Prudence Anderson Receives Conservation Honor

By Cathy Kuehner

Boyce resident Prudence “Prue” Anderson accepted the 2022 “Wingate Mackay-Smith Land Conservation Award” during a luncheon at the Millwood Country Club on Jan. 13. Anderson was recognized for her years of dedicated, behindthe-scenes service to the Clarke County Conservation Easement Authority (CEA).

Anderson worked for the CEA from 2005 to 2015. “I did whatever Alison [Teetor] needed to be done,” she said, referring to the long-time county employee who has managed the easement program since it was established. “Alison needed to focus on really important things, so I was happy to do whatever I could.”

Anderson began by stuffing envelopes for mailings and then switched to mounting easement signs on Clarke County properties. “I put up most of the signs in Clarke County,” she said, noting she would receive addresses and a “decent map” from Teetor “and off I went. I really enjoyed it.”

“Prue has endless energy and enthusiasm,” Teetor said. Anderson admitted to being surprised and flattered by the recognition.

Prudence Anderson and her husband Don moved to Clarke County from Ontario, Canada, in 1990. Working for the Easement Authority “taught me a lot about the county. If I couldn’t find a property, I’d call Alison and we’d figure it out,” she said. She traveled to easement properties alone, which she appreciated because it was an efficient process. “It would be silly for both of us to attach a sign to a fence post.”

Easements are voluntary agreements negotiated between landowners and public agencies in which the landowners agree to place specific restrictions on the use and development of their property in exchange for payment and various income and estate tax benefits.

The Board of Supervisors cre- ated the county’s Conservation Easement Purchase Program (CEP Program) by an ordinance adopted on June 18, 2002. The CEP Program helps fund the preservation of land with significant agricultural, natural, scenic, and historic resources. The Conservation Easement Authority was established to oversee the CEP Program, and it recorded the county’s first easement in 2003.

Today, the CEA has placed 9,390 acres in easement. When those CEP Program properties are included with other conservation holdings, such as those held by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, about 25 percent — 28,566 acres — of open space in Clarke County is permanently protected, and 302 dwelling unit rights (DURs) have been retired as of January 2023. The county also maintains a slidingscale zoning policy that preserves large tracts of land by permitting fewer dwelling unit rights per acre for larger existing parcels.

In April 2012, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell honored the Clarke County Conservation Easement Authority with an Environmental Excellence Award. The CEA received the award for its successful efforts to protect and preserve land and for filling an important niche by enabling landowners who might not meet the criteria of other programs to place smaller parcels of land in easement.

In 2015, the CEA created the “Land Conservation Award” to honor Wingate Mackay-Smith, who served as the CEA’s first chairperson when it was established in 2002. She developed the criteria the Authority uses to value individual easements, and she created guidelines for accepting properties into the easement program. MackaySmith helped negotiate the Authority’s first easement purchase — historic Greenway Court — the colonial-era home of Lord Thomas Fairfax. She stepped down from the CEA in December 2015.

The CEA immediately renamed the award the “Wingate MackaySmith Clarke County Land Conservation Award,” and presents it annually to individuals, groups, and organizations that have made significant contributions to the preservation and protection of open spaces in Clarke County. The award also draws attention to the need for land conservation and the role easements play in preserving natural and historic resources.

During the Jan. 13 CEA luncheon, Authority chair Randy Buckley said, “Winkie is known a the Queen of Conservation.”

Other “Wingate Mackay-Smith Clarke County Land Conservation Award” recipients are: Holy Cross Abbey (2015); G. Robert Lee, Margaret Maizel, Robert Mitchell, and A.R. “Pete” Dunning (2016); Melvin Kohn (2017); Joe and Denise Sipe (2018); J. Michael Hobert (2019); the American Battlefield Trust and Shenandoah University (2020), and Charles “Chuck” Johnston (2021).

For more information about conservation easements, contact Clarke County Easement Authority Specialist Alison Teetor at (540) 955-5177 or ateetor@clarkecounty.gov. Learn more at clarkelandconservation.org