The Rivanna Rambler

November 8, 2007

A warm day on the river traveling to Rivanna Mills to sample for water quality provides the opportunity to reflect on the need for both the short and long view of changes in the watershed.

 

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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.

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.

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.

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.

© 2007 Leslie Middleton