Help save the earth on April 22!
With the 35th anniversary of Earth Day around the corner, the VCU community will gather Friday in the Student Commons Plaza to learn more about saving the environment.
“I think there is a lack of knowledge among the student population in terms of the environment and what they can do to help,” said Emily Swinson, a VCU student coordinator for environmental conservation. “This will definitely give people some knowledge if they do come… and see what their actions can do for our environment and community.”
Dean Broga, director of VCU’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety, said the university’s main environmental focus should be on its students.
“We all live on one little blue-green ball. Borders are irrelevant when it comes to destroying the ecosphere,” he said. “Our hope lies in them. Future generations have got to come up with the technology and the innovations to resolve these environmental problems.
“These are things that are not going to be corrected overnight or in 10 years. It’s going to take long-term planning.”
Earth Day dates back to 1960, when U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wis., promoted a day to celebrate and promote environmental awareness on the planet.
Greg Garman, director of the Center for Environmental Studies, said VCU plays a major role in the restoration of the state’s environmental problems.
“VCU tries to help the problem by providing the agencies that are responsible for improving the environment with technical information and research,” Garman said. “We enable them to make informed decisions about what needs to be done.”
For instance, by July 1 eight measures totaling $50 million to help improve Virginia’s environment will be effected into state law after being passed by the Virginia General Assembly and signed by Gov. Mark Warner.
The majority of the money will be used to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. Since the District of Columbia and sections of six states, including New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, all drain into the bay, excess algae growth results.
Clifford Fox, interim assistant director of the Center for Environmental Studies, said these funds are much-needed, but they are not adequate.
“It’s an important first step. If we want to do it all and do it right. The estimates are clearly in the tens of billions of dollars (for) the bay itself,” Fox said. “When you look at the amount of money that was appropriated this past term, it’s an important down-payment on what needs to be done.”
Some of the $50 million will be used to buy and conserve lands, to help operate and improve Virginia’s state parks and to handle the sewerage overflow in the river cities of Richmond and Lynchburg.
In approving the allocated funds, legislative officials said that Virginia’s river cleanup plans and the state’s Chesapeake Bay restoration commitments also will help improve the environment.
Warner, who leaves office in January, also signed into law a bill that calls for a nutrient-pollution trading program among sewage-treatment plants and other pollution sources.