http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler stories of landscapes, conservation, and people in and beyond the Rivanna Watershed Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:11:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 © lmiddleton@embarqmail.com () lmiddleton@embarqmail.com() stories of landscapes, conservation, and people in and beyond the Rivanna Watershed lmiddleton@embarqmail.com No no http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/powered_by_podpress.jpg http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler 144 144 http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2009/02/03/119-fernbrook-natural-area-hosts-winter-landscapes-and-much-more/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2009/02/03/119-fernbrook-natural-area-hosts-winter-landscapes-and-much-more/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:53:12 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/?p=176 http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2009/02/03/119-fernbrook-natural-area-hosts-winter-landscapes-and-much-more/feed/ 0 4:49 January 15, 2009 Fernbrook Natural Area in northern Albemarle County near Stony Brook is host of images of death, decay, and resurrection in the flora and ... January 15, 2009 Fernbrook Natural Area in northern Albemarle County near Stony Brook is host of images of death, decay, and resurrection in the flora and fauna of the Piedmont woods. The January cold spell has arrived ndash; always a harsh reminder, especially here in Virginia ndash; of the intractability of winter.nbsp; Being from New England, it feels welcome, like a patch of remnant habitat ndash; familiar and necessary for my survival.nbsp;nbsp; The bite of cold when I first leave the house for my walk, the peeling back of layers as heat of my body meets morning chill. The knowledge of light that has come with experiencing over half a decade of Januarys, as the skies are brighter, the days are longer, but still, somehow, muted by the cold.nbsp; My need to be outside is greater at this time of year than others --against the inertia that a warm house foster, an urgency tugs at me as the voices of the winter landscape are calling. I went to feed this winter hunger last weekend at Fernbook Natural Area, thenbsp; 63-acre preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy in northern Albemarle County near Stony Point.nbsp; This time of year, it is a palette of earth tones, rich with every shade of brown, red, yellow, orange, and black.nbsp; Green pokes up here and there: running cedar emerging from the layer of leaves, the rhododendron on the northern slopes; and the ever-reliable, Christmas fern, though sagging from the weight of wingter, it is still standing, ready to be counted. The trail slopes down through a tall stand of red oak, hickory and yellow poplar towards a small stream that drains the ridge.nbsp; Only the beech trees and few oaks still hold their leaves, browned now, quaking in the slight wind.nbsp; The late afternoon light is mediated by clouds, occasional patches of blue lingering before a darkening sky. This winter in particular, I am attuned to disintegration and death, and a forest like the one at Fernbrook is as good a place as any to find it.nbsp; Decay is everywhere:nbsp; dense downed logs along the trail are scuffed by travelers' boots into light tufts.nbsp; The bark of Virginia pine still standing, is pocked by holes that spiral round the trunk marking the drill of the downy woodpecker.nbsp; A cavity higher up could be home to a pileated.nbsp; These are some of the larger agents of change in the forest, foraging for a meal beneath the bark of host trees giving way slowly to insects. Still on the branches of beech trees, are black clumps of sooty mold.nbsp; A hunk the size of my fist has dropped to the ground at the base of a beech, and I pick it up ndash; light as a sponge, this is final stage for the mold that is unique to the beech tree.nbsp; Scorias spongiosa, as a species of sooty mold that grows below colonies of beech woolly aphids, whose honeydew ndash; or excrement ndash; provides nourishment through its life stages.nbsp; In January, these aphids are long gone, but when I pry the mold apart, I find shiny black ants feasting on the spores. Cleared in colonial days for timber, Fernbrook was abandoned sometime after the Civil War.nbsp; But here and there, the pencil-sharp snags of Virginia cedar point skyward, and from time to time, the slope is anchored by a mound of rocks that marked perhaps the corner of an old field.nbsp; The small stream has the characteristic steep banks of our Piedmont streams that have been cut vertically during the years of high erosion when no protective measures stemmed the flow of topsoil from newly logged acres. Just as surely as I am looking at death and decay, I am also witness to rebirth, in everything from the defiant fist-like buds of the dogwoods in understudy, to the delicate, cigar-shaped twist of the beech bud.nbsp; Each soggy, rotten log hosts its own ecosystem of fungi, bacteria, and insects, thriving in dark spaces, drunk on the nutrients they release back to the cycle of life. Through the bare trees I can see upward to the sky, anoth... Albemarle,County,,Climate,,Ecology,,History,,Natural,History,,North,Fork,Rivanna,,Sediment,,Trails,and,Footpaths lmiddleton@embarqmail.com no No http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/13/111-autumn-on-the-rivanna-encore/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/13/111-autumn-on-the-rivanna-encore/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:05:06 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/13/111-autumn-on-the-rivanna-encore/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/13/111-autumn-on-the-rivanna-encore/feed/ 0
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4:40 November 13, 2008 A warm day on the river traveling to Rivanna Mills to sample provides opportunity to reflect on the need for both the short ... November 13, 2008 A warm day on the river traveling to Rivanna Mills to sample provides opportunity to reflect on the need for both the short and long view of changes in the watershed. This show originally aired on November 8, 2007 and then again on November 13, 2008 on ldquo;The Rivanna Rambler,rdquo; a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net. There is something not altogether right about this day.nbsp; Here it is, November 1st, and we should be bundled in fleece and wearing high rubber boots to venture out on the water.nbsp; Instead, wersquo;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.nbsp; Though the water is a cool 56 degrees, the air temperature is climbing past 65 as the sun arcs into the autumn afternoon.nbsp; Irsquo;m not sure what doesnrsquo;t feel right: is it the air temperature? or the water level? which is still near historic lows in spite of patches of rain wersquo;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.nbsp; 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.nbsp; Rounding Hellrsquo;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.nbsp; 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.nbsp; The channels along the banks are a Piedmont version of aquamarine.nbsp; The summerrsquo;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.nbsp; We enter the world of macro ndash; where everything of interest is small ndash; one-eighth to as much as an inch long, like the fat, ribbed crane fly larvae that are in abundance today.nbsp; Wersquo;ve also captured small pebbles, twigs, and leaves in various stages of decomposition ndash; and from this tumble of browns and yellows, we must pick out the larvae of mayflies, water pennies, and caddisflies ndash; as well as the tiny clams and snails and worms that inhabit the stream.nbsp; Having sampled for a couple of years, we know that you look until you canrsquo;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 yoursquo;ve collected all the bugs in the net, which is necessary to assure quality data.nbsp; 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 orsquo;clock, wersquo;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.nbsp; 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.nbsp; The paddle back upstream is welcome and warming work.nbsp; 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.nbsp; After straining to find the small bugs, it feels good to ... Climate,,Ecology,,Fluvanna,County,,Natural,History,,North,Fork,Rivanna,,Rivanna,River,,Rivanna,mainstem lmiddleton@embarqmail.com no No http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/06/110-here-comes-the-hydrilla-part-2/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/06/110-here-comes-the-hydrilla-part-2/#comments Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:05:46 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/06/110-here-comes-the-hydrilla-part-2/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/11/06/110-here-comes-the-hydrilla-part-2/feed/ 0
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5:04 November 6, 2008 Hydrilla may improve certain aspects of water quality, but it is an invasive aquatic weed that has caused numerous problems around the country.nbsp; ... November 6, 2008 Hydrilla may improve certain aspects of water quality, but it is an invasive aquatic weed that has caused numerous problems around the country.nbsp; The future maintenance of the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir will need to address this growing problem in the reservoir.nbsp; This show originally aired on October 30, 2008 on ldquo;The Rivanna Rambler,rdquo; a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net. Last week, we learned about the aquatic weed, hydrilla, an herbaceous, perennial freshwater herb originally imported from southeast Asian for aquariums and water gardens ndash; and a plant that has taken over millions of acres of shallow standing and moving water in the United States.nbsp; Unfortunately, it has taken rootnbsp; in our watershed, particularly in the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, but it has also been found in tributaries like the North Fork as well as the river itself downstream from the reservoir. Like many plants that are characterized as invasive, it is not unattractive.nbsp; It has delicate leaves organized in whorls of three to eight around a central stalk that rises to the surface in water that can be from a foot to fifteen feet deep.nbsp; The leaves are 2 to 4 millimeters wide and can be from six to 20 millimeters long ndash; and what distinguishes hydrilla from the native pondweed (elodea), as well as a another look-alike transplant, the Brazilian waterweed, is the presence of many sharp teeth along the margin of the leaves. Invasive species take hold in our local habitat through a variety of means.nbsp; Some terrestrial plants out-compete natives by emerging earlier in the season, or being resistant to the evolutionary system of ecological checks and balances, or by reproducing in a scale that overwhelms local species.nbsp; Hydrilla has its own set of tricks for flourishing in the places it is introduced, whether by boats traveling from one waterway to another, or on the wind, or using other aquatic species to hitchhike a ride.nbsp; Once in a waterbody, it spreads out and forms dense canopies that can shade out native vegetation ndash; and while these areas can provide protective nursery grounds for juvenile fish, it is not a major food source for aquatic species.nbsp; Fishermen on our reservoir report seeing larger fish taking cover in the hydrilla ndash; but it is hard to get to them without snagging a lure full of heavy weed. Hydrilla also alters water quality by raising the pH and decreasing oxygen as well as increasing temperature under the mats of weed.nbsp; In slow moving water, the stands that are rooted to the bottom can catch sediment and accelerate the process of filling in and creating islands, as has been seen along many stretches of the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir. And these clever hydrilla have more than one way of reproducing. The plants, such as those often found in the mid-Atlantic, can host both male and female flowers, making for an easy date between ovary and sperm.nbsp; Plants also produce rhizomes that root horizontally in bottom soils, sending up new shoots opportunistically.nbsp; If that weren't enough, the plants also produce turions, small tuber-like growths that grow between stem and leaf and breaking free in the fall and floating till they fetch up in another spot, ready to take root in the spring.nbsp; With all these reproductive mechanisms at work, it's easy to see how simply mowing down the plants, as is done in some areas to clear docks or swimming areas, is only a partial solution ndash; and how eradication, as well as prevention of its spread, is next to impossible. Though chemical agents can kill the plants, many localities have used grass carp ndash; also an imported species ndash; to control hydrilla, though this has its own risks. Grass carp will out-compete native fish species ndash; and are only recommended in enclosed water bodies.nbsp; Our reservoir is only a temporary impoundment... Albemarle,County,,Charlottesville,,Ecology,,Natural,History,,North,Fork,Rivanna,,Rivanna,River,,Rivanna,mainstem,,South,Fork,,Water,Quality,,Water,Supply lmiddleton@embarqmail.com no No http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/08/21/99-restoration-on-the-north-fork/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/08/21/99-restoration-on-the-north-fork/#comments Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:04:27 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/08/21/99-restoration-on-the-north-fork/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2008/08/21/99-restoration-on-the-north-fork/feed/ 0 00:01:01 August 21, 2008 Landowners along the North Fork take advantage of VDGIF's Landowner Incentive Program to restore a section of stream bank and habitat for the ... August 21, 2008 Landowners along the North Fork take advantage of VDGIF's Landowner Incentive Program to restore a section of stream bank and habitat for the James Spineymussel.nbsp; This show originally aired in August 21, 2008 on ldquo;The Rivanna Rambler,rdquo; a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net On a still, hot morning, I head out of town to visit some friends who are transforming their own corner of heaven in northern Albemarle County. Vickie and Mark Gottlob live in a house they finished building four years along the North Fork of the Rivanna.nbsp; It sits on a wooded slope of Buffalo Ridge, named for the mammals that once roamed these parts.nbsp; The Gottlobs are working with Louise Finger of the Virginia Department of Inland Game and Fisheries to help restore habitat in the river for another species rarely seen here: the Jamesriver Spineymussel. This is my third visit to the site. Before Louise and her team of heavy equipment operators arrived earlier this week, I had come up to visit the river "before" so I could better appreciate the changes "after".nbsp; I had donned appropriate river wading gear and dropped down into one of the deeper holes.nbsp; With cooling water up to my waist, I could see the bank slumping steeply into the stream and showing the signs of instability even an untrained eye could see.nbsp; The Gottlob's small floodplain pasture was being eaten away by storm flows and gravity, and all this dirt was settling in the river and clogging the very life out of it.nbsp; But there were solid gravel bars, mounded here and there with piles of small cobble left by chub and other nest-building species.nbsp; It had the potential to be good habitat for the spineymussel if it could be stabilized. The Jamesriver Spineymussel is a rarely seen mollusk in our parts ndash; but its influence has been felt for years ndash; it's presence blocked the building of the Buck Mountain Reservoir, a memory that runs deep with planners and residents.nbsp; Today, on its behalf, federal money is directed into a program that Louise Finger manages for the state that restores stream habitats for species that are endangered or at risk.nbsp; What makes it possible for the Gottlobs to undertake this $15,000 restoration job is that 75% is paid for by the Landowner Incentive Program ndash; so they pony up 25% of the costs ndash; and sweat equity counts. And how did they come to this choice?nbsp; Well, a picture can be worth a thousand words hellip; The Gottlobs walked daily down to the river and over time could see the changes wrought by the erosion. On night, Surfing the web for all things Rivanna, Vickie saw before and after pictures of a similar project nearby on Welsh Run. A few phone calls, an on-site assessment by Louise, and the project was scheduled using some of the remaining funds set aside for the Rivanna watershed. Today, talking down the path through the woods, I hear the earth moving equipment before I see it.nbsp; As the field opens up before me, it looks like a giant is playing a rugged game of dominoes.nbsp; There are thick gray rocks are strewn across the field near the curve in the river.nbsp; Yesterday, the backhoe removed tons of dirt, and the tractor spread it in an upland corner of the field near the woods to be planted.nbsp; The once unstable bank is now a gentle grade that slopes easily into the field.nbsp; Closer to the water's edge, Louise in full chest waders is directing her backhoe driver through the arduous process of selecting and placing just the right rock for just the right spot in the river as they build the structure that will sustain the new geometry of the bank. These flat rectangular hunks of rock are ideal for building the vanes, weirs and sills that are the hardscape tools of the stream restoration specialist.nbsp; Louise been at this for five years, and the Gottlob project is number 35 or so ndash; she's lost count ndas... Albemarle,County,,Ecology,,North,Fork,Rivanna,,Sediment,,Wildlife lmiddleton@embarqmail.com no No http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/09/13/58-rebuilding-the-rivanna-at-bentivar/ http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/09/13/58-rebuilding-the-rivanna-at-bentivar/#comments Thu, 13 Sep 2007 11:51:00 +0000 admin http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/?p=7 http://www.cvillepublicmedia.org/rambler/2007/09/13/58-rebuilding-the-rivanna-at-bentivar/feed/ 0