Voluntary Initiatives

Voluntary initiatives:

• Dominion Trail Mix is a signature environmental event that highlights the W&OD Trail as a tremendous and unique natural resource in Northern Virginia. The event features the largest community service project in the trail’s history and culminates with a festival that encompasses themes of active lifestyles, recreation, family, the environment and the community.
   
• Dominion and other supporters of the Maryland Artificial Reef Initiative, or MARI, have developed the initiatives largest project, the Dominion Reef at the Gooses, by placing oyster shell and oysters on the reef. The reef was named after Dominion in recognition of the energy company's support of the project. In addition to providing $250,000 for the reef, Dominion funded the placement of about 75 tons of shell and about 25 bushels of oysters on the reef, with the goal of providing the new ecosystem a jump start. The oysters and shell were spread over a select portion of the 80-acre, man-made reef. The reef is located in the Chesapeake Bay about eight miles southeast of Chesapeake Beach and northwest of Dominion's liquefied natural gas storage facility at Cove Point.
   
• Project Plant It! educates children about the value of trees and how they can help improve the environment. It is a cooperative partnership among Dominion, the Arbor Day Foundation and local school districts. The schools participating are in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Virginia.
   
• The Dominion Foundation has provided a grant of $140,000 to the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay to help pay for a new urban tree-planting program designed to reduce pollution reaching the bay. This grant will help pay for a partnership between the Alliance, Dominion and the Virginia Department of Forestry to expand the urban tree canopy in some of the state's most densely populated areas.
   
• The Dominion Foundation provided $350,000 to fund a 60-seat classroom in a new School of Business facility at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. The Mason School of Business has designed Alan B. Miller Hall according to cutting-edge environmentally friendly standards. The School is seeking Silver certification in a national green building rating system called Leadership in Energy and Environment Design, or LEED.
   
• The Dominion Foundation provided $10,000 to support the Save The Bay® Narragansett Bay's efforts for improvement and protection of the quality of the salt marshes and waters of Narragansett Bay.
   
• The Dominion Foundation provided a grant of $25,000 to the Virginia Council of Trout Unlimited to construct an open-air, outdoor education pavilion at the entrance to the City of Waynesboro, Virginia Greenway in Constitution Park. The pavilion will be the first step in the development of this 12-acre riverfront park into a multi-use environmental green space that will anchor downtown Waynesboro along the South River.
   
• State Park Information Stations - A $300,000 grant from the Dominion Foundation is helping to establish outdoor interactive information stations at 31 state parks in Virginia. The stations, or kiosks, enable park visitors to access trail information, wildlife spotting guides, information on park amenities, printable guides and maps, program descriptions, schedules and more, using a global positioning system, or GPS. (Learn more.)
   
• Nature Conservancy - The Dominion Foundation recently donated $100,000 to the West Virginia Nature Conservancy to support the Bear Rocks Preserve in eastern West Virginia. The company donated the 477-acre Bear Rocks Preserve to the Nature Conservancy in 2000. Valued at $1.5 million, Bear Rocks was the single largest corporate gift, as well as the largest nature preserve ever donated to the Conservancy. In addition, a separate $250,000 donation was made to the Nature Conservancy of Virginia for land conservation in the Commonwealth.
   
• Wind Over Wings - A wildlife rehabilitation and education center located in Connecticut, this non-profit received a $5,000 grant. The funds underwrite educational outreach programs to schools in the Dominion Millstone Power Station area, teaching children about the protection of local and endangered birds.
   
• Coast Guard Foundation - A recent $10,000 grant was awarded for facilities improvements at the Coast Guard Station at St. Inigoes, Maryland. Located south of Dominion's Cove Point LNG facility, the Station is responsible for the waters and tributaries along the lower Potomac River and part of Chesapeake Bay. Its missions include search and rescue, enforcement of laws and treaties, marine environmental protection and recreational boating safety.
   
• Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania - A $10,000 grant enables the Audubon Society to take standards-based and cross-curricular activities to schools in southwestern Pennsylvania. Using live birds, the Audubon Society's education staff helps students discover the similarities and differences among species, the importance of habitat, conservation and the impact humans have on the environment.
   
• Roanoke River Partners - Dominion's $10,000 grant will enable the Roanoke River Partners to construct a camping platform and to continue to build and manage the Roanoke River Paddle Trail. The trail covers more than 200 miles of interconnected rivers and creeks in northeastern North Carolina.
   
• We have been one of the leaders in the utility industry in efforts to protect birds from adverse powerline impacts. Dominion was one of the original parties of APLIC (Avian Powerline Interaction Committee). APLIC has been a world leader in providing guidance on minimizing issues of birds and utility industry structures, which not only reduces costly outages but also provides compliance with several laws protecting birds. Dominion received another National Conservation Service Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in recognition of its role in avian protection.
   
• Dominion Transmission has provided ongoing funding and other support to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) and the Pennsylvania Game Commission for the preservation of the elk and deer herds in northern Pennsylvania. A special seed mix of grazing plants was sewn along selected areas of Dominion's pipeline rights-of-way, and state access roads were improved for fire protection purposes. These efforts helped create safe havens and grazing areas for the elk and deer, resulting in a tripling of the herds. Since 1995, Dominion has also hosted an annual legislative elk tour to display our stewardship efforts, and for the past two years, the tour has been combined with a Dominion volunteer environmental workday, in partnership with RMEF and the PA Game Commission, to create or enhance various elk conservation projects within our service territory.
  
  In 2008, the Dominion Foundation gave $250,000 to the RMEF for a new Elk Country Visitor Center in northern Pennsylvania. The $12 million project is being developed with local input and a variety of public and private partners. Planned designs, exhibits and programs are the result of partnerships between the Elk Foundation, Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and Benezette Township residents, local officials and business owners, educators and students.
   
• Several years ago Dominion entered into an agreement with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries that reimburses landowners in Virginia for their efforts to create and maintain game plots using perennial plantings for wildlife under the company's transmission lines. To date, there have been some 125 acres set aside for these types of efforts, intended mainly to benefit the bobwhite quail whose populations have experienced a steady decline over the last several decades. 
   
• Dominion has partnered with the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences (VIMS) to assist in their fish tagging and tracking program through joint sponsorship of several fish collection and tagging rodeos. One of the primary tools used for fisheries management is tagging and recovery. We have noted in our station discharge canals, especially in the winter months, huge congregations of certain species of fish, attracted by the warm water.
  
  In a typical tagging rodeo, which may draw more than 100 volunteer anglers, fish are caught, tagged with an ID number and phone number, and released. Anyone later catching a tagged fish should record the ID number, call the phone number, and report when, where and how the fish was caught, and how big it was. Since the tracking program began, about 10 percent of the fish have been caught again later, some after traveling hundreds of miles. The program provides valuable information that is vital to understanding and managing fisheries.
   
• We also collaborated with one of the local coal companies and the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources to add limestone fines to the major tributaries coming into the Mt. Storm Reservoir. The results from this effort have been excellent with two of the tributaries now having reproducing populations of native brook trout.