FAQs

1. If someone wanted to volunteer, what should they do? (Email, go to website, etc.)

If someone wants to volunteer they email: vista@muskingumriver.org or call 304-488-4758.

Opportunities:

LMC will begin monitoring properties very soon. Monitoring is necessary to ensure that no damage or degradation has occurred on conservation properties. Please email vista@muskingumriver.org or check our events for the next monitoring day.

2. If someone wanted to make a donation, what should they do? (How to donate)

You may donate by mailing a check made payable to FLMR to 348 Muskingum Dr. Marietta, OH 45750, using the “donate” button on our website, using the “donate” button on our Facebook page, and contribute to the FLMR Fund at the Marietta Community Foundation.

3. If I donate, how will my donation be used?

Have you ever wondered where your money goes?  When you donate to LMC or pay your membership dues, that money goes into a variety of programs and services as well as simply allowing us to continue to function.  Below is a short list of what your donation pays for, based on the dollar amount.

$72 one year of insurance with Terra Firma for one property; this insurance would pay for legal action if ever one of our conservation easement’s terms were violated or a conservation area was illegally mined or timbered.

$64 cost to print informational brochures about LMC and the importance of conserving land in our area

$100 cost to build and install one bench at one of our properties

$125 one month of internet and phone service to the LMC office

$148 printing and mailing of the quarterly newsletter – we are attempting to reduce costs by increasing the percent of members who receive the newsletter electronically, but still send paper copies to members who prefer a newsletter they can hold in their hands

$160 mowing and maintaining the trails at a single property once; we are fortunate to have wonderful neighbors and volunteers to provide us with this service at this discounted price.

$200 average cost to LMC for an educational outreach program, which we provide for free to local groups, including 4-H, Boy Scouts, Rotary Club, and many others

$230 one year of domain hosting for the LMC website

$300 cost to brush hog the pollinator habitat each spring as it establishes, to prevent non-native species and problem species from shading out the desired plants

$324 the estimated value of the increase in carbon storage gained in a 50 year period by adding just one additional plant species to one acre of land; scientists estimate that planting one acre of land with one additional plant species stores an additional 3.7 metric tons of carbon (Hungate et al., 2017).  We planted 8 acres of pollinator habitat with over 30 different species of plants so if we maintain that for 50 years, our community will have stored carbon worth thousands of dollars.

$400 cost of the seed mixes to establish a pollinator habitat

$750 Liability insurance premium for Lower Muskingum Conservancy for one year; our liability insurance covers the cost of bodily injury and other claims should (and we hope not) a volunteer get injured while working with us.  This is more like the insurance you would have for your car or home, as opposed to our Terra Firma insurance that covers environmental or ecological harm to our properties.

$1,020 payroll for our part-time executive director for one pay period

Obviously, some of what we do is really difficult to put a dollar value on.  What is the value of the enjoyment that hikers, birders, and fishermen get from time spent at Luke Chute or another of our properties?  What dollar amount would you spend to insure that the Southern Plains bumblebee, a threatened species found at our pollinator habitat, doesn’t become extinct?  These are hard to quantify but a large part of why we do what we do.