#115 South Fork Rivanna Reservoir Stores Our Dirt, Too
December 11, 2008
There’s a lot of different ways to look at our diminishing resources — running out of clean water, clean air, and …. good dirt? We might do well to look past the problem of the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir filling up with dirt — and try to understand the causes of — and consequences of losing dirt from the landscapes upstream.
This show originally aired on December 11, 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.
There is slow steady winter rain that’s keeping temperatures hovering around forty degrees and the skies dark with winter gloom. But the rain is good — for our groundwater, for our reservoirs, and it is good for the plants and animals that need this most essential resource to survive. This rain is also filling our rivers – and I would wager – sending a good amount of water into the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, along with a healthy amount of dirt.
Now, that dirt is slowly but surely filling the reservoir – each year, decreasing its capacity from 1 to 5 per cent since it was completed in 1969. In another example of our human short-sightedness, like many public works installations of the era, the design life of this reservoir was only fifty years, at which time the reservoir would be filled to over 50% of its capacity.
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