The Rivanna Rambler

August 14, 2008

 

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This show originally aired in August 14, 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

You know something is not right when you walk up to the edge of MeadowCreek behind Kmart off Hydraulic Road. The bank drops down vertically to the stream bottom where a small flow trickles over the rocks. You are not sure how close you can get because looking upstream, you can see places where high water flow from storms has tunneled into the bank leaving just a flap of grass, hinged and drooping over the edge like the unruly bangs of a boy overdue for a haircut.

And you’ve seen this kinds of washed-out bank everywhere in the watershed, and especially as you walk along the Rivanna Trails encircling Charlottesville. For years, you may have said to yourself, this can’t be right, all this dirt eroding away, headed downstream in a brown muddy mess.

But how do you ever go about fixing something like this? And can it even BE fixed?

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July 3, 2008

This show originally aired in April 25, 2007 and then again on July 3, 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

 

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On a sunny Sunday in April, we finally cast the lines off the boat and leave for a trial run to the Potomac after a long marina-bound winter. With a sweet 12 knot breeze out of the east, we are soon under sail skipping across the Potomac from Virginia to Maryland. The river is mostly empty of boats, a few April adventurers and other folks who know that this can be one of the best times on the Chesapeake and her rivers. And we have other company, too.
In the distance, the dive and plunge of birds, repeated again and again, catches my attention. Instinct suggests, and my binoculars confirm, that I am seeing Northern Gannets flocking and fishing. I know these birds from my time working on the ocean,

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This show originally aired on May 3, 2007 and then again on May 22, 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.

May 22, 2008

They call it The Dragon, headwaters to the Piankatank, a sinuous flow of water through marsh and wetland that bisects the Middle Peninsula of Virginia.  You should not attempt to paddle this river without local knowledge, everyone says, before they add ominously, “or you will get lost.”

But we won’t get lost because today we’re with the Friends of Dragon Run,

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This show originally aired on January 17, 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.

As I emerged earlier this morning to put the trash and recycling on the street, the robins roosting in bushes along side the house erupted in a worried flush. They were late to emerge, having slept in, still awaiting the trigger of daylight that was coming reluctantly on this gray and cold morning heavy with the moisture and a prediction snowfall. At the street, the road was a blotchy white where Public Works trucks had made their first pass spreading salt in anticipation of the accumulation.

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