The Rivanna Rambler

June 19, 2008

This show originally aired on August 2, 2007 and then again on June 12, 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

She fairly coos at them, these bugs, these tiny aquatic insects who, in their larval stages, can reveal much about the health of the river.  Rose Brown, Program Manager and Volunteer coordinator for StreamWatch, is my companion for the morning at Rivanna Mills down in Fluvanna County. The overflow chute is now a shallow cobble filled channel below the rapid.  It is here that we’ve grabbed our sample, set up our table and are culling through a net full of the results.

“I see you,” Rose says to a healthy sized stonefly that’s crawling through the wet debris away from her blue plastic forceps poised to snatch, ever so gently, the bug and place it in a white plastic ice cube tray filled with water and used for counting the specimens.  I, too, am talking to them … “Here you go,” and “there you are” — especially the caddisflies and, of these, especially the more exotic casemakers.

And it is hard not to talk to them – for once you have seem the elegant home that the longhorned casemaker crafts of the detritus from the bottom of the river, you are likely to think of these tiny insects as entities worthy of respect,

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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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May 8, 2008

This show originally aired on May 11, 2006 and was aired again on May 8, 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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A couple of years ago, I visited the bottomland owned by Jane and Stirling Williamson along a stretch of the South Fork of the Rivanna River, to learn about tree planting for river protection.

As we descend the hill and cross a thin stream, the floodplain opens up in front of us and we an assortment of trees planted four years ago: red maple, box elder, northern red and willow oak. We, too, are a motley crew: Hank Helman, has brought along his two young children who run alongside, weaving in and out of the plastic tubes that mark where trees were planted. Angus Murdoch, who for years has grown and planted trees around the entire watershed for the Rivanna Conservation Society. And me, curious to figure out the point of planting these trees.

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May 1, 2008

This show originally aired on March 7, 2007 and then again on May 1, 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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It’s the time of the year when rivers run high and brown here in Albemarle County. Some well-placed rain events, brought water levels to seasonal highs. Sediment from surrounding floodplains and other sources colored the water various shades of brown, from slick and bubbling chocolate during the first flush, to a steely brown that mirrored the gray March skies. I find myself wondering, again, where does all that dirt come from?

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This show originally aired on February 21, 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.

February 21, 2008

The upper Doyles River, like most headwater streams in the Rivanna watershed, is about as pristine as they come. The waters that collect from springs and drainages of the land that is protected by Shenandoah National Park do not suffer the assaults of sediment and runoff that challenge the health of streams at lower elevations. For this reason, the community based water monitoring program, StreamWatch, has chosen a spot high on the Doyles as one of several headwater streams that will be used during the next few years as “reference streams” – a standard of “as good as it gets in our watershed” — against which other tributaries of the Rivanna will be evaluated.

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