"Visiting Beaver Creek Reservoir, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine praised Albemarle County on Thursday for its conservation of farmland and forests.

The reservoir borders a 228-acre family farm whose owners sold their development rights for more than $1.3 million.

The family is the first to benefit from a state conservation easement program that matches grants offered by the county. The state gave the owner of the Clayton family farm $403,220 in addition to the $914,000 they received from the county.

“Albemarle has really been the leader in this in Virginia,” Kaine said. “It makes you feel great when you think that you can help a guy maybe get to that 100-year mark and keep that land in productive agriculture.”

Seventeen percent to 20 percent of the county’s rural area is in conservation easements, Albemarle spokeswoman Lee Catlin said.

In the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Clayton farm has 124 acres of prime agricultural soil, and 6,700 feet front the reservoir, according to the governor’s office.

Kaine said preserving the environment, particularly rural land, has been one of his four major focuses, along with transportation, health care and education expansion. The 2007 Virginia General Assembly approved a $4.25 million program

that uses state funding to match local conservation easement grants.

Fourteen localities received the state funds. Eight received the maximum of $403,220.

Lofty goals

Kaine’s goal is to preserve 400,000 acres of open space during his term, which expires in January of 2010. He said the state has preserved 260,000 acres so far.

In Albemarle, there are more than 70,000 acres in conservation easements, Catlin said.

The property owners still own their land but forfeit development rights.

In Albemarle, most enter into conservation easements through organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, the Piedmont Environmental Council, the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District and the Virginia Outdoors Association, Catlin said.

But a program established by the Albemarle Board of Supervisors in 2000 gives county money for the development rights of rural property. The Acquisition of Conservation Easements program has exceeded 5,000 acres, Catlin said.

$7.3 million spent

In total, the county has expended $7.3 million through the ACE program, and an additional $1.3 million has been raised through contributions and grants, according to Catlin.

About 34 percent of Virginia’s 25 million acres is farmland, according to 2005 statistics from the state Office of Farmland Preservation.

The 8.5 million acres of farmland in 2005 was down from 13.5 million in 1960." (Brandon Shulleeta, The Daily Progress, July 11, 2008)