#91 Scenic River Trip
June 12, 2008
This show originally aired on June 12, 2008 on “The Rivanna Rambler,” a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net
It could be any spring day on the river. True, the weather is especially cooperative: May morning temperature just rising from the low 60’s as we approached the water. Cumulus and blue above, the green fully leafed out over the river. You might say that it was as scenic as a perfect Virginia morn, as you put your boat in the water amongst cattails and the fresh mist from the sheets of water tumbling over the dam at the South Fork Rivanna River Reservoir.
Or, you might, as we were, be launching your kayaks and canoes for a trip with the specific task of evaluating just how scenic our fair Rivanna River is — according to a formula that the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation established with the state Scenic River program in 1970. This program’s goal is to enhance the protection of rivers and their corridors by providing tools for local authorities to help protect waterways that offer special scenic, recreational, historic, and natural values of significance.
There are over 500 river miles comprised of 25 river segments in Virginia that have achieved this special status. The Rivanna between Woolen Mills and its confluence with the James in Columbia is already designated as a state scenic river. The stretch from Palmyra downstream was one of the first, in 1975. In 1988, from Palmyra to the Woolen Mills dam was also named a State Scenic River.
So today we are traveling from the next dam upriver — on the South Fork from just below the reservoir down nine and half miles to the place where the Woolen Mills dam used to cross the river, this section now eligible precisely because the dam has been removed.
We are a mixed group: five from the state agency, five of us locals, a pack of canoes and kayaks, guided by Dan Mahon, Blueways and Greenways coordinator for Albemarle County who alternately paddles ahead to scout obstructions and falls back amongst us with offerings of local knowledge of the river and the greenways that flank its banks.
Today, we have our share of blue heron, geese, a red tail, turtles of all sizes sunning themselves on smooth logs protruding like commas from the side of the river and angling from the dusky water. These sightings are important, but we’re also looking for other things: power line crossings, short and long range vistas, residential houses that we can see, bridge crossings, historic structures, changes in vegetation, geological features. The roads, houses, and powerlines detract from the scenic formula, as do sparse or non-existent buffers, stands of bamboo or multiflora rose, slumping earthen banks. There’s a tally sheet. We record our observations and we take pictures.
But as we go, we point out the things to DCR that they may not know about our river: on our left, Monnasopegenau where the Monacans lived and thrived on the river for hundred of years; the old carriage road on river left that runs to Gordonsville, said to have been built to transport sulpher from the mines materials from Key West. Some of the gentle rapids are actually historic structures: Broad Mossing Ford, wing dams for batteau. So these all get counted, along with restoration work we know is underway, tree buffers being planted.
As we come into Charlottesville, signs of civilization detract from the scenic score: powerline crossings, the Free Bridge, the apartments at Pantops we can see through the trees. But the long view down the last section above Woolen Mills shows Montalto rising in the distance, one of the few real vistas the Rivanna along this stretch has to offer.
At the end of the trip, we sit in the shadow of box elder and sycamore overlooking the remains of the Woolen Mills dam, offering up our observations and hearing how the Rivanna compares to other piedmont rivers the DCR team has evaluated. The point system puts this stretch of the Rivanna just over the mark to qualify, but there will be more research and more steps necessary before designation might be conferred
Today I’ve learned to look at our river in a new way, forced to see what I normally try to look past for the sake of my own serenity on the river – the painful reality of invasives taking over its slumping banks, the often brown and muddy water, the thin riparian buffers. But also the quiet natural and mostly unspoiled beauty of traveling through a relatively undeveloped river corridor. Designation or not, it still nourishes.