Piedmont Environmental Council
Geographic Region: PEC focuses on nine counties and one city in the northern Piedmont of Virginia: Albemarle, Charlottesville, Clarke, Culpeper, Fauquier, Greene, Loudoun, Madison, Orange, and Rappahannock. PEC also teams with local organizations to promote thriving communities and healthy natural resources in a much larger region, including the Shenandoah Valley, the central Piedmont, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Corridor and greater D.C.
Virginia’s northern Piedmont is an exceptional place. Located at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Piedmont is beloved for its scenic beauty, unparalleled in its significance to America’s history, and valuable for its productive family farms, thriving communities and vibrant economy. Its forests, fields and wetlands provide clean water for the people of this region as well as those downstream, and they offer bountiful habitat for numerous species of wildlife and native plants. This splendid natural setting, together with its distinctive towns and cities, make the Piedmont a wonderful place to live, work and visit.
News Feed


Press Release: Virginia Needs To Take a Whole-of-Government Approach to Planning For Electricity ShortfallsThe Piedmont Environmental Council and 50 other organizations submitted a letter to State Corporation urging it to incorporate relevant stakeholders into its process for developing a model for connecting new...read more

Call for entries: 2026 Virginia Piedmont photo contestThe Piedmont Environmental Council annual photo contest opens from Oct 1-31 Warrenton, VA. (September 28, 2026) – The Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) is launching its annual photo contest, an opportunity...read more

PEC Statement on the Governor’s Data Center Accountability FrameworkWe appreciate the Administration’s recognition of data centers’ harmful impacts on Virginians. There are some positive elements in the framework, but it does not address the immediacy of this crisis...read more

Virginia Needs a Data Center Moratorium Now. Read Our Op-Ed.Last week, the two of us — on behalf of The Piedmont Environmental Council — published an op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch with a direct message for Virginia's leaders: it's...read more

PEC’s Randal Fellowship Celebrates 20 YearsThis summer, The Piedmont Environmental Council welcomed a new cohort of 12 college and graduate students for the 20th year of our Randal Fellowship, an eight-week immersion program in PEC’s...read more

The Battle to Protect Farmland, History and Nature: Stewardship at Mine RunIt is an ongoing battle to protect Mine Run from development threats, which are as present today as they were before the property was conserved over 20 years ago.read more

On the Line: Charlottesville-Gordonsville transmission line update impacts historic, scenic, conservation resourcesNext time you need to clear your head, go for a drive. Specifically, a drive down state Route 231 between Gordonsville and Charlottesville. Perhaps on a Sunday morning.read more

A Landmark Day for Longwood: Celebrating Conservation at PEC’s Annual GatheringOnce recognized as one of the world’s finest thoroughbred breeding facilities, this 774-acre property in Fauquier County is now leasing cropland to local farmers while restoring riparian forested buffers and...read more

What Happens When the Grid Can’t Keep Up?Virginians are being forced to suffer significant public health impacts solely to power up the excessive number of approved data centers.read more





