NMG's at ERP!

Many Norfolk Master Gardeners know that the Elizabeth River Project has been much in the news lately. They’ve moved into their new headquarters on Colley Ave, the Ryan Resilience Lab, an amazing building designed with the latest green technologies. There are solar panels, a rain garden, cisterns that capture rainwater to reuse in the toilets, pavers in the parking lot that allow water to filter underground – even the carpeting is made from fishnets recycled from the ocean. The accessible walkway that leads into the building doubles as a floating dock that rises with flooding.

The ERP also made headlines recently for signing the first “rolling conservation easement” that will cause the new building to be demolished when sea level rise eventually swamps the site on Knitting Mill Creek.

On the evening of January 27 the ERP staff opened up the Ryan Resilience Lab to celebrate the many volunteers that work with them to reverse pollution in the Elizabeth River. They do a lot of education through the Learning Barge, Paradise Creek Nature Park in Portsmouth, and Princess Elizabeth, played by storyteller Robin Dunbar. They also do critical work with local businesses, governments, students, and community members to restore the health of the river. So when they let us know that Norfolk Master Gardeners have been named their “Club Volunteers of the Year,” some of the NMGs who have joined in their many projects came out for the event.