This Land, Your Land

The state Division of Parks and Recreation will dedicate the new visitor center at Raven Rock State Park in Lillington on Saturday, July 17.

Raven Rock State Park, named for the large rock face on the Cape Fear River (below), was established in 1969 and now encompasses 4,694 acres.

The project to build the 7,190-square-foot visitor center also included a picnic shelter, improvements to the picnic grounds, an accessible nature trail, a paved entrance road to the park and paved parking areas with space for 139 vehicles, a news release says. It all cost $4.3 million and came from the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, the principal funding source for state park capital projects and land acquisition.

The new visitor center will present exhibits that explore the natural history and the unique geologic events that resulted in the Raven Rock landscape, the history of Cape Fear River navigation and the river’s importance to local culture and commerce.

The center is also designed to be LEED certified, with a geothermal heat pump, solar hot water heating and low-flow water fixtures, low-energy light fixtures, solar lights in the parking area, recycled building materials and natural landscaping.

President Barack Obama wants to hear from you about how to "reconnect Americans, especially children, to America's rivers and waterways, landscapes of national significance, ranches, farms and forests, great parks, and coasts and beaches."

The America's Great Outdoors Initiative is meant to develop a 21st century strategy for America's great outdoors, and is gathering information through a series of public meetings, one of which is in Asheville on July 15.

The hearing at Asheville-Buncombe County Technical Institute, at 340 Victoria Road, will run from 1 to 4 p.m. Thursday.

Representatives from the Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality will be at the meeting to "hear your thoughts and to participate in a conversation with you about land conservation, recreation and reconnecting Americans to the great outdoors," information from the Initiative says.

You have to pre-reguister by Monday to speak; get details here.

The Initiative its to present the President with an action plan by November 15 and follow-up reports about the plan's implementation in September of 2011 and 2012.