By Emma Corbitt, Resilience Planner
Last month, staff from the HRPDC Water Resources Department attended the Environment Virginia Symposium in Lexington, Virginia, where they had the opportunity to connect with environmental professionals from government, academia, non-profits, and industry to discuss the Commonwealth’s most pressing environmental challenges.
This annual conference is well-attended by state agencies and kicks off with an agency directors’ panel, where each director provides updates from the past year. The panel included representatives from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Virginia Department of Forestry (DOF), Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC), and the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR).
PDC staff also had the opportunity to showcase regional projects and contribute to several technical sessions. Ben McFarlane led a panel featuring staff from the Cities of Hampton, Virginia Beach, and Norfolk to discuss the Army Corps of Engineers Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) studies. The panel drew a standing-room-only crowd and offered valuable insights and perspectives from three different stages of the CSRM process.
New to this year’s conference was a “town hall” format for selected sessions. Jill Sunderland and Whitney Katchmark hosted a town hall titled “Future-Proofing Stormwater Management,” which invited participants to discuss the current regulatory landscape and explore how stormwater management might evolve in response to increased precipitation associated with climate change.
KC Filippino and Emma Corbitt also contributed to the technical program. KC presented in a session titled “Winning Strategies for Water Quality: Chesapeake Bay,” sharing her work on installing a living shoreline and other conservation practices in partnership with an industrial site along the Elizabeth River. Emma presented a case study on the use of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s High-Resolution Land Use/Land Cover dataset, highlighting how HRPDC is leveraging the data to improve greenhouse gas accounting for natural lands as part of the region’s Comprehensive Climate Action Plan.
The Environment Virginia Symposium continues to serve as a key venue for sharing innovation, policy updates, and lessons learned for a wide variety of environmental topics. For HRPDC staff, it was an invaluable opportunity to learn from peers across the state, showcase regional leadership, and bring new ideas back to the Hampton Roads region to support ongoing efforts in water quality, resilience, and sustainable development.
