Lauren Hines-Acosta

Richmond

Environmental Reporter at Chesapeake Bay Magazine

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Articles

Virginia’s Pay-for-Outcomes program invites innovation for reducing water pollution

1 week ago | bayjournal.com | Lauren Hines-Acosta

Grants for reducing water pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers typically fund projects that reduce nutrient-laden runoff from farms, wastewater treatment plants and developed areas. The money usually helps cover the costs of conducting a project — like restoring a stream, planting trees, managing manure or reducing discharges and sewer leaks. But as the region continues to struggle with reducing nutrient pollution in waterways, some government grant programs are switching up the format.
Fit for a queen: Monarchs visit the Chesapeake Bay on their journey

1 week ago | bayjournal.com | Lauren Hines-Acosta

Editor’s note: Parts of this article are featured in our Chesapeake Uncharted podcast, available from your podcast service or at bayjournal.com/podcasts. This podcast season is a companion to our new film, Chesapeake Rhythms, which explores wildlife migrations in the Bay region. In a forest in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico in 2016, James Diffendorfer saw the bark of pine trees moving. Monarch butterflies rustled along the tree trunks, clustered on branches and filled the sky.
Fit for a queen: Monarchs visit the Bay on their journey

1 week ago | bayjournal.com | Lauren Hines-Acosta

Editor’s note: Parts of this article are featured in our Chesapeake Uncharted podcast, available from your podcast service or at bayjournal.com/podcasts. This podcast season is a companion to our new film, Chesapeake Rhythms, which explores wildlife migrations in the Bay region. In a forest in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico in 2016, James Diffendorfer saw the bark of pine trees moving. Monarch butterflies rustled along the tree trunks, clustered on branches and filled the sky.
Patawomeck tribe member continues eel pot tradition

3 weeks ago | bayjournal.com | Lauren Hines-Acosta

Editor’s note: This interview will be featured in the new season of our Chesapeake Uncharted podcast, available on the Bay Journal website or wherever you listen to podcasts. The season is a companion to our film, Chesapeake Rhythms, which explores wildlife migrations in the Bay region: graceful tundra swans, beautiful monarch butterflies, elusive eels and flocking shorebirds.
Indigenous tribes ask for seat in Chesapeake Bay Program

1 month ago | bayjournal.com | Lauren Hines-Acosta

The Indigenous Conservation Council, which is made up of representatives from all federally recognized tribes in Virginia, sent the Chesapeake Bay Program a resolution in January calling for a seat at the table. Many critical restoration goals in the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement will not be met by the 2025 deadline. The Bay Program, a federal-state partnership guiding the cleanup efforts, is inviting change as it revises the agreement’s priorities beyond 2025.
Bay Journal filmmakers document 'rhythms' of the Chesapeake

1 month ago | bayjournal.com | Lauren Hines-Acosta

Editor’s note: This interview is featured in the new season of our Chesapeake Uncharted podcast, which will be released May 21 as a companion to our film, Chesapeake Rhythms. The film explores wildlife migrations in the Bay region. Twenty years ago, Tom Horton was kayaking on the first day of spring. While paddling, he found a small bush sprinkled with monarch butterflies. He persuaded his friend, Dave Harp, to go there the next morning before sunrise.
Land once slated for resort returns to Rappahannock Tribe

1 month ago | bayjournal.com | Lauren Hines-Acosta

Virginia’s Rappahannock Tribe has regained almost 1,000 acres of ancestral land along the cliffs that line the tribe’s namesake river. With the new plot of land, the tribe now stewards 1,435 acres along Fones Cliffs. The area has one of the largest concentrations of nesting bald eagles in the mid-Atlantic, according to the U.S. National Park Service. The site was also home to three of the Rappahannock communities that encountered and resisted Captain John Smith in 1608.
Virginia gas plant progresses despite opposition

1 month ago | bayjournal.com | Lauren Hines-Acosta

In response to increasing energy demand because of extreme weather and the rapid growth of data centers, Dominion Energy plans to build a natural gas plant in Chesterfield, VA. But the nearby community, which was home to a coal plant for almost 80 years and currently lives near two existing gas plants, has resisted the project for months, citing concerns about air quality.
Richmond schools lead the way for environmental literacy in Virginia

2 months ago | bayjournal.com | Lauren Hines-Acosta

Along the banks of the James River in Richmond, VA, Boushall Middle School students were sword fighting with sticks, taking water samples and snapping selfies on the rocks. Even on a dreary day, 8th grader Maryam Al-Azzawi said she found the field trip to be “peaceful” and intriguing compared with her windowless science class.
Virginia governor signs some environmental bills, deems others unnecessary

2 months ago | bayjournal.com | Lauren Hines-Acosta

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin finished reviewing more than 900 bills, including the state budget, on March 24. The state General Assembly will reconvene on April 2 to examine his decisions. Data centers, which house computers that enable internet use, were a focal point during this legislative session. Of the 30 introduced bills trying to regulate them, only two made it past the General Assembly and the governor.