The Rivanna Rambler

This show originally aired on February 7, 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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February 7, 2008

On a day in January when the snow is still on the ground in the higher elevations, Rose and I drive out Garth Road turning onto 810 at White Hall and head towards the Browns Gap Turnpike. With the landowner’s permission, we drive across pastures that slope uphill into the headwater basin of the Doyles River.

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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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November 8, 2007

A warm day on the river traveling to Rivanna Mills to sample for water quality provides the opportunity to reflect on the need for both the short and long view of changes in the watershed.

 

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There is something not altogether right about this day. Here it is, November 1st, and we should be bundled in fleece and wearing high rubber boots to venture out on the water. Instead, we’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. Though the water is a cool 56 degrees, the air temperature is climbing past 65 as the sun arcs into the autumn afternoon. I’m not sure what doesn’t feel right: is it the air temperature — or the water level? — which is still near historic lows in spite of patches of rain we’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. 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.Rounding Hell’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. 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. The channels along the banks are a Piedmont version of aquamarine. The summer’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. We enter the world of macro – where everything of interest is small – one-eighth to as much as an inch long, like the fat, ribbed crane fly larvae that are in abundance today. We’ve also captured small pebbles, twigs, and leaves in various stages of decomposition – and from this tumble of browns and yellows, we must pick out the larvae of mayflies, water pennies, and caddisflies – as well as the tiny clams and snails and worms that inhabit the stream. Having sampled for a couple of years, we know that you look until you can’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 you’ve collected all the bugs in the net, which is necessary to assure quality data. 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 o’clock, we’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. 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. The paddle back upstream is welcome and warming work.

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. After straining to find the small bugs, it feels good to stretch my eyes into the distance. This is a good time of year to stay flexible and acknowledge what is. Though the Virginia autumn has been fickle with little water and overly-warm temperatures, what is just right is the slant of light — unmistakably autumn — soft but crisp, forcing one’s concentration on the essentials of life: food, shelter, and companionship. It is a good time to gather up, pick over, collect what is meaningful or needed, being sure not to waste or overlook anything important, while at the same time keeping the long view — which stretches out past the shorter days that are upon us – with a vision of another season to come.

The Rivanna at Darden Towe Park in another season and another year
Credit: Stowe Keller

October 11, 2007

The autumn sunlight warms the group gathered around the table. The air is collegial and cooperative: the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s TMDL Coordinator has come with three consultants from the Lois Berger Group, specialists in the process. They’ve set up a poster presentation on an easel to one side that summarizes the Rivanna TMDL meeting in March with colorful charts and lists.

This is the first time I’ve been able to participate since the meetings commenced in November last year. I’ve got a ways to go to catch up with the water professionals who help make up the Steering Committee, folks from non-profits and local agencies and government who provide the knowledge of our watershed that is essential for development of a TMDL.

This acronym stands for Total Daily Maximum Load – and simply put, refers to the total amount – or load – of a given pollutant that a water body can receive in a day and still meet water quality standards. If you hear that a stream or river has a TMDL, it means that it has degraded to the point that it no longer meets state standards and has been placed on the impaired waters list.

Making this list is a dubious distinction. The good news is that once a river stretch has been listed as impaired, it becomes eligible for funding that will study the problem, determine the sources of the pollutant, and help identify solutions.

Fifteen stream and river segments in the Rivanna watershed are listed as ‘impaired” because they do not adequately support the biological organisms that reflect a healthy stream or are excessively contaminated with bacteria that is unhealthy for humans. Sixty-two miles in Albemarle County alone are impaired for these bacteria that make swimming, canoeing and simply wading in the river with your kids a cause for extra caution and some disinfectant.

And where are these streams? For bacterial impairment we’re talking about the headwaters of Beaver Creek above the reservoir; the entire length of Meadow Creek; almost 26 miles of Preddy Creek and its tributaries; 10 and half miles of the Mechums River from Lickinghole Creek to its confluence with the Moormans; the North Fork from Camelot to the main stem and continuing down to Moores Creek.

The TMDL process starts with identifying the likely sources, such as failing septic systems, straight pipes, and wastes from pets, livestock, and manure spreading operations. Information is fed into a computational model along with climate, stream flow, and geographic data specific to our watershed. At the end of this year, DEQ will define what the total amount of bacterial pollutant these stream segments can absorb and still maintain adequate water quality for safe recreation.

The target number and sources are open for public comment, then approved by the state and EPA, and will be used to inform and plan clean-up efforts during the next phase called implementation planning. Activities to eliminate the sources are prioritized – in this case, things like eliminating failing septic tanks, initiating pet waste education campaigns, or ensuring adequate stream buffers on all the streams in the watershed. The TMDL process can take years and is highly dependent on state funding to complete. And finally we come to the bad news: all the while, unless the community takes corrective measures voluntarily, the pollution from these sources may continue.

So while the consultants are crunching the numbers, our local water quality experts will continue the real work of trying to influence patterns of land use and encourage living habits that we can adopt now. The TMDL process comes up with a number and a plan – but there’s every reason we should take it upon ourselves to clean up after our pets, keep our cattle out of the streams, and limit the amount of soil that turns our river the color of Virginia clay.

September 7, 2007#57: The Right (River) Shoes for the Job:Geomorphology at Preddy CreekToday is my third day of walking streams, not a bad way to spend a hot and humid summer morning – and I have finally mastered the footwear problem. The first two days, I wore my Chaco water sandals. No problem getting them wet, of course, but every step was an opportunity for pea-sized gravel to become wedged between the sole of my foot and the sandal, resulting in a pointedly painful step that reduced my progress to an awkward hobble until rectified – and just as soon as I had dislodged the offending rock, another would take its place. But now, I’ve discovered that an old pair of cheap canvas hiking boots not only keeps the gravel out but provides support and traction on the slippery rock outcroppings of Preddy Creek where today, I am working as a volunteer on a river morphology study with StreamWatch.Getting up close and personal with the sand and gravel is exactly what this work is all about. We are here to classify the stream according to a system devised by Dave Rosgen that will help scientists and managers in our watershed understand better how the tributary streams are performing as streams – in other words: can the creek efficiently move its collected waters downstream? Are its banks relatively stable, or are they eroding in such a way as to alter the channel’s form? Is the stream in some state of equilibrium with its floodplain?The analytic tools used to answer these questions include the Rosgen classification method – and this in turn requires that we measure the shape and curviness of the channel, the width of the floodplain, the slope of descent, and the distribution of the size of particles– the sand, gravel, cobble, boulders, and bedrock that make the channel what it is, in this moment of time. From these measurements, a host of ratios are derived – and finally a classification.Today, we’re taking measurements along the stretch of Preddy Creek immediately upstream of the StreamWatch biological monitoring stations – as are all the sites selected for this geomorphic study. Tributary to the North Fork of the Rivanna, Peddy Creek originates in the rolling hills on either side of Route 29 where Albemarle and Greene Counties meet. Though the stream seems to adequately support aquatic life, downstream stretches have been designated as impaired by the Virginia DEQ due to excess bacteria. For a lot of reasons, it’s an area to keep an eye on.Turning onto Route 670 at the big red dome of the Sheetz gas station, we have a front row view of acres of land cleared and graded, the contours draped with rows of truck-sized boulders lined up to check the flow of runoff during the construction of the retail and residential buildings that are on their way. Branching roads named Hickory, Fir and Willow, feed into the subdivision’s main road, Preddy Creek Drive. Access to the creek is in down the gas-line right-of-of way, a grassy swale that is mowed to the edge of the creek. We clamber down the bank into the rough cobble laid to protect the pipeline and start upstream to take our measurements, soon finding ourselves in the shaded cover of trees. My boots gush expelling water with each step and I am grateful for their heavy protection, even as I sink to my knees from time to time in small pools.We work with measuring tape, stadia rod, and transit – gathering the data which in turn will be compiled with other data, such as land use, impervious surfaces cover, and habitat assessments, to see what correlations can be made between the health of Rivanna’s creeks and streams and the way the surrounding land is being used and changed.River morphology is defined as a tool for diagnosis – for understanding how the life history of a river and its watershed has influenced – and is influencing the conditions we currently find. Webster’s goes further, saying that the science seeks a genetic interpretation of land and water features. This intersection of terminology between the science of rocks and the dynamic world of flowing water affirms for me, once again, that the river does have a life of its own, a purpose and a role – to collect and convey water and materials downstream. To be the instrument of erosion, collaborating with gravity and weather, to work the land into new shape and form.I suppose this is what we’re trying to replicate with our earth-moving equipment and engineered stormwater management. Like naming our streets for trees and our subdivisions for creeks, we often fall terribly short of the real thing. Even giving Preddy Creek a stream-type classification, which will be the result of today’s work, will only go so far in understanding what the stream is all about. Perhaps that small piece of rock that was worrying my foot is another, equally important way to know a river.