The sun was barely over the horizon when Jahlen Pinelo arrived in Richmond from Hampton Roads. But as a master's student at Hampton University, she’s used to an early alarm clock.
She wasn’t as used to talking with lawmakers. In fact, she’d never done it.
She was in the same boat as some of the 120 advocates who joined CBF from across the state to meet one-on-one with more than 60 different legislators on January 14.
Half these volunteers boarded an early-morning bus or drove from the Hampton Roads region. And like Pinelo, many of them were students who wanted to see younger students get the kind of outdoor learning experience they did.
CBF supports $1 million for meaningful watershed experiences in this year’s budget.
“We need the future of clean water. Period. Let’s put a period right there. Because that’s what they are. Children are the future of clean water,” Pinelo said.
Advocating for Living Shorelines and Wetlands
At first, Pinelo felt intimidated walking down the stately hallways of the Virginia General Assembly building and sitting across from Delegate Chad Green.
The feeling quickly dissolved.
“We started talking about model train sets, the California wildfires,” Pinelo said.
Then on to a costly natural hazard issue well within Virginians’ power to solve: flooding that Pinelo knows Norfolk residents deal with all-too often. Coastal Virginia has seen the highest rate of relative sea-level rise on the Atlantic Coast. In fact, Norfolk residents battled flood alerts 80 days last year—about a quarter of 2024.
But nature can be a solution to these growing problems. Living shorelines are often created by planting native wetland plants, and grasses, shrubs, and trees at various points along a shoreline.
“This is what stops flooding into your homes, into your parking lots. This is what helps economically important organisms nest and live,” Pinelo said of living shorelines. “If our kids knew this more, who knows what would happen.”
We live in coastal Virginia, and it's a jewel. And we want to preserve it for future generations.
Pinelo once helped CBF build a living shoreline, shoveling about 17 tons of sand with dozens of other volunteers. CBF and Pinelo support HB 1950, which helps pay for large-scale living shoreline projects.
By the end of her meeting, Pinelo felt buoyed.
“It’s HB 1950,” Pinelo heard Green tell his staff to write down and remember. “And in my head, I’m like ‘yes, yes, yes.’”
A living shoreline fund is one of a host of initiatives backed by CBF this legislative session to better protect Virginians from flooding and extreme weather.
With a 2023 Supreme Court decision rolling back federal protection for vast swaths of the nation’s wetlands, CBF is backing HB 2034 introduced by Delegate Shelly Simonds, which establishes a task force to develop strategies to protect the state’s existing tidal and nontidal wetlands plus develop plans for wetland restoration, creation, and migration.
Brian Friedman, a Norfolk resident, has seen wetlands like marshes, swamps, and bogs disappear in his community over the years. Because wetlands are some of nature’s best filterers, that’s a big deal for flood and pollution protection.
It was his first time talking with legislators, but Friedman overcame any hesitation.
“We live in coastal Virginia, and it’s a jewel. And we want to preserve it for future generations,” Friedman said.
Fighting for Environmental Literacy
It was also Max Wright’s first time meeting with lawmakers. The Norfolk resident and educator at the Virginia Aquarium brought along a group of teens to tell legislators the importance of expanding environmental literacy across the state.
Virginia’s current investments of just 30 cents per student in environmental education lags far behind neighboring states, falling 89.2 percent below Maryland ($2.78 per student) and 48.3 percent less than Pennsylvania (58 cents per student).
Wright has seen the impact of that kind of gap.
“We’re missing the mark. We’re not getting to students as early as we should with environmental literacy. That’s the age we start forming our habits and values, so it’s something all students should have access to,” Wright said.
But when students are given the chance to learn outside, the experience has benefits Wright said people wouldn’t expect. Other than higher achievement in math and science, experiences in the field get kids exercising, playing, and connecting with the natural world.
With many of her peers plugging in to electronic media on average seven hours a day, Wright believes this is an antidote to the downsides of kids spending half as much time outside as they did just 20 years ago.
“No matter what field you go into, you should have some appreciation for the environment so you can apply that to your work,” Wright said. “We should be spending way more than Pennsylvania or Maryland on our students.”
Speak for the Trees!
Zara Mountcastle, a Virginia Beach high school student in the Environmental Studies Program located at CBF’s Brock Environmental Center, got engaged partly through her classroom.
She doesn’t want to see her community lose any more trees to development. That’s why she told legislators she supports legislation that makes it easier to replace trees after they’ve been lost to construction.
She’s on the same page as many local government officials across Virginia, who’ve said they want to use tree canopy to cost-effectively reduce flooding, manage stormwater, and reduce the health impacts of urban heat islands on their residents. Plus, Mountcastle noted, the greener the space, the less stress people carry.
“It brings a lot of people to the parks when there’s more trees. That’s just one of the social benefits other than the environmental ones,” Mountcastle said.
All these advocates may have been green when it comes to a lobby day at the Virginia General Assembly, but not for long.
As Wright left one of her legislator meetings, she had one request.
“Where’s the sign-up sheet for next year? I’m coming back,” she said.
Take a look at our Virginia Legislative Session webpage for all the issues we’re advocating for this year and how you can help!
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Virginia Communications & Media Relations Manager, CBF
[email protected]
804-258-1567
