String of Pearls founder, Dick Lahn, dies but organization will carry the torch

Screen Shot 2019-01-13 at 8.18.25 PM
Dick Lahn of Crofton was a champion of the environment. He helped create land preservation program, The Chesapeake String of Pearls. (By Matthew Cole/ Capital Gazette)
E.B. Furgurson III  Contact Reporter pfurgurson@capgaznews.com

Dick Lahn gave his time and his heart to improving the local environment, civil life and economy by stirring the brighter angels of our nature.

Lahn died at home on Thanksgiving Day. He was 76 years old. The community will gather to celebrate Lahn’s life Sunday at the Annapolis Maritime Museum.

The Crofton resident was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in October.

Long an activist in environmental and local issues, he is best known for his effort to honor land preservation in the Chesapeake Bay watershed – The Chesapeake String of Pearls.

DSC_0255

It was a virtually single-handed effort to honor the landowners and their land – the pearls – put into permanent preservation, precluding development and helping stem the tide of development’s impact on the bay.

To those who worked with him over the years, he was a gem himself. A gentle and quiet leader who worked tirelessly, yet deflected the limelight to others.

“Rather than take credit, Dick was always looking for ways to build others up; to acknowledge with gratitude the efforts of others,” said Suzanne Etgen, executive director of the Anne Arundel Watershed Stewards Academy.

“Dick led with humility, focusing on a vision of people working together to make change. His way was to exude so much love and gratitude toward people doing good things that we just could not help but do more of those good things.”

That was also the driving force behind the String of Pearls project, honoring others doing good works.

“It is about the balance between preservation and development,” Lahn told The Capital in 2016. “We don’t know where the ideal balance lies, but we do know that protecting and preserving land is the ultimate answer because what happens to the bay is a result of what happens on the land.”

The project consists of a registry of people and properties in the Chesapeake Watershed that have been preserved and protected from development in perpetuity. The registry of the “pearls” is on display at the Anne Arundel County Circuit Courthouse in Annapolis.

His friend of 50 years, former Clerk of the Court Robert Duckworth, served on the String of Pearls board.

“He was dedicated to making the community and the earth a better place. And he left this earth a better place for his efforts,” Duckworth said.

Elvia Thompson, founder of Annapolis Green, admired Lahn’s passion about everything.

“Every day was a new day,” Thompson said. “Once he came up with an idea he would not stop talking about it. It pulled everybody in. He infected them with his ideas and really moved people to take action.”

Lahn was one of the founding 100 donators to Annapolis Green. “But it was way more than the money, he gave us so many ideas.”

IMG_5851
Dick Lahn and Kathryn Para

Former state delegate and longtime friend Marsha Perry mourned the loss.

“I just know that Dick is someone who made my life in Crofton so much better. We both went to Cornell, served on the Crofton Community Association board together… but, his passion was put into his founding and the work he did for his String of Pearls Dream.”

She urged people to step up to continue the effort.

‘Tenacious, yet soft’

Lahn’s wife, Elaine, stricken by the rapid loss, said he accomplished his goals despite difficulties, both physical and psychological.

“He was diagnosed with manic-depression but learned to live with it,” she said.

She thought part of his stubborn drive to accomplish his ideas was partially due to the manic side of him.

Despite that he won over people with his core beliefs and tenacious, yet soft approach, she said.

“His religion was two things, action and kindness,” Lahn said. “He led by example. He was an action guy, not a talk-about-it guy. Everything he did, he did in a kind way. If he had to say something harsh he would figure out a nice way to say it.”

Lahn’s daughter, Etta, said her father believed in being a responsible member of society. He believed what he did mattered and he took responsibility for participating in society.

She said he also had a knack for seeing “the superpower in others, to see what they were good at, the gifts they had. And he supported other people’s gifts.”

Etgen has been reflecting over the past several days. With the recent loss of another environmental leader, Kincey Potter, and others, Etgen wondered, “Who do we go to now? These were our sages, our guides.

“The answer is us. We have to be that.’”

Passion for environmentIMG_5784

Richard “Dick” Lahn, was born in Harlem, N.Y., on Aug. 2, 1942 to Jack and Mary Newman. His father was a foreign correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, and the separation of foreign coverage led to divorce. His mother re-married Jackson Lahn, a Naval Academy graduate.

After attending Cornell, for which he garnered the nickname, “Ivy,” he then graduated from Drew University. Lahn moved to the Washington, D.C., area to work on satellites and rockets as a systems analyst for NASA-Goddard.


Dick Lahn memorial

A Celebration of Life for Dick Lahn will be held Sunday, 4:30-7:30 p.m. at the Annapolis Maritime Museum, 723 2nd St. in Annapolis.


He developed a passion for environmental issues and became a lobbyist for the Sierra Club in the 1970s, working on preventing nuclear testing in Alaska, strip mining and energy policy. He was a co-founder of the National Clean Air Coalition, which sought to expand the Clean Air Act. He earned a Sierra Club Lifetime Achievement Award.

He then spent 22 years as a project manager at the U.S. Department of Justice, Land and Natural Resources Division, before retiring in 2000.

After retiring, he rededicated his attention to the environment, both near and far.

Locally, he fought big box development in Crofton and was active in Crofton First. Then, he founded the String of Pearls Project.

On a more global note he was a founder and served on the board of the Rivers of the World Foundation, which has worked to clean up rivers in India, the Philippines, China, Nepal, Tennessee, and locally.

But the environment was not his only thing.

He fought for racial justice with the local chapter of the NAACP, wrote a nearly uncountable amount of letters to the editor and was involved in electoral politics on both a local and national level, including last month’s election, despite his illness.

In 2000, he founded the Annapolis Sustainable Business Alliance to promote and nurture local, living economies, and was closely involved in the Annapolis city government. He was all in, even donning a bumble bee costume to encourage people to “Bee Local.”

Dick lived in Crofton for almost 50 years and in 2008 was named Crofton Citizen of the Year for his participation in the community.

He loved hiking and canoeing the mountains and rivers of West Virginia with family and friends, attending live music events, including the Grateful Dead. He was a student of yoga, attending “hot yoga” up to four times a week, sometimes to the dismay of family and physicians, and sunrise yoga at the Annapolis City Dock.

He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Elaine Lahn, son Dave and daughter, etta cetera, two sisters-in-law, Mikki Foster and Rosanne Schade, three nieces and cousins.

Donations can be made in honor of Dick Lahn to Future History Now – the Annapolis based community-building nonprofit that creates murals with young people. http://futurehistorynow.org/.

Stay tuned as the String of Pearls organization regroups.

Conservation group lauds bequests by N.Va. homeowners

5a10418eba672.image
McLean and Great Falls landowners who placed their properties in conservation easements pose for a photo at Great Falls Village Centre after receiving awards Nov. 16 from the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust and the Chesapeake Bay String of Pearls Project. (Photo by Brian Trompeter)

Some gifts keep on giving, but land preserved in conservation easements benefits the public and environment in perpetuity.

Leaders of the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust (NVCT) and the Chesapeake Bay String of Pearls Project on Nov. 16 honored owners of seven Virginia properties who over the years have placed conservation easements on their lands, forever protecting them from development.

“We wanted to memorialize their efforts so that generations of the future can look back to days like this and see who has been generous enough to preserve their property for all of our benefits into the future,” said Maryland state Sen. Edward Reilly (R), who chairs the String of Pearls Advisory Committee.

“We all breathe the same air, we all drink the same water, we all enjoy the outdoors,” Reilly added. “Nature knows no political boundaries. We’re in this together.”

Conservation advocates bestowed the awards at the gazebo in Great Falls Village Centre on a lovely, if windy, late-autumn afternoon.

The environmental groups honored the following landowners:

• Great Falls residents Richard and Joan Bliss, who in 2000 donated a conservation easement for their 5.6-acre property along the Potomac River.

“If people knew what the possibilities were, we’d have a lot more participation,” said Richard Bliss, who founded NVCT in 1994.

• Douglas and Barbara Cobb, who donated an easement for their Great Falls property in 2001.

• Daniel DuVal and Karen Keys DuVal, who in 2005 donated a conservation easement to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and Fairfax County Park Authority for land surrounding their historic Salona home in McLean.

• Fredette and Tabitha Eagle, who in 2006 gave a conservation easement for their “Bois Doré” (French for “golden woods”) property along the Potomac River in McLean. The family eventually hopes to add 10 more acres to that tally.

• Jeffrey and Sally Lindsay, who in August 2001 donated a conservation easement for their 5.1-acre Matildaville Farm in Great Falls.

• Edward and Molly Newberry, who in 2016 donated an easement for their 4.4-acre “Pine Hill” property in McLean.

• Adrienne Stefan, who in 2011 donated a conservation easement for her nearly 1-acre property in Oakton, which is home to the last remaining trolley station from the Washington and Fairfax Electric Railway line.

Before being handed their honorary citations, award recipients signed the Register of Pearls of Chesapeake Bay, which usually is on display at the Annapolis Circuit Courthouse.

The honorees also received laudatory letters from U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and were told U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-10th) would place a passage in the Congressional Record thanking them for their contributions.

Dick Lahn, director of the String of Pearls Project, said the initiative tries to stimulate preservation of land throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed. That area now has 75 “pearls,” or parcels of conserved land, most of which are in Maryland, but some in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

“We’re in a race,” Lahn said. “The prevalent thinking is that the highest and best use of natural resources, including land, is to use them and develop them. The opposite view is to preserve the aliveness of the land, and I think that is what we’re about.”

Society must balance development with the need to preserve nature, he said.

“Is there a compromise?” he asked. “I think so, but I think the balance point is unknowable, so we need to bias decisions on the side of preserving land.”

Alan Rowsome, who recently became NVCT’s executive director, said the honorees had acted boldly to protect their properties from future development.

“These lands are home to wildlife and plant habitat, protect clean-water sources and ensure that even as many things around us change and grow and modernize year after year, some things stay the same,” Rowsome said.

NVCT has helped protect nearly 7,000 acres in Northern Virginia, from 1-acre backyard “pocket parks” in Arlington to 100-acre farms in Loudoun County, he added.

Northern Virginia is developing quickly, which creates traffic problems and imperils clean-water sources. The honorees’ generosity with their properties has made the region a better place for all, Rowsome said.

Fredette Eagle ran her idea for an easement past her children, and was proud that they all agreed to forgo what would have been princely sums from developers.

“All three of them said, ‘Go for it, Mom,’” she said. “I have lived there for 50 years and I could not stand the thought if it being developed.”

“We all decided that we would take the loss and preserve a quarter-mile of the Potomac Gorge,” said her daughter, Tabitha. “We all recognized that the woods are most beautiful the way they are now. You need to preserve these places. You can’t renew them.”

Landowners of Jug Bay to be Honored

String of Pearls to honor landowners preserving 2,350 acres of Jug Bay, AA County, MD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—             Contact:  Dick Lahn 410-858-6312  dicklahn@gmail.com

On Thursday, September 7, at 2 PM, The Chesapeake Bay String of Pearls Project (SOP) will honor Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and six landowners of farms by registering their properties in the Jug Bay area of the Patuxent River as “pearls”.  Location of event:  Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary, McCann Wetlands Center, 1361 Wrighton Road, Lothian, MD 20711.

The Celebration includes Ceremony at 2 PM followed by a reception at 3 PM with refreshments, music by Hangman’s Faire, and on exhibit will be Plein Air paintings of these pearls rendered on the day of the event!

“The preservation forever of 2,350 acres of public and private lands in the Jug Bay area of south Anne Arundel County is an amazing accomplishment, four decades to achieve, which protects the Patuxent River and Chesapeake Bay Watersheds”, said Dick Lahn, Director of String of Pearls.  “We are humbled to praise and honor some of the people who have created this Maryland treasure.”

Anne Arundel County is being honored for preserving forever 1,700 acres that make up the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary:  Jug Bay Sanctuary Proper, Parris Glendening Nature Preserve, Patuxent Wetland Park, Nature Preserve at Waysons Corner, Shepherd Property.  The six farm, landowners being honored are:  Don and Lucy Arthur (Welch/Shepherd Farm), Jennifer and Richard Wade (Lower White Oak Farm), Janet Owens (White Oak Farm), William Lusby (Brickhead’s Chance Farm), Virginia and Al Tucker (Ole Neff Farm), Dorothy and Ken Horky (Weisbacker Farm).

At the ceremony all honorees sign the Register of Pearls of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.  The Register is on public view at the Circuit Courthouse on Church Circle in Annapolis, MD. Currently, 56 pearls, all in Maryland, have been registered.  Ten pearls — with landowners being honored — will be registered at a celebration in Great Falls, VA, on November 16, 2017.  Pearls will be registered in Virginia and Pennsylvania in 2018.

Upcoming Fall Events – Save the Dates

Jug Bay

On Thursday, September 7, 2017, String of Pearls will honor Anne Arundel County, Maryland, by designating as “pearls” Jug Bay Preserve, Glendening Preserve, and other adjacent properties in South County along the Patuxent River.  In addition, 7 private landowners will be honored for preserving their lands through various Anne Arundel County perpetual easements.  The ceremony will start at 2 pm at the Jug Bay Visitors Center.

On Thursday, November 16, 2017, String of Pearls will honor 6 to 8 landowners in the Great Falls, VA, area nominated by the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust.  The ceremony will take place at 2 PM in Great Falls, VA.  Details to come.

Register on Permanent Public Display

We are so excited that the String Of Pearls Register was successfully placed in its permanent home in the Circuit Courthouse on Church Circle in Annapolis.  Special THANKS always to MD Senator Ed Reilly who hosts all SOP events and Clerk of the Court Bob Duckworth who maintains the Register of Pearls and now keeps the Register on public display in the Circuit Courthouse. Read more about it in The Capital  from Tuesday March 8, 2016 Chesapeake Bay String of Pearls honors property owners who preserve land for Future Generations by EB Ferguson III

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 2.27.10 PMScreen Shot 2016-05-06 at 2.26.46 PM

A String of Pearls Viewed From Space

unveiling of the display cabinet
display case
String of Pearls ceremony

News brief written by Ginger Butcher Reposted from Landsat Science November 12, 2015

A Landsat mosaic of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed was unveiled at a Nov. 12 String of Pearls ceremony in Easton, Maryland.

The Chesapeake Bay String of Pearls is a conservation organization that encourages preservation of the Chesapeake Bay watershed by recognizing land owners who agree to preserve their land into perpetuity. It is the hope of the organization that these pieces of natural landscape, or pearls, will increase until a “string of pearls” that knits corridors of natural landscape together is secured for the benefit of the Bay and its inhabitants.

The large Landsat mosaic was created by Mike Taylor (NASA/SSAI), Steve Foga (USGS), and Valeriy Kovalskyy and David Roy (WELD).

The image was mounted in a display cabinet designed and built by the Annapolis Woodworkers Guild using walnut from the watershed donated by Susan Luck. The Landsat mosaic will now be a fixture of the String of Pearl’s traveling display.

At the Nov. 12 ceremony the display served as the backdrop as Maryland State Senator Edward Reilly and Rob Etgen, Director of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, joined Dick Lahn, Founder of the the String of Pearls project, to recognize each of the 13 new “pearls” of the Chesapeake that were recognized with a Governor’s Citation—signed by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

A representative from each property signed the registry book that will be displayed in the walnut cabinet at the Maryland Courthouse. All the properties recognized on Nov. 12 are located on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

A few of these properties, or “pearls” are located along the Harriet Tubman Underground Byway such as the Christ Rock United Methodist Church and the Stanley Institute School—the oldest community owned one-room school house still intact in Dorchester County. The school was open from 1867 to 1962 for African American children and the church was open from 1875 until 2005.

The Lake family protected their Good Luck Farm in Bucktown, the town where Harriet Tubman was born. John and Mary Kral preserved 225 acres of Anna Farm, formerly part of the Wright Plantation where Harriet Tubman helped two slaves north to freedom.

Further north, in Cecil County, the duPont family has placed 1,760 acres in permanent preservation including the property formerly known as Woodstock Farm.

The D’Alonzo Family preserved three farms in Kent County and made environmental improvements such as putting 60% of cropland into natural habitat by planting 20,000 ft of native species, buffered parts of a creek, and installed shallow water impoundments and a year round pond.

In total, over 4,000 acres of woodlands, meadows, wetlands, ponds, and agricultural land were preserved by these 13 property owners. Organizations that hold these easements on properties recognized today include Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, the Maryland Environmental Trust, Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation, and Maryland Historical Trust.

Mike Taylor, Ginger Butcher, and Jim Irons from the Landsat team received official citations from the Maryland General Assembly in recognition for developing the Landsat mosaic of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed for the String of Pearls Project.

Further Reading:
+ The Chesapeake Bay in 661 Million Pixels
+ The Chesapeake Bay String of Pearls
+ The Chesapeake Watershed, NASA Earth Observatory

News brief written by Ginger Butcher