George Ohrstrom, founder and president of The Downstream Project, was the keynote speaker at the Blue Ridge Foothills Conservancy Annual Meeting in Stanardsville, Virginia last night complete with great food, music by the Possum Ridge String Band, and some great pies. Conservancy President, Trish Crowe presented George with a well-deserved 2009 Conservation Award. The citation reads:

The Downstream Team is grateful for the support of Fullpower and their MotionX-GPS software to help us provide state-of-the-art navigation, geotagging, and social network sharing of the Shenandoah Ecoventure 2009. Photographs, waypoints, and daily journal entries will be uploaded from the field using MotionX iPhone software to a daily trip log designed special for us,

The Film Selection Committee of the American Conservation Film Festival (ACFF) informed us this week that “Shenandoah: Voices of the River” has been selected for screening at this year’s festival, scheduled for November 5-8, 2009, in historic Shepherdstown, West Virginia!

Arthur Kearns of Winchester’s premier outfitter is an invaluable sponsor and supporter of The Shenandoah Ecoventure 2009. He opened up after hours last week to help carefully outfit the crew. We are leaving plenty of time to break in the new boots. Advice on breaking in new boots!

The Winchester Star’s July 1 article, “Stormwater rule changes leave bad taste,” about the new stormwater regulations being proposed by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) contained some information that was not only revealing but saddening as well. There was an odd perspective to the article. Although it’s true that the strategy to