraded streams is critical if healthy forest ecosystems are to be maintained.

Virginia Cooperative Extension, in partnership with Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources Program at the National Capital Region, Arlington County, and the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, is hosting a regional conference to cover the challenges and benefits of stream restoration in urban forests of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed using Arlington County’s Donaldson Run Restoration Project as a case study.

The conference is targeted to a wide range of constituents: community leaders, planners, landscape architects, urban foresters, arborists, park managers, developers, and builders, as well as homeowners and concerned citizens. The conference will open with a public meeting to cover the social, economic, and environmental aspects of the Donaldson Run Restoration Project. The following day, a technical conference will cover the ecology and techniques of urban forest stream restoration and present accomplishments and lessons learned from the Donaldson Run Project. Participants will tour key sites along Donaldson Run.

The public meeting is on June 18 from 7 to 9 p.m. and the technical conference is on June 19 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Registration for the technical conference, which includes lunch and refreshments, is $30; the public meeting is free. Both events will take place at the Conference Center at Arlington County’s Department of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources, 2700 S. Taylor St., Arlington, Va. Visit the event online for meeting agendas and to register for both events.

For more information, contact John Munsell, forest management Extension specialist, at (540) 231-1611.

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