Creating Lasting Legacies

I was at a watershed conference several weeks ago when I met an environmental planner in a neighboring county. When I told her I work for Goose Creek Association (GCA), she lit up with excitement, saying she is where she is today due to her volunteer experience with GCA as a high school student. Back then, she worked as a stream monitor measuring E.coli with our volunteer coordinator, Marcia Woolman, who’s influence and passion for stream work left a lasting impact on the direction of her life.

Marcia’s legacy still holds strong in our organization and although she’s enjoying a quieter retirement these days, Goose Creek Association continues to work to create this type of impact through our conservation efforts: shaping and growing community engagement to help preserve and protect our watershed. In 2023 we planted 3,000 trees with the help of 130 volunteers from schools, youth organizations, and area volunteer groups. At each planting, volunteers learn about the importance of riparian buffers and how they impact water quality, as well as both terrestrial and stream habitats. Our volunteer stream monitoring program is growing, with over 20 regular volunteers who monitor 14 sites around the watershed for aquatic life, painting a story about the health of the water. We also continue our outreach and education with school visits and community events on best management practices to help water quality. In Loudoun County, we’ve also been working with by right commercial development along the Goose to expand monitoring, widen riparian buffers, provide corridors for animals, and public access to the water.

We can’t accomplish all we do without your help. Our goals for 2024 are lofty: we hope to expand our programs and outreach for environmental stewardship through partnerships with area organizations, grow our riparian buffer planting program into the fall planting season, and begin to support maintenance efforts for buffer success. We are also working to expand our volunteer stream monitoring to include chemical monitoring along with the volunteer benthic monitoring.

As is evident by Marcia’s lasting legacy, our efforts are paramount to working toward our goals to make change for our watershed. Your support in donating to Goose Creek Association is the key to our success in making a change in our community to protect our watershed that supports so much wildlife and beauty.

-Leah Chaldares
Program Director
Goose Creek Association
info@goosecreek.org

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More About Us

Goose Creek Association works with an active board charged with monitoring stream water quality, proposed developments, legislation, zoning changes, and other actions that have a potential impact on the environment and quality of life in this region, and taking steps through educational forums to forestall or encourage these changes. We actively support the work of other like-minded regional groups. We work to unite with the many conservation and preservation efforts to provide a unified voice for conservation/preservation-minded citizens in the area. Some of the goals of GCA are:

• Promote educational outreach programs.
• Plant 3,000 trees annually along 1 mile of stream bank, incorporating education
• Monitor 14 creek sites for water quality with volunteer program
• Hold the Annual Educational Outreach Forum.
• Partner with the John Marshall and Loudoun County Soil and Water Conservation Districts and Loudoun County Preservation and Conservation Coalition to bring water quality concerns to the Loudoun Board of Supervisors and the Virginia General Assembly.
• Encourage landowners along the Goose Creek and its tributaries to provide water quality protection through riparian buffers and conservation easements.

Founded in 1970 to fight the discharge of sewage effluent into Goose Creek, today the Goose Creek Association (GCA) is involved in a number of critical issues on both local and state levels to maintain and improve the quality of the Goose Creek watershed that feeds into the Potomac and Chesapeake watersheds through:

• Maintenance and Improvement of stream water quality in the Goose Creek watershed through stream monitoring and riparian buffers.
• Advocacy of conservation easements and purchase of development rights programs in both Loudoun and Fauquier.
• Support of the designation of historic rural villages and preservation of farmland in Loudoun and Fauquier.
• Protection of rural roads through the formation of Cromwell’s Run and Little River Historic Districts in Fauquier County and the Beaverdam Creek Historic Roadways District in Loudoun County.