Former Virginia Senator (R - 19th District)

 

While 2008 marks the anniversary of DEQ, it also marks the retirement of a highly respected friend of the environment. Charles Hawkins spent 10 years as a member of the House of Delegates, and the past 16 as a state senator. Among his many accomplishments, Hawkins served as chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee.

 

Known for his long-standing interest in wildlife resources, the senator has high praise for the efforts of DEQ. “I don’t think there’s any question when you look back and see where we were and where we’ve come,” says Hawkins. “Without DEQ, I think the state would have lost its ability to be able to control its own destiny. We would have found ourselves in trouble fairly rapidly, but DEQ was able to put things in place and work rapidly to solve problems. The DEQ has more than lived up to its anticipated goals. It’s something we can all look back on and say it was the right thing to do.”

 

Still, Hawkins sees environmentalism not just within the context of Virginia, but as a global effort. “I think one of the biggest challenges we’ve got right now is trying to make people understand that what you do is not done in a vacuum. It ripples throughout the system. When you do something at one end of the stream flow it goes all the way to the other end. Once you put a pollutant in the air, it’s there, and it’s not isolated to one area. We’re beginning to see the results of that by the growth of the Asian markets, all those factories, the smoke—all those pollutants are coming our way—particularly mercury and other metals. They get washed out in the rain. You’ve got to realize that it’s an international problem we all have to address.”

 

As for the future of environmental protection in Virginia, Hawkins says, “I think it’s going to get increasingly more strict, and that’s because society is becoming increasingly more cosmopolitan in nature. We are no longer a community of farmers who are serving cities. We are a community of cities surrounded by rural landscapes.

 

“When you … see the developments taking place in Northern Virginia and Tidewater, you’ve got to be aware of the impact that it’s having on everything—not only the ground water, but the stream flows, air and everything. Every time you cut down a tree you create a problem because you lose the ability to hold down the soil. You lose the natural surroundings of the animals, so they migrate to other places and create more problems. There’s no easy answer to a growing population that is outstripping the natural resources that are in place to support it.

 

“That is one of the things that I’m very concerned with—and another is water transfer. I was very vocal on my opposition to Virginia Beach taking water from Lake Gaston. Not because I don’t want Virginia Beach to have water, but I believe that if you start transferring natural resources from point to point without the ability for the area to support the population there and create an artificial environment where populations grow beyond the ability to support it, you’re creating a disaster at some point. I don’t know exactly when, but it will happen. There has to be some understanding that populations need to be where the natural resources can support that population. You can’t continue to create artificial environments in areas where they can’t be supported. In Virginia, you can’t turn tidal lands into development without having a consequence.

“It’s going to be more devastating as the climate changes, and the climate is changing. We have to face reality. The worst thing we can do is stick our heads in the sand and say there’s no problem.”