The Rivanna Rambler

October 16, 2008

The South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, built in 1966, is continuing to silt in from upstream erosion.  The South Fork Rivanna Reservoir Task Force is examining the condition of the reservoir and is seeking public input regarding its uses and fate.

 

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This show originally aired on October 5, 2006 and as an encore on October 9, 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.

Almost twice a month for the last couple of months, a small group of citizens and representatives of various stakeholders has been meeting to discuss the fate of the South Fork Ravenna Reservoir.  The members of this task force represent the variety of uses and benefits that the reservoir now affords this community.

Built in 1966 to augment the storage capacity at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir, it now also provides miles of flatwater for varsity and community rowers.  Fishermen come from surrounding counties to launch jon boats at all times of day and night.  Novice canoeists learn their first skills on its calm dark waters.  The upper reaches of Ivy Creek consistently offer sightings of beaver, green and great blue herons, turtles, and, sometimes even bobcats.

The reservoir also provides an immutable kind of pleasure and solace that only an expanse of water can do – one that can be appreciated looking upstream or down while crossing its bridges, or for the fortunate few who live along its shores, from livings rooms and decks.  Out of sight – and out of the minds of most – is what lies beneath, the remains of a small but thriving African American community at Hydraulic Mills which was vacated and submerged when the waters rose after the dam construction.

The aesthetic, recreational, and ecological benefits were never the primary purpose of building this reservoir, but as the community contemplates its future, it is these very benefits that the Task Force has been asked to consider by the four chairs

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September 18, 2008

 

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This show originally aired in September 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

When we arrive at the informal parking lot at Sugar Hollow Reservoir, it isn’t surprising to find almost every available parking slot between the tall trees already taken. It’s a hot Sunday afternoon with moist air pushed northward by the hurricane – most are here to get cool, to swim or sit by the water. But Cole Peale-Grody, his father, Charles, and me have another goal. Along with another father-son team we meet here, we’re going snake hunting on the north fork of the Moormans in Shenandoah National Park,

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May 15, 2008

This show originally aired on May 15, 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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The community water supply plan that is under question has been permitted, as it must be, by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality on February 11, 2008. That plan was approved unanimously by the City Council and Albemarle County Board of Supervisors in 2006.

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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.

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.