The Rivanna Rambler

2008-01-18T12:55:00.000-05:00

This site can now be accessed at

www.rivannarambler.org

where you will find photos, narratives, and archives of the weekly show.

#68 Old Mill Trail below Pantops is for Everyone

2007-12-13T09:47:00.000-05:00

December 13, 2007

The Rivanna at Pantops shows modest buffer in the summertime. Old Mill Trail starts at the bridge on the county side. Photo credit: Hank Hellman

It is an early December afternoon, unseasonably warm. The slant of sun at two o’clock conveys the certain message that within a couple of hours, the sun will fall off the edge of the earth, leaving us in the cold and darkness of another winter night. I am on the County side of the river, below Pantops, on the Old Mill Trail, named with a nod to the grain mills that once lined this stretch of the Rivanna in the 17 and early 1800’s. When completed, it will terminate at Milton, but here it is a wide “Class A” trail, suitable for wheelchairs, bikes, and older folks who need a firm and clear footing.

The path has been bush-hogged clear of excess brush and bramble, and a thin layer of rock-duct paving shows boot prints and various scuff marks left behind by human and non-human travelers along the river corridor. Here and there, semi-translucent tree tubes, four feet high and staked in place, reveal where young cedars and oak trees have been planted to help restore what was removed to make way for the trail.

This swath of green is what is called a “riparian buffer” … “riparian” for river; buffer for the fact that it is a protective transition zone between civilization and the river in its normal flow within its banks. The river’s buffer is often the same as its floodplain, as it ishere, a broad expanse of sand deposited in the slow curve of the river. Federal and state regulations and county code all protect this buffer and ensure that there is little or no disturbance in what is called the floodplain overlay district.

But recreational uses are allowed, and there’s no keeping out the animals. Every hundred yards or so, placed neatly at the edge of the path, is a desiccated clump of scat, full of berries, left behind by fox or raccoon.

And everywhere, the sign of beaver … here, a series of tree stumps scraped to points like pencils, ragged with teeth marks and accompanied by piles of fresh wood chips on the ground. There are some random scrapes in the rock dust, where a beaver has pulled the trunk across the walking path towards the river making its own trail through bramble and woods and eventually to a steep earthen slide down to the water. One unlucky animal was forced to leave its quarry behind, the trunk left dangling a foot off the ground gripped by thorny greenbrier and bittersweet.

Apartment complexes have sprouted up all along the hillside overlooking the river in this part of the county, but today there is no one on the trail, so as I cross the simple bridges that ford the creeks flowing into the Rivanna along this stretch, I am left to a quiet that is punctuated only now and again by the sounds of hikers on the other side of the river at Riverview Park and the faint gush of the river itself tumbling on down towards the Bay.

Well before I reach the remains of the Woolen Mills dam, I turn back, watching for more signs. Bicycle tracks weaving figure eights in the soft gravel. A series long lines and crooked hieroglyphics dug into the rock dust have me mystified until I come upon a perfect circle, made by a kid – or young at heart – with a stick and the desire to leave a mark. Against a tree, there’s a stack of trash bags bulging with soda cans, fast food wrappers, plastic toys, leftover from a river clean-up, I suppose.

Though the urban trail system along the river is relatively tame, it still touches some deep and primal places within, where I can exercise my tracking sense, however dim and unskilled it may be, and where I can watch each season fold ever so gracefully into the next.

#67 An Extension of Rivanna State Scenic River Designation?

2007-12-06T14:03:00.000-05:00

December 6, 2007

There’s a move afoot to extend Scenic River designation up past Woolen Mills– and the Department of Conservation and Recreation wants to see this stretch of the Rivanna from Charlottesville up to the South Fork Reservoir as part of a preliminary study. It seemed prudent to see if the low river water levels would permit such a trip, so a couple of weeks ago, we took an exploratory trip down the Rivanna.

State Scenic River designation was enacted in the early 1970s to provide a measure of protection for the rivers of Virginia. Minnie Lee and Harry McGehee from Fluvanna were largely responsible for establishing the Rivanna between Charlottesville and the James River as the first state scenic river in 1973. In 1988, the Moormans was also designated. Of the 505 designated miles in Virginia, the Rivanna now has 51 scenic river miles.

Scenic river designation constitutes official recognition of the river’s natural, scenic, historic, and recreational values. The designation doesn’t allow the state to control local land use – but does allow the locality to utilize the designation positively, and makes it more difficult to build dams along the given stretch.

We set up our shuttle, leaving one car at Riverview Park, and launch at the Route 29 bridge a half mile below the reservoir. We are pleasantly surprised that there seems to be enough water to paddle. Soon, the hum of Route 29 is in the distance, and we’re making our way past the SOCA fields on the left and Carrsbrook on the right. Within minutes, our first bald eagle of the day flies overhead and lands on a snag about 500 yards downstream. We float towards it, getting within 100 feet before it stretches its wings, drops slightly to gain lift and heads back upstream.

Both of us are scrambling to capture the bird on camera, but I am in conflict: should I go for the picture? Or trust my mind’s eye to capture the image that will reside along with all my other senses and build the sighting of this bird into a memory? The wind chill on our backs, with the noonday sun over the stern, low on its trajectory towards the shortest day. The canoe swinging under me in the slight current that draws us closer. My cold fingers blindly fumbling for my camera while I keep an eye on the bird as my heart accelerates. The browns and grays of trees on the bank. The leaves sailing down from tulip trees and sycamores onto the surface of the water.

Greedy, I try for the photo –– and the result is predictable: a large moving bird in a small frame against a clear blue sky that could be anywhere. I am left to wonder: what did I miss as I scrambled for the photo? I might have missed the shadow as the bird with wingspan of a fathom or more made its crossing to the other side above me. I might have missed clearly seeing its yellow legs, or its hooked beak, or the mud on its white breast, or the gleam in its eye. We paddle on – and not five minutes later, I see an immature bald, its dark plumage blending into the shadow on the bank. This time, I do not attempt a photo.

Sightings of bald eagles are common on the Rivanna – they are getting ready to nest this time of year, so perhaps our eagles today were part of the shuffle of territory. I have seen enough of the "scenic " to last me the rest of the four hours of paddling down to Charlottesville – and I have claimed on photo my record of the bald eagle sighting. Though I support the scenic river extension, I am struck by the irony of our human need to capture memories, name places, and protect with awkward, but necessary, means the places that are special to us – and simply home to the wild things.

#51 Shipboard Water Conservation

2007-11-29T08:19:00.000-05:00

This show originally aired on July 26, 2007 but is as timely now as it was when drought restrictions were first placed on the community this summer.

I just returned from Kinsale, Virginia, where I keep a small sailboat at a marina. The purpose of my trip was to re-plumb my fresh water system. The tank had gotten so funky that the last time I used the small hand pump faucet at the sink, green slime came out. This called for immediate action – so I set to work, removing the 15-gallon polyethylene tank from its home under the V-berth in the bow of the boat. This prompted a closer look at the length of hose for potable water from the aforementioned tank forward to the aforementioned faucet. It only stood to reason that I should replace the hose while I was at it – and so, on an unseasonably mild Tuesday in July, I subjected my body to the necessary contortions required to gain access so that I could route the new hose. This took a couple of hours, but I left for home satisfied that on the next sailing trip, I’d have sweet fresh water, suitable for drinking.

While I was out of town for a couple of days, the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority invoked a Drought Watch in accordance with its drought management plan that emerged after the 2002 drought. This all got me to thinking more about boats I have known – and the role of fresh water aboard boards, especially those which ply the saltier waters of our commonwealth. Like backpackers and other outdoor adventurers, sailors for the most part live in constant awareness of the amount of remaining fresh water in their very finite tanks and have devised a myriad of ways to conserve water.

Take my friend Mac, who has owned a 45-foot sail boat that he’s been chartering out of the Virgin Islands for the last 15 winters. I first met Mac in the mid-90’s while he was on his annual swing through Charlottesville, reconnecting with old friends, recruiting guests for future trips aboard Stranger, the given name of his boat. A love of the sea, compatible politics, and the desire the answer life’s important questions were a few things that we shared, long before I was able to sail with him on his boat.

When Mac comes to visit, he brings a bottle of wine, cheese and crackers, and a whole boatload of compelling Life Questions. And when Mac doers the dishes, which is his thank offering for the meal you’ve just cooked, he is as parsimonious with water as he would be on his own boat. I remember the first time I came across Mac washing dishes at my kitchen sink – the dishes and pots still frothy with suds where they were carefully stacked to dry. I thought perhaps that Mac was about to rinse them, but Mac fussed at me, shoeing me out of the kitchen, telling me that the soapy dishes were done, having rinsed the operative surfaces – the working sides of the plates and the inside, cooking part of the pots. As I turned to leave the kitchen, he said, “I got all the soap off of what counts! I’m saving water!”

Well, of course, Mac – a creature of habit like the rest of us – had made water conservation a way of life … certainly living on a boat will do that to you. Bringing it ashore is another whole thing … and got me to thinking about how my habits shift and change with the conveniences of life ashore. While my boat carries only 15 gallons of potable water, and I am frugal with its use when living afloat, it is so easy to slide back into practices that tap water makes possible.

The Water Resources Federation says that clothes washing and toilets flushing each claim about 25% of a typical American household … with another 20% being used in showers and baths. Add to that, now, the running water from kitchen and bathroom faucets for another 15%. Leaks account for almost 15% of domestic water use, with washing dishes and cleaning consuming a mere 3%. So what was my friend saving, after all, with his one-sided rinse?

What he was saving was the trouble of having to relearn the habit of conservation. Yes, he was also saving water – and that’s the whole point here, but equally important, I think, is what it takes to cultivate an ongoing consciousness of the finiteness of our water supplies, whether it be from the tap, from a well, or from a tank on a boat. If I could be like the “water efficient household” -- described by the Federation as one that uses 52 gallons of water, per person, per day -- I would be frugal in the best sense of the word: careful, sparing, and opposing the luxury of unlimited water. While the drought watch is a perfect time to cultivate these conservation habits, it’s worthy goal to retain them when water resources are replenished. I have my friend Mac to thank for reminding me that shipboard practices can and should be brought ashore.

#66 Encounter Along the South Fork Moormans River

2007-11-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

November 22, 2007

I cannot hear the stream below me on the left as I ascend the fire road along the South Fork of the Moorman’s River above Sugar Hollow Reservoir. The only sound I hear is the rush of wind funneling briskly down its own course of this steep valley in the Rivanna headwaters. And my own foot noise, in spite of my effort to walk quietly up the path strewn with leaves. Occasionally, my eyes search the hillside, looking for movement. There were only two cars in the parking area, so I imagine privacy and maybe, if I am lucky, some wildlife. But leaves continue to fall with abandon everywhere, camouflaging any living thing, except myself.

It’s a steep climb at first, but as the hillside flattens along the trail, I cut off the path and approach the water through a stand of young hemlock and flowering witch hazel. I scramble down to a moss-covered boulder with a view of a shallow pool that is fed from upstream around the bend and which disappears downstream over a small riffle. I sit, letting the sound of water over rock join the wind rush and the wood creak making harmonies in the moving air. I strain to discern what is not the sound of rock, air and water, feeling hopelessly human with an unpracticed perception and limited audio hearing range. I hear nothing and everything in the water: the faint sound of mewing, as I imagine the cougar cubs I long to see. The sound of human voices, but when I look behind me on the trail, I see nothing. The clap of iron upon wood, like a hammer. All imagined. I lean back, my knees draped over the rock, the sun warming me through ever thinning leaves. I descend into sleep.

An unfamiliar sound alerts me, and I sit up and scan the stream. From around the downstream bend, with the slow tempo of dreamscape, a man comes in to view. He is walking the streambed, carefully picking his way from rock to rock. He is older, his rock-hop more of a step-by-step assessment as he approaches where I am sitting. His head is down, and I am not sure if he has spotted me.

I have only a moment to make my decision, but that’s all I need. I drop my eyes and still my body. I am in plain view as he approaches from thirty feet away, but I have decided to be part of the scenery. Every once in a while out of the corner of my eye, I check to see where he is. It appears, by the path that he takes, that he has seen me and is steering respectfully clear. Only when I cannot see or hear him anymore, do I arise and walk carefully through the under story towards the trail, pausing to answer the call of nature, making my own mark in private, I hope.

I walk slowly downhill, savoring yellow leaves against blue sky. I enter a patch of air scented with animal, fresh as water and pure in its rankness. At my feet is a small deposit of dark and berry-filled scat. Down the trail, the air returns to “normal” but in another 500 yards, the same thing happens: the unmistakable smell of wild. I wonder if I am being watched by an animal, folded still into the hillside above me.

When I return to the parking area, the two cars I’d seen are gone and are replaced by a new one that belongs, presumably, to the man I had seen. It was a chance encounter, not the one I had hoped for, but I learned some things about making my own path through the woods. Listen to the water: you will hear what is necessary. Be still as a rock, for your privacy and solace lie within. Step gently on the leaves and know that you are not alone in the woods.

#65 Autumn on the Rivanna: The Long View

2007-11-08T12:48:00.000-05:00

November 8, 2007

There is something not altogether right about this day. Here it is, November 1st, and we should be bundled in fleece and wearing high rubber boots to venture out on the water. Instead, we’re wearing light rubber wading shoes that sink into the mud as we shove the canoe from the launch into the Rivanna at Hells Bend Farm, striving for a patch of water that will be deep enough to float the boat. Though the water is a cool 56 degrees, the air temperature is climbing past 65 as the sun arcs into the autumn afternoon. I’m not sure what doesn’t feel right: is it the air temperature? or the water level? which is still near historic lows in spite of patches of rain we’ve had.

Headed downriver to sample for aquatic bugs for the StreamWatch volunteer program, we quickly learn that the shoals in the center extend almost entirely across the river. We snuggle up against the left bank, a vertical wall of dying asters and poison ivy, where a channel twice the width of the canoe is just deep enough to get a decent stroke. Rounding Hell’s Bend, we stick to the outside, but in the long straightaway below we have to shove our way to the other side, seeking a route through the shallows of coarse sand deposited as the water slowed and dropped its load after the last storm. The bottom is now being sculpted by the gentle flow into underwater ripples and bluffs much like the sharp relief of the winter beach is built by the tides and wind. The channels along the banks are a Piedmont version of aquamarine. The summer’s weed is gone, and everywhere, the water is clear enough to see to the bottom, where sunken leaves tumble and pile up against underwater tree limbs and rock outcroppings.

Once at the sampling site below the Mill, we get to work, scraping bugs from a shallow cobbled riffle into the mesh net and pouring over the contents with our middle aged eyes. We enter the world of macro – where everything of interest is small – one-eighth to as much as an inch long, like the fat, ribbed crane fly larvae that are in abundance today. We’ve also captured small pebbles, twigs, and leaves in various stages of decomposition – and from this tumble of browns and yellows, we must pick out the larvae of mayflies, water pennies, and caddisflies – as well as the tiny clams and snails and worms that inhabit the stream. Having sampled for a couple of years, we know that you look until you can’t find any more bugs, and then you look again, switch sides of the table and look some more, flip the net over and keep on looking, before you can have confidence that you’ve collected all the bugs in the net, which is necessary to assure quality data. While we pour over the net, the river tumbles over the stone from the old dam, the sound making it seem like a fuller river than it is.

By four o’clock, we’re winding down, just as the sky turns an ominous gray and the late afternoon sun catches clouds in curving lines stretched out in the wake the tropical depression, Noel. After pulling the canoe back up through the rapids to head home, I trip trying to step in the canoe and am suddenly on my butt in two feet of water that now feels plenty cool. The paddle back upstream is welcome and warming work. At the far end of the long straight channel, the late afternoon sky is dense with clouds descending their dark on tawny yellow sycamores that flank the river. After straining to find the small bugs, it feels good to stretch my eyes into the distance.

This is a good time of year to stay flexible and acknowledge what is. Though the Virginia autumn has been fickle with little water and overly-warm temperatures, what is just right is the slant of light -- unmistakably autumn -- soft but crisp, forcing one’s concentration on the essentials of life: food, shelter, and companionship. It is a good time to gather up, pick over, collect what is meaningful or needed, being sure not to waste or overlook anything important, while at the same time keeping the long view -- which stretches out past the shorter days that are upon us – with a vision of another season to come.

# 64 Sugar Hollow on Halloween

2007-10-31T20:06:00.001-04:00

November 1, 2007

The newspaper reports that we are not, by a long shot, out of the woods with respect to water supplies, in spite of the four inches of rain we got last week. And we are not alone. At Chesapeake Climate Action Network conference held at Clark Hall last weekend, it was reported that 100 water systems in North Carolina and Tennessee have less than 100 days of water available for their customers. More alarming is that the Naval Postgraduate School, which has been studying the rate of loss of sea ice at the North Pole for many decades, is predicting that by 2013, there will be no summer sea ice at all. And, that as the polar ice shrinks, the jet stream and the moisture it holds are pulled north, which is exactly what we’ve seen this summer and fall.

So on this crisp, bright Halloween Day, I drive up to the Sugar Hollow Reservoir to see for myself. Noontime, weekday, it is quiet up as I pull into the parking area at the top of the dam. The water mirrors the soft changing colors of the turning trees in the headwaters above. The reservoir itself is with rimmed with dry, hard clay and rock. According to the Water & Sewer Authority’s online record , it is down 12.2 feet. Below the dam, a stout hose is spewing a wash of water into the shallow pool below, a small concession to the Moormans River and the ecology of downstream needs.

I walk down through a grove of pines and hickory, the hardened brown leaves tapping out a rhythm on the bark as they wave in the slight breeze. Past the trees, I sit down in the sloping intertidal zone, between the line of “lots of water” and “not enough.” The reservoir is at 86% capacity, but the view from here does not look so encouraging.

Others have been here before me. A large rounded boulder protruding from the slope next to me has a flattened top and must have been a tempting target, for it is strewn with broken glass from shattered beer bottles. Gold metal tabs from bait cans glint in the high midday sun. I feel like I am witness to the barrens that will be left behind when drought forces masses of us to live in other places or, possibly, to live in other ways. At the water’s edge, stubs of tree trunks emerge from the water, testament to the staying power of the anaerobic environment, preserved as they have been since 1947 when the dam was built and the reservoir filled the valley.

The longer view is more reassuring. Across the reservoir, the soft tree line slopes towards the mountains, along the course of the South Fork of the Moormans River. The wind’s fetch over the reservoir makes it look like the water is flowing back upriver. A lone bird sits on the elbow of a tree limb bent up and out of the water. As it turns its head, I see a patch of light gray that reminds me of cormorant, but it’s too far to see. High in the noontime sky, the waning moon sits above the Blue Ridge. A raven calls from a ridge beyond.

I have been struggling to find my own core of optimism since attending this weekend’s conference. All the feedback loops -- atmospheric, hydrologic, ecological – forces that help maintain life in a delicate but dynamic equilibrium on this planet -- are now presenting themselves in ways that have been mostly underestimated with consequences that are unavoidably stark. Even a modest sea level rise will inundate 3000 miles of shoreline in the Chesapeake Bay region, impacting all the major cities along the fall the line and hundreds of thousands of people.

Across the reservoir, I see the former high water line, incised into the bank and scribed across a large boulder with a dark line of weeds that divides the upper and lower halves as though a mirror reflection. Like the glass half empty, it reminds me of the dry times ahead. But maybe the other half is what I cannot see, but can feel as sure as I am this human body warmed by the sun and touched by the light breeze. This half is the hope, vision, resolve, and commitment that we are all being called to bring forth and contribute. May this reservoir always be sufficiently full.

#63 Hiking Smith Roach Gap: Who Owns This Land?

2007-10-18T09:52:00.001-04:00

October 18, 2007

It is a golden warm October day – one in which I would be inclined to take to the river, but cannot due to water levels that are impossibly low. So instead, I head out with my husband for a high point in the watershed as if, perhaps, to get closer to the clouds that hold the moisture hostage high above us.

We drive up to Greene County and follow Route 33 – the Spotswood Highway – west following the crest of the divide between the Rapidan and the Rivanna. From Ruckersville towards the mountains, the ridge defines the head of the watersheds of Welsh Run, Deep Run, Blue Run, and then Long Run. At Lydia where Route 634 ends in the highway, we meet Swift Run which tracks right along Route 33 as it tumbles from its headwaters at Swift Run Gap, elevation almost 2400 feet. We trace the curves in the mountain on a route that has changed little since it was traveled by Governor Alexander Spotswood and his famous Knights of the Golden Horseshoe, the 1716 exploratory party that crossed into the Shenandoah Valley through the pass here. Where we can see it, Swift Run itself is dry, its bones exposed between scant flow and small, still pools of wet.

Once on Skyline Drive, we head south a few miles to the parking lot at Smith Roach Gap – at 2600 feet, it’s the next crossing over the mountains. Named for an early settler , last name Roach, first name Smith, it marks the headwaters of the Roach River which falls from the mountains eastward into Bacon Hollow, Deep Hollow, and Waterfall Hollow.

We hike north in quiet on the trail towards the summit of Hightop Mountain, the leaves so dry they barely rustle. Everything is yellow and brown, like a summer in California, where water goes underground only to emerge in the rivers again during the rains of winter. Here, too, it feels like the water is absent, but in a season of record high temperatures and record low rainfall, I feel unsure of its return. Fall wildflowers are in show: purple and white asters, yellow goldenrod and milkweed pods in various stages of undress. Grass beds along the path glisten in the afternoon sun.

I am calmed by this walk in the woods, but I also know that this part of the piedmont is known for its rough and tumble ways. Though it’s been 80 years since landowners were evicted from the Blue Ridge to establish Shenandoah National Park, the memory is still nursed – and I am aware that this is a country where I need to cultivate understanding. Tucked into these hills are homesteads, orchards, and graveyards: grown over, reclaimed by the succession of cedar given way now to hickory and oak. We see little of this on our walk, but when the trail opens into flat stretches between granite outcrops and ferns, it is not hard to imagine pasture, croplands, and the hardscrabble life of the mountains.

In my own life, I have felt the loss of landscapes special to me -- places that have been paved, graded, or filled and planted with houses, shopping centers, roads and marinas. Though truly incomprehensible, this helps me feel compassion for the Monacans and other Native Americans displaced from the land during the so-called era of contact. And centuries later, in these hills, it is a similar displacement, but the opposite has happened – where the dead are buried, the cemetery markers are overgrown with honeysuckle; where the barns and houses once stood, the foundations are crumbling under lichen and wind. And the springs nursed forth from the folds of the hills are secrets only the locals know.

As we walk, two ravens traverse the ridge overhead, announcing in throaty caws to the valley below our presence in the woods. We come to a scattering of gauzy down feathers – roughed grouse perhaps – left in the trail by an unknown predator. Later, we come across a bold dark mound of bear scat, so full of berries it looks ready to sprout. In the cycle of change, today we’ve been left these clues about who is at home in this high corner of the watershed during this moment in time.

#62 The Rivanna TMDL is Underway

2007-10-11T15:18:00.000-04:00

The Rivanna at Darden Towe Park in another season and another year
Credit: Stowe Keller

October 11, 2007

The autumn sunlight warms the group gathered around the table. The air is collegial and cooperative: the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s TMDL Coordinator has come with three consultants from the Lois Berger Group, specialists in the process. They’ve set up a poster presentation on an easel to one side that summarizes the Rivanna TMDL meeting in March with colorful charts and lists.

This is the first time I’ve been able to participate since the meetings commenced in November last year. I’ve got a ways to go to catch up with the water professionals who help make up the Steering Committee, folks from non-profits and local agencies and government who provide the knowledge of our watershed that is essential for development of a TMDL.

This acronym stands for Total Daily Maximum Load – and simply put, refers to the total amount – or load – of a given pollutant that a water body can receive in a day and still meet water quality standards. If you hear that a stream or river has a TMDL, it means that it has degraded to the point that it no longer meets state standards and has been placed on the impaired waters list.

Making this list is a dubious distinction. The good news is that once a river stretch has been listed as impaired, it becomes eligible for funding that will study the problem, determine the sources of the pollutant, and help identify solutions.

Fifteen stream and river segments in the Rivanna watershed are listed as ‘impaired” because they do not adequately support the biological organisms that reflect a healthy stream or are excessively contaminated with bacteria that is unhealthy for humans. Sixty-two miles in Albemarle County alone are impaired for these bacteria that make swimming, canoeing and simply wading in the river with your kids a cause for extra caution and some disinfectant.

And where are these streams? For bacterial impairment we’re talking about the headwaters of Beaver Creek above the reservoir; the entire length of Meadow Creek; almost 26 miles of Preddy Creek and its tributaries; 10 and half miles of the Mechums River from Lickinghole Creek to its confluence with the Moormans; the North Fork from Camelot to the main stem and continuing down to Moores Creek.

The TMDL process starts with identifying the likely sources, such as failing septic systems, straight pipes, and wastes from pets, livestock, and manure spreading operations. Information is fed into a computational model along with climate, stream flow, and geographic data specific to our watershed. At the end of this year, DEQ will define what the total amount of bacterial pollutant these stream segments can absorb and still maintain adequate water quality for safe recreation.

The target number and sources are open for public comment, then approved by the state and EPA, and will be used to inform and plan clean-up efforts during the next phase called implementation planning. Activities to eliminate the sources are prioritized – in this case, things like eliminating failing septic tanks, initiating pet waste education campaigns, or ensuring adequate stream buffers on all the streams in the watershed. The TMDL process can take years and is highly dependent on state funding to complete. And finally we come to the bad news: all the while, unless the community takes corrective measures voluntarily, the pollution from these sources may continue.

So while the consultants are crunching the numbers, our local water quality experts will continue the real work of trying to influence patterns of land use and encourage living habits that we can adopt now. The TMDL process comes up with a number and a plan – but there’s every reason we should take it upon ourselves to clean up after our pets, keep our cattle out of the streams, and limit the amount of soil that turns our river the color of Virginia clay.

#61 This Land is My Land

2007-10-04T07:28:00.000-04:00

South Fork Rivanna Reservoir
Credit: Hank Helman

October 4, 2007

Last night, after the last credits rolled on Ken Burns’ documentary,” The War,” the screen was filled with a series of film clips, along with the words, “this is yours.” It started with views of mountains, then the north rim of the Grand Canyon, then watersheds, then farm fields, and was spliced together with others showing people living, laughing, learning, playing … the background music was soothing and welcome after the raw footage and compelling stories of war. This end note, which was really an advertisement for PBS, was an invitation to think of what America or the United States really means to each of us … and what are we are willing to do protect that which we hold dear.

With these thoughts still fresh in my mind, I tried to put myself in the shoes of those in Albemarle County whose “property rights,” some feel, are being assailed by the latest round of amendments being proposed to the zoning, subdivision, and water protection ordinances of the County code. Each of the proposed amendments restricts in some way the right of a landowner to build; to subdivide; to disturb the land, remove trees, or gain access to those portions of his or her property that have slopes greater than 25%.

These hot-button items are going before the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, in a public hearing being held on Wednesday evening October 10. The amendments that are up for comment are described at the County’s Community Development web-site and are called critical slopes, safe and convenient public access, family subdivisions. Also, changes to the water protection ordinance will minimizing any land disturbing activities within 100 feet of streams in the County’s designated rural areas as well as the already protected watersheds that feed our drinking water supplies.

Feelings are running high about these restrictions –on either side you might sit on. The County, charged with protecting our natural resources, has proposed these amendments in order to limit the amount of sediment and pollution that enters our waterways and to preserve the vegetated buffers on our streams. The ecological benefits that result from keeping intact these riparian zones are well documented – cooler water, better habitat in and near the stream, better absorption of stormwater and runoff and the nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment they carry. The need to do so in the Rivanna watershed has never been greater with some 15 stream segments of the Rivanna now listed as impaired by Virginia DEQ.

Some landowners, especially those whose wealth is tied to the land, whether by inheritance or by speculation or investment, predictably do not welcome these restrictions. Others, driven by a sense of responsibility to protect the integrity of landscapes, while they may recognize an individual’s property rights, even their own, they are more accepting of the restrictions – even welcoming of them because they will slow the pace of development and help ensure some measure of protection for our waterways and land.

Like most zoning ordinances, these proposals are subject to exception either through grandfathered rights or by appealing – but they are an example of the County’s attempt to keep pace with other cities and counties in the Commonwealth that have upgraded their standards in accordance with the 2003 amendments to Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. The Act outlines how property owners in the tidewater regions of Virginia are restricted for the common good of protecting and restoring water quality in the Bay. In 1991, Albemarle became the first non-Tidewater county to voluntarily adopt this guidance. Our existing restrictions protect over 1000 stream miles and 25,000 acres of land in the County. The proposed restrictions will increase protections by over a third again. This latest amendment is simply an update.

But it is not simple. Even a cursory review of the ordinance itself reveals the complexities of attempting to be fair, to reduce the impact on landowners while affording the strongest measure of protection of the streams in question and thus our collective water supply, our rural areas, our landscapes. While our population continues to grow, our human needs for space and for wild places and for unobstructed views remain … and these are our collective needs that transcend boundaries, just as much as an aquatic system needs a minimum of protection to survive, let alone thrive.

So the caption repeated on the television screen bears thinking about. This is ours. Would that we could find a way to help everyone who owns lands with the incentives, the tools, and the inspiration to treat that land for the collective good.

#60 The Old and New in Fluvanna County

2007-09-27T07:57:00.000-04:00

In August, while the dam at the Woolen Mills was being torn down, there were also pretty dramatic changes taking place downriver in Palmyra. On a day that I am spending in Fluvanna, I retrun via the new Route 15 bridge over the Rivanna and see that the demolition of the old bridge is well underway. Just like at the Woolen Mills site, I am drawn to watch so I park at the river launch just upriver.

A workman is using a high speed grinder to flatten the rivet heads flush so that the segments they pin together can be removed. Behind him follows another with a cutting torch, severing the trusses one by one from the structure. Below, along the river bank, chunks of concrete skewerd by twisted lengths of re-rod lie stranded like the wrappings after a wild Christmas morning. A dump truck is receiving loads of debris and carrying it away.

The dust mingles with the moist air, giving the scene an vintage Virginia red-clay wash. It is still dreadfully hot and the river below the bridges gives no releif to workers in heavy overalls and hardhats. I hear the shrill back-up warning beeps from large equipment and the clash of steel buckets and hammers on concrete. My body registers vibrations from the impact of the foundations of bridge piers being ripped from the river bed.

From where I am standing, I can see the bridge being removed and beyond it, the new bridge, where workers are dodging the traffic to lay down the traffic lines. Below is the fine stonework of the old mill and lock which will soon become centerpiece to Palmyra Mill Park in the floodplain below the new bridge. And when I turn my head 180 degrees and look upriver, I see the small island that marks one of the five bridge piers remaining from another, earlier bridge, a covered one built in 1823, rebuilt in 1884, burned in 1931 to make way for the steel bridge I am watching being demolished. It’s hard to stand and watch in the heat, so I head up Route 53 to catch the Tuesday afternoon farmer’s market at Pleasant Grove.

Entering the wide gates, I am still not sure what century I am in – and perhaps that’s the whole point of the development of the Pleasant Grove complex. Wide mowed fields give way to horse fences that mark the equestrian portion of this County Park system, the athletic fields beyond the line of trees. Vendors are parked in a neat tline, their pickups backed up to small tents to shade the early pumpkins, raspberry jelly, and cut flowers being sold. Further in sits the Pleasant Grove House and its dependency, the outdoor, or Summer, Kitchen – which now houses exhibits on transportation and local history which have been installed by the Fluvanna Heritage Trail Foundation. This site marks the western trailhead of the system of trails that flanks the Rivanna between Pleasant Grove and the village of Palmyra. Here, the morticed timbers, sloping floors, and massive stone and brick chimney anchor the structure in time and place.

There is a lot changing in Fluvanna, and I wonder if at times it is dizzying for folks to travel back and forth in time, protecting the past, making way for the new. The fruits of the efforts of some very dedicated folks are being borne out at the Pleasant Grove Complex in Fluvanna.

The next two weekends bring opportunities to explore this public section of Fluvanna that’s right on the river. There’s a 10k run this Saturday, followed by the ceremonial opening of the Summer Kitchen. The following weekend brings the annual fall event, Old Farm Day on October 6. For those of us who tend to forget what’s downstream on the river below Charlottesville, just a short ride out of town, there’s a whole lot to explore.

#59 The Chubs of Ballinger Creek

2007-09-20T07:39:00.000-04:00

On a recent weekday in August, I was tromping down a section of Ballinger Creek in Fluvanna County helping StreamWatch put some numbers to the shape and stability of the banks and bottom as part of a watershed wide study. The low water level had the benefit of exposing much of the river bottom to view and making it somewhat easier to walk in the creek. The bedrock outcrops provided firm ground, but were coated in a thin slime of algae that foiled the grip of my river sandals. With each step, I made a careful and studied calculation of the bottom lest I end up on my butt or with a twisted ankle.

And so it was I became acquainted with the nests of the genus Nocomis – those flattened mounds of rocks that dotted the shallow bottom that I had casually and unknowingly trampled. Three of the seven species of Nocomis make the Rivanna their home – the river, bull, and bluehead chubs – and they are fairly common. Once I learned what I was looking for, I saw them everywhere in the creek.

Each spring, males of the Nocomis species get to work, first excavating a pit on the bottom and then building a gravel mound on top of it. Only 4 to 6 inches long, these comely looking fish push, shove, and carry in their mouths small, carefully selected rocks from the surrounding river bed. Piled onto a mound, the nest looks like a small child had whiled away her time making a rock castle in the creek, but indeed it takes the male chub up to 30 daylight hours of hard work collecting the stones of his castle. Then the male chub crafts a small trough in the top -- and sets to work attracting his mate, announcing his readiness by a swelled head, horny bumps on his forehead and often a change in color. The name of the bluehead chub is derived from its nuptial coloration, while the river chub turns a bright pink. This takes place in late spring and early summer – each species wired to the spawn by the lengthening days and resulting rise in water temperature.

Once spawning has occurred, the male covers the trough, and the eggs settle into the spaces between rocks where they develop within the safety of the structure. The male chub defends his nest against males of his own species – and other fish such as suckers who would eat the eggs. Like a coral reef in the ocean, chub nests are a hub of activity and play an important role in stream ecology, for the male actually shares his nest with other species such as dace and shiners, who also use it for spawning. Many of these associated species turn brilliant red, transforming the nest into an underwater neighborhood brightly lit like a hot night in the city. All the activity attracts other, larger fish who have their own dinner in mind.

Now in late August, all that’s left is the pile of rubble and my curiosity about these enterprising, engineering fish. Some chub are known to build nests of over a thousand stones – and can carry rocks that are almost half their size. Why do they do it? Besides the safety from predators, the chub males are providing an environment for developing eggs above the river bottom where they might be smothered by sediment. While other fish species use the oxygenated waters of small riffles in which to lay their eggs, chub create their own oxygen rich environment with their nests above the sand and sediment of the bottom.

A Cherokee legend describes the Ugunsteli (or "horned fish") and his brightly attired band of attendants, holding court under the cold waters of mountain streams, a story which accurately describes the relationship between chub and the species who share the nests. The presence of nest-building chubs indicates that desirable conditions exist – and, in creating their own centers of life, the chub are contributing to the aquatic health of the stream. But Ballinger Creek’s drains an 18 square mile watershed is downstream from Zion Crossroads. Under intense development in Fluvanna County, it’s a good watch for signs of degradation, and like a male chub tending its nest, a good one to watch over.

#58 Rebuilding the Rivanna at Bentivar

2007-09-13T07:51:00.000-04:00

Originally Aired on April 19, 2007 (the week of the VT tragedy)

It’s another cool spring day, faint sun intermittently lighting up the pale greens and golds of emerging leaves. I am walking down a rough road from Bentivar Farm onto a vast floodplain. Sretched out before me are acres of lowland and wetlands that reach toward the point where the North and South Forks of the Rivanna meet. I know the banks from the river, having paddled both forks many a time, but today I’ve come to see restoration taking place in the flesh of the land itself.

My guide is Carolyn Browder, a restoration specialist for The Nature Conservancy, under whose care this bottomland has been for the last couple of years. She meets me by a small, unassuming stream at the bottom of the hill. It is here that, over a year and a half ago, the work commenced. The work of redefining the course of water flowing down from the surrounding hills so that it can do so without hauling loads of sediment and stormwater runoff with it.

Carolyn tells me parts of the story as we walk along stream, barely six feet across, and still running full from the rain of the last couple of days. Bubbling across a stretch of cobble, the water drops a foot over a large piece of cut rock, which has been placed strategically where an elevation decrease must be achieved without sacrificing the integrity of the channel. This channel has been purposefully rerouted to follow its historical course. Walking the moist ground, we can see where the rains had forced the water over the banks, the ryegrass bent like a comb-over and still mashed flat in downhill direction.

For decades, this rich bottomland was farmed, but it required work to drain the water from the floodplain enough to make planting corn even possible. This was accomplished by digging ditches to drain the water, and by using tile drains, terra cotta pipe sliced lengthwise and planted open side down, cupping the earth, while capillary action pulled the water along its course and towards the river. Meanwhile, the original stream coming down a crease in the hills above was routed so that it no longer bisected the fields and instead was tucked up against the hills lest it impede the work of farming this swatch of floodplain.

Land alternation had been heavy and significant long before this ditch and drain method was ever used. We know that earliest settlers set to work to clear the land, transforming forest into field, changing the relationship between the river and its floodplain forever. On the North Fork and the South Fork, indeed all along the Rivanna, you can see today the steep banks caused by the incessant erosional forces of mud-laden water washing off cleared land. In fact, the floodplain here sits some twenty feet higher than the river. This meant that the engineers designing a more natural stream channel had to build in a series of drops and slopes that would bring the watercourse into the river at a shallow and benign angle.

Carolyn’s job has been to oversee the work and continue to monitor its success as a restoration – making sure that the new stream reaches an equilibrium with its newly created banks and plateaus. That the disturbed land is kept clear of invasives such as Johnson grass. That high energy storms, such as those resulting from Katrina and Rita in the fall of 2005, don’t wash out the new stream as it’s settling in. That the right time to plant trees to form a protective buffer on either side is chosen wisely.

As we cross the stream, at another ledge of rock placed to create a drop and small pool that is now home to diversity of life, I start to gain an appreciation for the scale of the project. Looking back, I can see the sinuous curves, etched by clumps of grass and sedge that paint the landscape in subtle hues of green. A plover twitters across thirty feet in front of us towards the stream, disappearing into a camouflage of sandy soil and clumping grass. Every pool and every curve that is reinforced with boulders was conceived, then built, to give water a chance to be a stream in a channel that’s been designed s close as one can get to “natural.”

My boots are covered in muddy soil and there is a wide and open sky above. In a week that has been draped in horror and sadness so close to home, it feels particularly to good be walking a landscape that is surely in the process of change and healing.

2007-09-06T23:30:00.000-04:00

September 7, 2007

#57: The Right (River) Shoes for the Job:
Geomorphology at Preddy Creek

Today is my third day of walking streams, not a bad way to spend a hot and humid summer morning – and I have finally mastered the footwear problem. The first two days, I wore my Chaco water sandals. No problem getting them wet, of course, but every step was an opportunity for pea-sized gravel to become wedged between the sole of my foot and the sandal, resulting in a pointedly painful step that reduced my progress to an awkward hobble until rectified – and just as soon as I had dislodged the offending rock, another would take its place. But now, I’ve discovered that an old pair of cheap canvas hiking boots not only keeps the gravel out but provides support and traction on the slippery rock outcroppings of Preddy Creek where today, I am working as a volunteer on a river morphology study with StreamWatch.

Getting up close and personal with the sand and gravel is exactly what this work is all about. We are here to classify the stream according to a system devised by Dave Rosgen that will help scientists and managers in our watershed understand better how the tributary streams are performing as streams – in other words: can the creek efficiently move its collected waters downstream? Are its banks relatively stable, or are they eroding in such a way as to alter the channel’s form? Is the stream in some state of equilibrium with its floodplain?

The analytic tools used to answer these questions include the Rosgen classification method – and this in turn requires that we measure the shape and curviness of the channel, the width of the floodplain, the slope of descent, and the distribution of the size of particles– the sand, gravel, cobble, boulders, and bedrock that make the channel what it is, in this moment of time. From these measurements, a host of ratios are derived – and finally a classification.

Today, we’re taking measurements along the stretch of Preddy Creek immediately upstream of the StreamWatch biological monitoring stations – as are all the sites selected for this geomorphic study. Tributary to the North Fork of the Rivanna, Peddy Creek originates in the rolling hills on either side of Route 29 where Albemarle and Greene Counties meet. Though the stream seems to adequately support aquatic life, downstream stretches have been designated as impaired by the Virginia DEQ due to excess bacteria. For a lot of reasons, it’s an area to keep an eye on.

Turning onto Route 670 at the big red dome of the Sheetz gas station, we have a front row view of acres of land cleared and graded, the contours draped with rows of truck-sized boulders lined up to check the flow of runoff during the construction of the retail and residential buildings that are on their way. Branching roads named Hickory, Fir and Willow, feed into the subdivision’s main road, Preddy Creek Drive. Access to the creek is in down the gas-line right-of-of way, a grassy swale that is mowed to the edge of the creek. We clamber down the bank into the rough cobble laid to protect the pipeline and start upstream to take our measurements, soon finding ourselves in the shaded cover of trees. My boots gush expelling water with each step and I am grateful for their heavy protection, even as I sink to my knees from time to time in small pools.

We work with measuring tape, stadia rod, and transit – gathering the data which in turn will be compiled with other data, such as land use, impervious surfaces cover, and habitat assessments, to see what correlations can be made between the health of Rivanna’s creeks and streams and the way the surrounding land is being used and changed.

River morphology is defined as a tool for diagnosis – for understanding how the life history of a river and its watershed has influenced – and is influencing the conditions we currently find. Webster’s goes further, saying that the science seeks a genetic interpretation of land and water features. This intersection of terminology between the science of rocks and the dynamic world of flowing water affirms for me, once again, that the river does have a life of its own, a purpose and a role – to collect and convey water and materials downstream. To be the instrument of erosion, collaborating with gravity and weather, to work the land into new shape and form.

I suppose this is what we’re trying to replicate with our earth-moving equipment and engineered stormwater management. Like naming our streets for trees and our subdivisions for creeks, we often fall terribly short of the real thing. Even giving Preddy Creek a stream-type classification, which will be the result of today’s work, will only go so far in understanding what the stream is all about. Perhaps that small piece of rock that was worrying my foot is another, equally important way to know a river.

2007-08-30T21:22:00.000-04:00

August 30, 2007

#56 A River Runs Through It:
Paddling the Rivanna from Darden Towe Park through Woolen Mills after the dam removal

Saturday morning. The first day free of humidity in a week. Also, the first day I get to travel by boat through the old Woolen Mills dam site just three days after the breach on August 15. Today, there will be no slow slog through impounded water behind the dam; no heart-stopping worries that I am getting too close to the 9 foot drop; and no portage through poison ivy over rough concrete to get around the dam to safe water below.

Even so, it’s an unlikely day to paddle. While there have been near-perfect conditions for dismantling the dam and assessing the structural results, the water level is not really optimum for a canoe trip. It is somewhere around 50 or 60 cfs, a seasonal low reflective of our drought conditions. Hopeful, I glance quickly at the water as we drive over Free Bridge. It’s shallow, for sure, and I see the usual rock outcroppings upstream that are evident in low water.

In the last several years, I have not paddled this stretch of the river very much, in large part due to the long and lifeless pool behind the dam and my perception that the river is too urbanized for enjoyment. So I am surprised, when we first shove off from the boat ramp at Darden Towe Park, how quickly we are in another world altogether. The level of the river in almost any flow is well below the tops of the banks – and while this is an unfortunate and problematic result of poor land practices in previous centuries, I immediately feel that I am now down, in another world - the one of kingfisher, green heron, Canada goose. Joe-pie weed’s pale purple blossoms hang heavy over the bank amidst the late summer blooms of wing stem, boneset, asters and goldenrod. As it turns out, the river is shallow, but quite passable, and we wend our way through outcrops of dark basalt and Cotoctan greenstone.

Suddenly, a head pops up ten feet away. I see brown, small eyes, whiskers, before it slides back down into the ripple of pondweed. We still our canoe and wait. When the animal comes up for another look, we recognize a small river otter who continues to forage amongst the weed for slow-moving fish and mussels on the bottom. We glide into the cool echoing expanse under the Free Bridge on down to the sandbar bend below Pantops.

We watch for the signs of where the drowned river started and is now finally exposed. It’s tricky, for last night’s rain left a bathtub wash of mud along the bowl of what was the impoundment. Slick banks of mud not yet claimed by vegetation and the absence of trees and shrubs are our clues as we can see where the river has dropped three, four, five feet and more as we descend along the length of what was a pool behind the dam. A green heron flaps up with a start, its crest raised in black alarm. And we too are surprised when we round the bend to see the startlingly sight of a river strewn with rocks and pools that have not been uncovered for 175 years. No longer punctuated by the horizontal drop that was the dam, the river disappears in the distance in a soft bend with Brown’s Mountain in the distance high above. Pockets of coarse sand have filled the crevasses in the black rock, ridged across the river here where the Southwest Mountains are cut by the Rivanna, and the work is still underway.

Now the going is not exactly smooth – we try to find and follow the channel as the water drops over small ledges and around sand bars. Occasionally, we run aground and have to sling a leg over the side of the canoe for a quick push. We’re not alone in our discovery this morning: a dozen blue-winged teal alight in a soft flush of wings from a downstream pool. Fly fisherman standing mid-river are casting into new territory, gently kissing the water with their lures. From time to time, we hear the sounds of runners and bike riders and the voices strollers along the Riverview Trail on our right and on the Old Mill Trail to our left.

Our arrival at the site of the old dam is somewhat anticlimactic. There’s still rubble to be removed and the water is so low that we cannot actually paddle through the twenty-foot wide channel. But it’s a good cool wade to shore, where we haul our boat up onto a grassy spot on Market Street and depart on foot back up to our car at Darden Towe.

And this, it turns out, is the best part of our canoe trip. As pedestrians along Riverview Park, we have a view, intermittently through the trees, of clear, slow flowing river. And despite the fact that the current is low, we hear the river, dropping from rock to pool on its way downstream. I don’t know the song it would sing, this river now undammed. But I know that my heart feels lighter, not just for the sweet river time that I have just had this Saturday morning, but also for the new freedom for this stretch of the Rivanna River. It’s a very good feeling.

2007-08-23T16:04:00.000-04:00

The 2007 Rivanna River Clean-up starts at 10 a.m on Saturday, August 25. The rain date will be on Sunday, August 26. Contact Garnett Mellen at 975-0224 or garnett.mellen@vaswcd.org to volunteer on the ground. Contact Phyllis White at 984-5678 or 242-5893 or phyllisdj@hotmail.com to volunteer by boat. The event is hosted by the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District and the Rivanna Conservation Society.

“The Rivanna Rambler” airs weekly from 11:55 am-noon on WTJU 91.1 and is produced and recorded by Leslie Middleton. This episode (#55) originally aired on August 23, 2007.

To hear this podcast, click here.

Rivanna River Cleanup

As I prepared to leave the house this morning, I heard the rough scrape of shovels against the pavement as the City Public Works crew got to work cleaning our street after the welcome rain washed dirt and debris down the hill towards the storm drains in front of our house. Later in the morning, I returned to see shrubbery and weeds trimmed back from the curb to make way for the street cleaning apparatus. As I went back inside, I could hear the grind and swish of the sweeper. sucking the muck out of the gutters and away from the drains where it would go in the next downpour if not removed. And from the storm drains, it’s a short ride to the nearest tributary or stream, and then the Rivanna River. We often think of stormwater carrying sediment and yard and street chemicals to our waterways – but there’s plenty of trash and garbage that also comes along for the ride.

I have to admit that it takes a certain kind of mindset to keep one’s attention on matters of trash and litter. The refuse of our lives is, by definition, that which we refuse. That which we no longer want or need. And that which we would just as soon have out of sight and out of mind. This includes the woody debris that collects on my street fallen from trees overhead as well as the plastic bottles and bags, fast food wrappers, and other miscellaneous items that settle on the landscape. Many of us have the benefit of city or county services that help with the removal of this solid waste.

The river, however, does not -- and the accumulation of litter along our waterways and byways is the most visible form of pollution most of us encounter in our everyday lives. And we’ve come a long way in understanding its effects since the 1950’s when the litterbug became part of the national lexicon. Back then, it was all about civic pride and community aesthetics, and even today, millions of dollars are spent annually in the pursuit of clean parks, beaches, and roads. But after over fifty years of living in the plastics generation, we also know that much of the litter we see today does not degrade; that it can pose hazards to wildlife; and it can contain or be composed of chemicals whose slow release adds to the toxic load into our groundwater and rivers. With the advent of ever finer tools of measurement, we have learned that micro particles that result from the slow degradation of manufactured and raw source plastics -- are ingested by the tiniest of organisms – zooplankton – and through the food chain, make their way into the very tissues of fish, birds, and marine mammals.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed in the face of the vastness of the problem. But we have an opportunity this coming weekend to pitch in and help. The 2007 Rivanna River Clean-up is happening this Saturday, August 25. The Cleanup will bring teams of helpers, young and old, by boat and on foot, to select places on the Rivanna that are in need of a clean sweep.

The event is being hosted jointly by the Rivanna Conservation Society and the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District and starts at 10 a.m. at various sites, including Reas Ford Road, Riverview Park, and the boat landings at Milton and Palmyra.

The Rivanna River Clean-up is part of a Virginia-wide network of events coordinated by Clean VA Waterways, the Virginia program aligned with the International Coastal Cleanup which has hosting mid-September beach cleaning events since 1986. This long-standing program has yielded not only a whole lot of trash, but a whole lot of information about trash and our habits of disposal. Like the Rivanna clean-up this Saturday, hundreds of events from late August through October coordinate teams from schools, churches, community organizations, families, and businesses in the task of cleaning up after ourselves and our neighbors in and along the waterways.

Participating in a river or beach clean-up is immensely satisfying – the results are immediate and visible. And it gets us thinking about our own habits of consumption and disposal. This is the beauty and importance of these volunteer clean-up efforts. I’m glad the City of Charlottesville works to keep the debris of stormwater from entering our river. But those plastic bags draped in tree limbs along the river and the soda bottles poking out from weeds on muddy banks have become litter, and thus belong to no one and to everyone. Drawing from another 50s slogan, let’s keep the Rivanna beautiful, and clean.