Heritage and Promise
Communities chart a new future for the Shenandoah
Oh,
Shenandoah, I long to see you…
Thousands of years before these words
were put to song, ancient peoples had arrived to make their home in the
Shenandoah Valley. Researchers say Paleolithic spear points and burial mounds
dating back more than 10,000 years bear witness to a region settled long before
the colonial era. During the American Civil War, fierce battles raged over both
principles and resources in the forests and fields of the valley. Before those
scars had healed, the nation’s burgeoning industrial economy laid claim upon the
hollows, and by the 1930s, the hillsides had been stripped almost bare in a
quest for fuel, minerals, and farmland.
Fortunately,
in more recent times, an ethos of stewardship has emerged.
With
the establishment of Shenandoah National Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains in
1935, the region became a magnet for fishing, hiking, and those loving the
outdoors. At a distance of 100 miles to the west of the nation’s capital, the
valley has achieved a growing reputation as a fine setting for family life, and
many of its historic communities are experiencing a renaissance. However,
success can bring its own set of pressures, especially upon essential resources
such as water. But today, communities all across the valley are showing that
with perseverance and cooperation, solutions to coming challenges can be found
close to home.
Heart
of a Small Town
Many
of the tributaries to the Shenandoah originate among the summits of the
Appalachian Mountains. Coursing from elevations of up to 4,000 feet to the
valley floor 2,000 feet below, these creeks historically provided the power
source for early 19th century industry and the development of the area. The
mills are gone now, but the towns they inspired continue. Luray, VA, is one such
town, and Hawksbill Creek, descending from one of the region’s highest peaks,
flows through its center on its way to join the
Shenandoah.
“We
don’t have a lot of stormwater issues, and we work to keep it that way,” says
Ligon Webb, Luray’s town planner. According to Webb, the town, with about 5,000
residents, is not among the valley communities currently facing the pressure of
high growth rates. Nevertheless, he says, Luray has a stormwater plan to
mitigate runoff into the river when development arrives, and his goal is to
“make sure stormwater management practices are properly
implemented.”
“We’re
fairly limited fiscally,” says Webb. “We don’t have a full-time engineer, but we
have a very good stormwater engineering consultant.”
Luray,
he says, “does not have the resources to become highly involved in river
advocacy.” According to Webb, private citizens and groups such as the Friends of
the North Fork and the Pure Water Forum often come forward to fulfill that role.
In fact, he says volunteers spearheaded the Hawksbill Creek Greenway, one of the
town’s major water-quality initiatives.
Cows
in the Creek
In
1999, after fighting in the battle against a massive region-wide gypsy moth
infestation, Ken Beyer, a volunteer on the Page County Tree Board, attended the
Governor’s Conference on Greenways and Trails in Roanoke, VA. Pat O’Brien,
director of parks for Luray, went along. “We came back thinking that Luray needs
a greenway,” says Beyer.
“Hawksbill
Creek was a mess, strewn with rubble, bottles, and trash,” he says. Debris
washed into the stream by storms could be seen piled up on the eroding banks,
and Beyer says cattle from an adjacent farm wandered in and out of the creek at
will, sometimes defecating in the water.
At
the time, he was aware that the town did not have a lot of money, and officials
were dealing with a number of other important priorities. However, he thought if
it were presented properly, there might be some interest in the greenway idea.
To soften the approach, he says, “We first proposed to research the idea, but at
no cost to the town.”
During
the course of that research Beyer says, “We called everyone we could think of.”
He says Elizabeth Belcher, an expert on trails and greenways, provided the name
of a potential landscape architect. Officials from the Virginia Department of
Forestry were invited to visit the stream. Beyer recalls that they spent the day
at the site discussing the plans. At the end of that visit, he says, the
officials pronounced the greenway plan “a beautiful idea,” proposing that it
could be funded in phases. The town council members, many of whom Beyer says had
grown up along the creek, proved receptive to the news.
The
initial funding came in the form of an American Greenways grant of $1,000 to
survey the site. That survey revealed that most of the land required for the
proposed greenway was owned by Virginia Oak Tannery, a company that had operated
a large factory in town, but which had shut down permanently
in
1980.
According
to Beyer, town officials were enthusiastic to acquire the land from the company,
but the company was not as eager to give it up. Those discussions held some
tense moments, he recalls, but the company was finally persuaded to settle,
relinquishing the parts of the corridor needed for the greenway project to the
town. Luray then successfully negotiated easements or purchases from owners of
the remaining parcels along the proposed route. With an additional grant of
$9,000 from the Department of Forestry for conceptual design, and a $62,500
award from the Department of Conservation and Recreation for phase one
construction, the first leg of the Hawksbill Creek Greenway was
underway.
Tons
of Work
With
additional funding from the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund earmarked for the
creation of a riparian buffer, Beyer says, he personally organized church
groups, Boy Scouts and Girl Scout troops, prison inmates, and garden clubs to
plant 2,600 trees along the greenway corridor.
“It
took tons of work,” he says, not everyone was an expert. “When we started, some
of the kids would try to put five trees in one hole. But you can’t imagine their
excitement.”
The
state’s Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), which provides
resources for private landowners through rental payments and cost-share funds to
restore riparian areas, received a call as well. In 2001, it enrolled in its
program the pastureland adjacent to the proposed greenway, whose current
occupants were beef cattle. The CREP made it possible to install a solar-powered
electric cattle fence and to acquire Ritchie Industries’ bright-yellow automatic
livestock watering equipment. For the first time, the cattle had regular access
to the town’s drinking water, says Beyer. For the cattle, these two enhancements
to the pasture made venturing toward the stream both unpleasant and unnecessary.
Even more encouraging, he says, a new tenant who “was sympathetic to the
greenway idea” took over the lease on the pasture. Beyer says the cattleman made
every effort to keep the herd out of the creek, including ferrying the animals
by truck to graze the fields on the opposing banks.
By
2007, the Hawksbill Creek Greenway had been extended in three phases to nearly 2
miles. Instream structures were used to stabilize the channel, and
malfunctioning septic systems affecting primary contact recreation uses had been
addressed. Now, during spring, Beyer says, “The creek is stocked with trout for
fishing.”
He
adds, “Everybody uses the trail,” but he feels there is more to be done. He
hopes to see the park extended 2 more miles, eventually connecting Luray’s
elementary school with the downtown waterfront.
“It
went way beyond what we thought, way beyond what the town thought,” says Beyer.
In addition to the water-quality improvements, he says, there are many other
benefits. Most notably, “Everyone says the greenway has been the major catalyst
for downtown development.”
Beyer
concedes there is a lot more that can be done for the Hawksbill. On many farms
upstream of town, livestock still have unfettered access to the streams.
Nevertheless, Beyer is pleased to say that along this stretch of the Hawksbill,
“No cows have been in the river since the year 2000.”
Down-to-Earth
Initiatives
Harrisonburg,
VA, is one of only two urbanized municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4s)
in the Shenandoah Valley, and it is growing fast. Between 1996 and 2006, the
city added around 11,000 residents, growing from 33,000 to about 44,000
people.
Jared
Stoltzfus, stream health coordinator for the city of Harrisonburg, says this
growth has led to some challenges. “Black’s Run is facing a number of problems:
sediment load, nitrates, phosphates, bacteria, increased water temperature, and
increased flooding during rainstorms.” He says Black’s Run, the headwaters of
which can be found within the city, has become a focal point for Harrisonburg’s
water-quality initiatives.
Thanh
H. Dang, environmental technology specialist, is in charge of implementing the
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) requirements for
Harrisonburg’s Public Works Department. “We’re a Phase II community,” she says,
“and we have to follow the six minimum measures as part of our permit
requirements.”
To
meet those measures, she says, “We take a lot of initiatives based on the total
maximum daily load [TMDL] recommendations.” Dang expects broad impact from
following some of the TMDL recommendations, particularly those concerning pet
waste control. She explains, “We did some calculations; we were thinking that
the average dog creates about 200 pounds of waste per year. Animal control
estimates there are about 10,000 dogs in the city—that includes both registered
and unregistered pets. In our TMDLs, pet waste was identified as a large
contributor to fecal coliform in the streams.” According to this logic, Dang
says, a pet waste control program could significantly reduce the bacteria load
on the streams. From the nuts-and-bolts perspective, she says the pet waste
control project is making progress. “The Parks Department put out pet waste
stations in every park.” But she says the city’s program must go farther and
will actually need to change people’s behaviors. “We want people to think about
the consequences if nobody bothered to pick up their dog’s
waste.”
For
this reason, Dang says, the city “launched the first phase of our stream health
campaign, called ‘Doodie-Free Harrisonburg.’
“The
city’s public relations person helped put it together, creating posters and
handbills,” she says, and students from local James Madison University helped
distribute the material. “They put them in community centers, in veterinary
offices—pretty much anywhere anybody was interested in getting some.” The
fliers, she says, explained the environmental consequences of bacteria getting
into the streams. “I don’t know if people quite understand the details—some
people don’t care to.” But, she says, the campaign carried the additional
message that the proper disposal of pet waste was the clean, healthy, and
neighborly thing to do. “That was probably more important—people seemed to grab
onto that better than just telling them it’s better for the
environment.”
“[Since
the campaign], we’ve put our name out enough so that people are contacting us.”
She says young people, especially, want to get involved. “A group of Girl Scouts
just called me in the past couple of weeks to ask if I could come to speak at
their meeting and do an activity with them. They’re particularly interested in
the Doodie-Free campaign, so we’ll probably be doing something like a coloring
activity and some crafts, so they can make signs for their yard and talk with
their neighbors about why picking up pet waste is so
important.”
Cleanup
Day
Jared
Stoltzfus believes community activities can help connect people in a positive
manner with the local waterways. One of the most successful of these activities
for Harrisonburg, he says, is the annual Black’s Run Cleanup Day. The cleanup
was initiated in 1997 as a volunteer effort by a group of concerned citizens
called the Friends of Black’s Run. With support from the city, the event has
been held annually ever since. However, in the spring of 2007, he says, the
event was adopted by the city and became an official program of the Public Works
Department.
Dang
describes the day as kicking off with celebrations and fun activities for the
children. “We also have an educational expo; we partner with the Department of
Conservation and Recreation, the Department of Environmental Quality, and the
Shenandoah Valley Water Conservation District. The local high schools and
Eastern Mennonite University put up displays for people and their kids to learn
about erosion control or recycling.”
Then
it’s down to business. Stoltzfus says volunteers can organize themselves into
teams to go out and begin the cleanup, or they can wait to be assigned to
particular cleanup activities. “We are familiar with our urban areas, and we
know from experience which streets need attention.” Occasionally, he says,
volunteers are surprised (and somewhat disappointed) to be assigned to cleanup
activities on city streets some distance from the stream bank. Stoltzfus says
that’s when he takes the opportunity to explain the watershed concept. But he
also notes, “It helps to always have the term watershed in the name of the
event.”
Dang
says over the years the event has grown in popularity. “This past year we had
457 volunteers, and they collected almost two tons of trash.” In addition, she
says, “The volunteers also did a lot of plantings and weeding along the stream
bank.” She believes the event gives people valuable hands-on experience with the
stream. While she says they don’t actually see pollutants such as oil grease and
the like, “seeing the trash makes them pretty aware.”
Although
these projects have been well received, Stoltzfus believes the city can do even
more. The Department of Parks and Recreation received funds from the Department
of Conservation and Recreation to restore 1,000 feet of stream bank along
Black’s Run by removing a concrete retaining wall and installing instream
structures to prevent erosion. The plan will create a more natural stream
channel design. The project will also introduce a Proper Lawn Care campaign to
educate residents and landscaping professionals on topics such as fertilizing,
soil testing, and pesticide use.
Already,
500 feet of concrete stream lining has been removed as part of this project, and
500 additional feet is slated for removal in the fall. Sections of the bank have
been planted with native flowers, and, in spite of its downtown location,
Stoltzfus says the setting now opens up a window on nature: “You can see a lot
of butterflies and birds.”
While
residents of the Shenandoah Valley have worked diligently for their local
streams, newspapers throughout the region began to run disturbing stories on the
Shenandoah River itself.
An
Aquatic Mystery
When
a half-dozen dead sunfish were found floating on a stretch of the Shenandoah
River in the spring of 2004, Don Kain of the Virginia Department of
Environmental Quality’s Shenandoah Valley Regional Office says he went to take a
look. “We also saw what appeared to be healthy fish swimming around; we saw
schools of minnows.” He says that seeing a cluster of dead fish suggested
“something very localized and very temporary. We didn’t think a whole lot of
it.” He says it was reasonable to speculate that the dead fish “may have been
part of a catch that a fisherman had kept on a stringer too long before letting
them go, and they just didn’t survive.”
He
recalls, “We looked at several different locations and didn’t see any dead fish
at those locations, so we concluded that this was some type of incidental
mortality unrelated to water-quality issues.”
However,
through the early spring of that year, reports of dead fish continued to come
in, and Kain says an odd pattern began to emerge. “A classic fish kill is one in
which fish die in a specific location, at a specific time, due to some specific
local circumstances—such as a spill of some toxic material or inhospitable
conditions.” These events, he says, “[Occur] from time to time due to some
catastrophic event or due to weather and other factors. Those typical fish kills
are quite easy to recognize, and they often involve all the species of fish in
the area.” In this case, however, he says, “We were losing almost exclusively
adult smallmouth bass and adult sunfish.”
“We
did considerable water monitoring and collected the fish and had them evaluated
by a fish pathologist. Nobody was able to determine a cause of death.” Later on,
Kain says, many of the dead fish were appearing with sores and lesions, a
condition not seen on the first few fish, which had succumbed. “We had low
numbers of dying fish over a widespread area, over a period of a few months. If
you went to a given spot on the river you might have seen two or three dead
fish; you might not see any. But you would also observe quite a few fish
swimming around apparently unaffected. It was mysterious.”
Water-quality
data didn’t provide any clues. According to Kain, there was speculation that the
die-off could have been tied to the high population density among those species
at the time, as nature’s way of winnowing out the weak. There were other
theories as well. Ammonia toxicity from manure or fertilizers spread on farms
was another early suspect, but Kain says the concentrations detected in water
samples “didn’t appear to reach toxic levels.”
When
the fish kills ended in mid June, Kain was concerned that the cause was as yet
unknown. More information was needed. Traditional monthly water-quality sampling
would not be enough. He set up a program to sample weekly. “We decided to set up
a more extensive water-monitoring network, to be prepared if this happened again
the next spring.”
In
the spring of 2005, the fish kills did recur, this time on the North Fork of the
Shenandoah. Kain estimates an 80% loss of the adult smallmouth bass and
redbreast sunfish over a 70- to 75-mile stretch of the river and similar losses
over close to a 100-mile stretch of the South Fork. Kain says the mysterious die
off was repeated in 2006 and 2007. Moreover, in 2007, similar fish kills were
being reported in parts of the Cowpasture River and the James River, both parts
of watersheds not contiguous with the Shenandoah
watershed.
Task
Force
After
the reports of the 2005 fish kill, the Virginia Department of Environmental
Quality (DEQ) and the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries set up the
Shenandoah River Fish Kill Task Force. The task force, which Kain leads,
includes experts in chemistry, fish health, and general fishery, along with
other stakeholders. “We have citizen volunteers from the Friends of the
Shenandoah, Friends of the North Fork, Augusta Stream Monitors, and university
researchers—it’s a pretty diverse group.”
According
to Kain, the task force deployed 11 passive samplers in discrete locations in
the river, both along the affected waterways and at reference locations in other
streams that had not experienced fish kills. The samplers, he says, are designed
to measure compounds that are typically too low in concentration to be detected
with conventional water samplers. Using a semi-permeable membrane to capture
organic contaminants, the samplers selectively attract different types of
organic compounds such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals. Though he says the
data won’t translate into concentrations, “the samplers can tell you what’s out
there, and how conditions at one location might differ from conditions at
another.” Kain says he expects the data from these samplers to be made available
by the US Geological Survey.
With
the sampling data, Kain hopes to build a contaminant profile that will allow him
to zero in on the potential culprits. “We can look for those same compounds in
fish tissue, or in tissue from individual organs such as the liver, to see if
we’re finding high concentrations in the fish.” He adds, “Even then, it doesn’t
prove causality; that may require laboratory exposure work.” Kain says bacteria
have been found in association with the fish lesions, raising the question of
whether the lesions are primary or secondary symptoms. “We’re taking a
two-pronged approach; we’re looking at the water chemistry issues, but there
very well could be a biological pathogen at work here.”
Though
he expects the data will be helpful, he doesn’t expect instant answers.
“Considering day-to-day variability in terms of temperature, flow, and storm
events, it’s very complex. It’s going to be very difficult to tease out a single
cause.” And, he cautions, “there could be multiple factors working in
combination.”
Citizen
Samplers
“Volunteers
have been indispensable,” says Kain. “Stream monitors
have been a great set of eyes and ears out in the field—in documenting the
location of fish kills, or fish with lesions—but they’ve also been a little army
of samplers. We’ve worked out some protocols and agreements with a number of the
citizen monitoring groups.” Because many of the people involved in the effort
“are retired folks, or people who don’t have a regular everyday job,” Kain says
they have the flexibility to respond at a moment’s notice over a wider
geographic area than can be covered by staff.
In
addition, he says, volunteer organizations applied for and received grant
funding to place and retrieve passive samplers from two different locations at
two different times during the spring of 2007. That, he says, was “a very
beneficial arrangement. It’s quite expensive work, and we can’t be everywhere
all the time.”
The
task force has established an e-mail address at DEQ and has sent out a press
release asking members of the public to report dead fish, either over the
telephone or via e-mail. Kain says callers are encouraged to give a description
of what they encounter.
Having
to deal with a crisis like the Shenandoah River fish kill is an experience Kain
says he would not wish on anyone. Nevertheless, he says, “It’s very interesting,
technically challenging, and frustrating at the same time.” Amplifying on this
he says, “The project is collecting a tremendous amount of data that will be
useful down the road. It has been an excellent experience in building
relationships with people we hadn’t worked with before. When you have a crisis,”
he says, “it makes these relationships stronger.”
Returning
to the Stream
If
the fish kills occur again, Kain hopes to capitalize more fully on citizen
monitors. And, he says, the monitors themselves are getting an important message
out: “Be observant; do good detective work.”
“They
are all volunteers. It’s a matter of their passion and their true desire to help
the river and correct the problem, that goes for the people who are paid staff
as well,” Kain says. “It hits close to home, especially for people who live near
the river. They’re willing to put considerable effort to bring it
back.”
Jared
Stoltzfus says he sometimes fields questions from Harrisonburg residents as they
follow the fish kill story in the media. Though he’s able to inform them that
the fish kills are not happening locally in Harrisonburg, citizens nevertheless
want to know what can be done. “More people are asking about Black’s Run now,
because they have an awareness, and it is something they can take action in and
participate.”
Author's Bio: David C. Richardson is a journalist based in Baltimore, MD.
July-August 2008
Heritage and Promise
Communities chart a new future for the Shenandoah
Oh,
Shenandoah, I long to see you…
Thousands of years before these words
were put to song, ancient peoples had arrived to make their home in the
Shenandoah Valley. Researchers say Paleolithic spear points and burial mounds
dating back more than 10,000 years bear witness to a region settled long before
the colonial era. During the American Civil War, fierce battles raged over both
principles and resources in the forests and fields of the valley. Before those
scars had healed, the nation’s burgeoning industrial economy laid claim upon the
hollows, and by the 1930s, the hillsides had been stripped almost bare in a
quest for fuel, minerals, and farmland.
Fortunately,
in more recent times, an ethos of stewardship has emerged.
With
the establishment of Shenandoah National Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains in
1935, the region became a magnet for fishing, hiking, and those loving the
outdoors. At a distance of 100 miles to the west of the nation’s capital, the
valley has achieved a growing reputation as a fine setting for family life, and
many of its historic communities are experiencing a renaissance. However,
success can bring its own set of pressures, especially upon essential resources
such as water. But today, communities all across the valley are showing that
with perseverance and cooperation, solutions to coming challenges can be found
close to home.
Heart
of a Small Town
Many
of the tributaries to the Shenandoah originate among the summits of the
Appalachian Mountains. Coursing from elevations of up to 4,000 feet to the
valley floor 2,000 feet below, these creeks historically provided the power
source for early 19th century industry and the development of the area. The
mills are gone now, but the towns they inspired continue. Luray, VA, is one such
town, and Hawksbill Creek, descending from one of the region’s highest peaks,
flows through its center on its way to join the
Shenandoah.
“We
don’t have a lot of stormwater issues, and we work to keep it that way,” says
Ligon Webb, Luray’s town planner. According to Webb, the town, with about 5,000
residents, is not among the valley communities currently facing the pressure of
high growth rates. Nevertheless, he says, Luray has a stormwater plan to
mitigate runoff into the river when development arrives, and his goal is to
“make sure stormwater management practices are properly
implemented.”
“We’re
fairly limited fiscally,” says Webb. “We don’t have a full-time engineer, but we
have a very good stormwater engineering consultant.”
Luray,
he says, “does not have the resources to become highly involved in river
advocacy.” According to Webb, private citizens and groups such as the Friends of
the North Fork and the Pure Water Forum often come forward to fulfill that role.
In fact, he says volunteers spearheaded the Hawksbill Creek Greenway, one of the
town’s major water-quality initiatives.
Cows
in the Creek
In
1999, after fighting in the battle against a massive region-wide gypsy moth
infestation, Ken Beyer, a volunteer on the Page County Tree Board, attended the
Governor’s Conference on Greenways and Trails in Roanoke, VA. Pat O’Brien,
director of parks for Luray, went along. “We came back thinking that Luray needs
a greenway,” says Beyer.
“Hawksbill
Creek was a mess, strewn with rubble, bottles, and trash,” he says. Debris
washed into the stream by storms could be seen piled up on the eroding banks,
and Beyer says cattle from an adjacent farm wandered in and out of the creek at
will, sometimes defecating in the water.
At
the time, he was aware that the town did not have a lot of money, and officials
were dealing with a number of other important priorities. However, he thought if
it were presented properly, there might be some interest in the greenway idea.
To soften the approach, he says, “We first proposed to research the idea, but at
no cost to the town.”
During
the course of that research Beyer says, “We called everyone we could think of.”
He says Elizabeth Belcher, an expert on trails and greenways, provided the name
of a potential landscape architect. Officials from the Virginia Department of
Forestry were invited to visit the stream. Beyer recalls that they spent the day
at the site discussing the plans. At the end of that visit, he says, the
officials pronounced the greenway plan “a beautiful idea,” proposing that it
could be funded in phases. The town council members, many of whom Beyer says had
grown up along the creek, proved receptive to the news.
The
initial funding came in the form of an American Greenways grant of $1,000 to
survey the site. That survey revealed that most of the land required for the
proposed greenway was owned by Virginia Oak Tannery, a company that had operated
a large factory in town, but which had shut down permanently
in
1980.
According
to Beyer, town officials were enthusiastic to acquire the land from the company,
but the company was not as eager to give it up. Those discussions held some
tense moments, he recalls, but the company was finally persuaded to settle,
relinquishing the parts of the corridor needed for the greenway project to the
town. Luray then successfully negotiated easements or purchases from owners of
the remaining parcels along the proposed route. With an additional grant of
$9,000 from the Department of Forestry for conceptual design, and a $62,500
award from the Department of Conservation and Recreation for phase one
construction, the first leg of the Hawksbill Creek Greenway was
underway.
Tons
of Work
With
additional funding from the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund earmarked for the
creation of a riparian buffer, Beyer says, he personally organized church
groups, Boy Scouts and Girl Scout troops, prison inmates, and garden clubs to
plant 2,600 trees along the greenway corridor.
“It
took tons of work,” he says, not everyone was an expert. “When we started, some
of the kids would try to put five trees in one hole. But you can’t imagine their
excitement.”
The
state’s Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), which provides
resources for private landowners through rental payments and cost-share funds to
restore riparian areas, received a call as well. In 2001, it enrolled in its
program the pastureland adjacent to the proposed greenway, whose current
occupants were beef cattle. The CREP made it possible to install a solar-powered
electric cattle fence and to acquire Ritchie Industries’ bright-yellow automatic
livestock watering equipment. For the first time, the cattle had regular access
to the town’s drinking water, says Beyer. For the cattle, these two enhancements
to the pasture made venturing toward the stream both unpleasant and unnecessary.
Even more encouraging, he says, a new tenant who “was sympathetic to the
greenway idea” took over the lease on the pasture. Beyer says the cattleman made
every effort to keep the herd out of the creek, including ferrying the animals
by truck to graze the fields on the opposing banks.
By
2007, the Hawksbill Creek Greenway had been extended in three phases to nearly 2
miles. Instream structures were used to stabilize the channel, and
malfunctioning septic systems affecting primary contact recreation uses had been
addressed. Now, during spring, Beyer says, “The creek is stocked with trout for
fishing.”
He
adds, “Everybody uses the trail,” but he feels there is more to be done. He
hopes to see the park extended 2 more miles, eventually connecting Luray’s
elementary school with the downtown waterfront.
“It
went way beyond what we thought, way beyond what the town thought,” says Beyer.
In addition to the water-quality improvements, he says, there are many other
benefits. Most notably, “Everyone says the greenway has been the major catalyst
for downtown development.”
Beyer
concedes there is a lot more that can be done for the Hawksbill. On many farms
upstream of town, livestock still have unfettered access to the streams.
Nevertheless, Beyer is pleased to say that along this stretch of the Hawksbill,
“No cows have been in the river since the year 2000.”
Down-to-Earth
Initiatives
Harrisonburg,
VA, is one of only two urbanized municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4s)
in the Shenandoah Valley, and it is growing fast. Between 1996 and 2006, the
city added around 11,000 residents, growing from 33,000 to about 44,000
people.
Jared
Stoltzfus, stream health coordinator for the city of Harrisonburg, says this
growth has led to some challenges. “Black’s Run is facing a number of problems:
sediment load, nitrates, phosphates, bacteria, increased water temperature, and
increased flooding during rainstorms.” He says Black’s Run, the headwaters of
which can be found within the city, has become a focal point for Harrisonburg’s
water-quality initiatives.
Thanh
H. Dang, environmental technology specialist, is in charge of implementing the
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) requirements for
Harrisonburg’s Public Works Department. “We’re a Phase II community,” she says,
“and we have to follow the six minimum measures as part of our permit
requirements.”
To
meet those measures, she says, “We take a lot of initiatives based on the total
maximum daily load [TMDL] recommendations.” Dang expects broad impact from
following some of the TMDL recommendations, particularly those concerning pet
waste control. She explains, “We did some calculations; we were thinking that
the average dog creates about 200 pounds of waste per year. Animal control
estimates there are about 10,000 dogs in the city—that includes both registered
and unregistered pets. In our TMDLs, pet waste was identified as a large
contributor to fecal coliform in the streams.” According to this logic, Dang
says, a pet waste control program could significantly reduce the bacteria load
on the streams. From the nuts-and-bolts perspective, she says the pet waste
control project is making progress. “The Parks Department put out pet waste
stations in every park.” But she says the city’s program must go farther and
will actually need to change people’s behaviors. “We want people to think about
the consequences if nobody bothered to pick up their dog’s
waste.”
For
this reason, Dang says, the city “launched the first phase of our stream health
campaign, called ‘Doodie-Free Harrisonburg.’
“The
city’s public relations person helped put it together, creating posters and
handbills,” she says, and students from local James Madison University helped
distribute the material. “They put them in community centers, in veterinary
offices—pretty much anywhere anybody was interested in getting some.” The
fliers, she says, explained the environmental consequences of bacteria getting
into the streams. “I don’t know if people quite understand the details—some
people don’t care to.” But, she says, the campaign carried the additional
message that the proper disposal of pet waste was the clean, healthy, and
neighborly thing to do. “That was probably more important—people seemed to grab
onto that better than just telling them it’s better for the
environment.”
“[Since
the campaign], we’ve put our name out enough so that people are contacting us.”
She says young people, especially, want to get involved. “A group of Girl Scouts
just called me in the past couple of weeks to ask if I could come to speak at
their meeting and do an activity with them. They’re particularly interested in
the Doodie-Free campaign, so we’ll probably be doing something like a coloring
activity and some crafts, so they can make signs for their yard and talk with
their neighbors about why picking up pet waste is so
important.”
Cleanup
Day
Jared
Stoltzfus believes community activities can help connect people in a positive
manner with the local waterways. One of the most successful of these activities
for Harrisonburg, he says, is the annual Black’s Run Cleanup Day. The cleanup
was initiated in 1997 as a volunteer effort by a group of concerned citizens
called the Friends of Black’s Run. With support from the city, the event has
been held annually ever since. However, in the spring of 2007, he says, the
event was adopted by the city and became an official program of the Public Works
Department.
Dang
describes the day as kicking off with celebrations and fun activities for the
children. “We also have an educational expo; we partner with the Department of
Conservation and Recreation, the Department of Environmental Quality, and the
Shenandoah Valley Water Conservation District. The local high schools and
Eastern Mennonite University put up displays for people and their kids to learn
about erosion control or recycling.”
Then
it’s down to business. Stoltzfus says volunteers can organize themselves into
teams to go out and begin the cleanup, or they can wait to be assigned to
particular cleanup activities. “We are familiar with our urban areas, and we
know from experience which streets need attention.” Occasionally, he says,
volunteers are surprised (and somewhat disappointed) to be assigned to cleanup
activities on city streets some distance from the stream bank. Stoltzfus says
that’s when he takes the opportunity to explain the watershed concept. But he
also notes, “It helps to always have the term watershed in the name of the
event.”
Dang
says over the years the event has grown in popularity. “This past year we had
457 volunteers, and they collected almost two tons of trash.” In addition, she
says, “The volunteers also did a lot of plantings and weeding along the stream
bank.” She believes the event gives people valuable hands-on experience with the
stream. While she says they don’t actually see pollutants such as oil grease and
the like, “seeing the trash makes them pretty aware.”
Although
these projects have been well received, Stoltzfus believes the city can do even
more. The Department of Parks and Recreation received funds from the Department
of Conservation and Recreation to restore 1,000 feet of stream bank along
Black’s Run by removing a concrete retaining wall and installing instream
structures to prevent erosion. The plan will create a more natural stream
channel design. The project will also introduce a Proper Lawn Care campaign to
educate residents and landscaping professionals on topics such as fertilizing,
soil testing, and pesticide use.
Already,
500 feet of concrete stream lining has been removed as part of this project, and
500 additional feet is slated for removal in the fall. Sections of the bank have
been planted with native flowers, and, in spite of its downtown location,
Stoltzfus says the setting now opens up a window on nature: “You can see a lot
of butterflies and birds.”
While
residents of the Shenandoah Valley have worked diligently for their local
streams, newspapers throughout the region began to run disturbing stories on the
Shenandoah River itself.
An
Aquatic Mystery
When
a half-dozen dead sunfish were found floating on a stretch of the Shenandoah
River in the spring of 2004, Don Kain of the Virginia Department of
Environmental Quality’s Shenandoah Valley Regional Office says he went to take a
look. “We also saw what appeared to be healthy fish swimming around; we saw
schools of minnows.” He says that seeing a cluster of dead fish suggested
“something very localized and very temporary. We didn’t think a whole lot of
it.” He says it was reasonable to speculate that the dead fish “may have been
part of a catch that a fisherman had kept on a stringer too long before letting
them go, and they just didn’t survive.”
He
recalls, “We looked at several different locations and didn’t see any dead fish
at those locations, so we concluded that this was some type of incidental
mortality unrelated to water-quality issues.”
However,
through the early spring of that year, reports of dead fish continued to come
in, and Kain says an odd pattern began to emerge. “A classic fish kill is one in
which fish die in a specific location, at a specific time, due to some specific
local circumstances—such as a spill of some toxic material or inhospitable
conditions.” These events, he says, “[Occur] from time to time due to some
catastrophic event or due to weather and other factors. Those typical fish kills
are quite easy to recognize, and they often involve all the species of fish in
the area.” In this case, however, he says, “We were losing almost exclusively
adult smallmouth bass and adult sunfish.”
“We
did considerable water monitoring and collected the fish and had them evaluated
by a fish pathologist. Nobody was able to determine a cause of death.” Later on,
Kain says, many of the dead fish were appearing with sores and lesions, a
condition not seen on the first few fish, which had succumbed. “We had low
numbers of dying fish over a widespread area, over a period of a few months. If
you went to a given spot on the river you might have seen two or three dead
fish; you might not see any. But you would also observe quite a few fish
swimming around apparently unaffected. It was mysterious.”
Water-quality
data didn’t provide any clues. According to Kain, there was speculation that the
die-off could have been tied to the high population density among those species
at the time, as nature’s way of winnowing out the weak. There were other
theories as well. Ammonia toxicity from manure or fertilizers spread on farms
was another early suspect, but Kain says the concentrations detected in water
samples “didn’t appear to reach toxic levels.”
When
the fish kills ended in mid June, Kain was concerned that the cause was as yet
unknown. More information was needed. Traditional monthly water-quality sampling
would not be enough. He set up a program to sample weekly. “We decided to set up
a more extensive water-monitoring network, to be prepared if this happened again
the next spring.”
In
the spring of 2005, the fish kills did recur, this time on the North Fork of the
Shenandoah. Kain estimates an 80% loss of the adult smallmouth bass and
redbreast sunfish over a 70- to 75-mile stretch of the river and similar losses
over close to a 100-mile stretch of the South Fork. Kain says the mysterious die
off was repeated in 2006 and 2007. Moreover, in 2007, similar fish kills were
being reported in parts of the Cowpasture River and the James River, both parts
of watersheds not contiguous with the Shenandoah
watershed.
Task
Force
After
the reports of the 2005 fish kill, the Virginia Department of Environmental
Quality (DEQ) and the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries set up the
Shenandoah River Fish Kill Task Force. The task force, which Kain leads,
includes experts in chemistry, fish health, and general fishery, along with
other stakeholders. “We have citizen volunteers from the Friends of the
Shenandoah, Friends of the North Fork, Augusta Stream Monitors, and university
researchers—it’s a pretty diverse group.”
According
to Kain, the task force deployed 11 passive samplers in discrete locations in
the river, both along the affected waterways and at reference locations in other
streams that had not experienced fish kills. The samplers, he says, are designed
to measure compounds that are typically too low in concentration to be detected
with conventional water samplers. Using a semi-permeable membrane to capture
organic contaminants, the samplers selectively attract different types of
organic compounds such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals. Though he says the
data won’t translate into concentrations, “the samplers can tell you what’s out
there, and how conditions at one location might differ from conditions at
another.” Kain says he expects the data from these samplers to be made available
by the US Geological Survey.
With
the sampling data, Kain hopes to build a contaminant profile that will allow him
to zero in on the potential culprits. “We can look for those same compounds in
fish tissue, or in tissue from individual organs such as the liver, to see if
we’re finding high concentrations in the fish.” He adds, “Even then, it doesn’t
prove causality; that may require laboratory exposure work.” Kain says bacteria
have been found in association with the fish lesions, raising the question of
whether the lesions are primary or secondary symptoms. “We’re taking a
two-pronged approach; we’re looking at the water chemistry issues, but there
very well could be a biological pathogen at work here.”
Though
he expects the data will be helpful, he doesn’t expect instant answers.
“Considering day-to-day variability in terms of temperature, flow, and storm
events, it’s very complex. It’s going to be very difficult to tease out a single
cause.” And, he cautions, “there could be multiple factors working in
combination.”
Citizen
Samplers
“Volunteers
have been indispensable,” says Kain. “Stream monitors
have been a great set of eyes and ears out in the field—in documenting the
location of fish kills, or fish with lesions—but they’ve also been a little army
of samplers. We’ve worked out some protocols and agreements with a number of the
citizen monitoring groups.” Because many of the people involved in the effort
“are retired folks, or people who don’t have a regular everyday job,” Kain says
they have the flexibility to respond at a moment’s notice over a wider
geographic area than can be covered by staff.
In
addition, he says, volunteer organizations applied for and received grant
funding to place and retrieve passive samplers from two different locations at
two different times during the spring of 2007. That, he says, was “a very
beneficial arrangement. It’s quite expensive work, and we can’t be everywhere
all the time.”
The
task force has established an e-mail address at DEQ and has sent out a press
release asking members of the public to report dead fish, either over the
telephone or via e-mail. Kain says callers are encouraged to give a description
of what they encounter.
Having
to deal with a crisis like the Shenandoah River fish kill is an experience Kain
says he would not wish on anyone. Nevertheless, he says, “It’s very interesting,
technically challenging, and frustrating at the same time.” Amplifying on this
he says, “The project is collecting a tremendous amount of data that will be
useful down the road. It has been an excellent experience in building
relationships with people we hadn’t worked with before. When you have a crisis,”
he says, “it makes these relationships stronger.”
Returning
to the Stream
If
the fish kills occur again, Kain hopes to capitalize more fully on citizen
monitors. And, he says, the monitors themselves are getting an important message
out: “Be observant; do good detective work.”
“They
are all volunteers. It’s a matter of their passion and their true desire to help
the river and correct the problem, that goes for the people who are paid staff
as well,” Kain says. “It hits close to home, especially for people who live near
the river. They’re willing to put considerable effort to bring it
back.”
Jared
Stoltzfus says he sometimes fields questions from Harrisonburg residents as they
follow the fish kill story in the media. Though he’s able to inform them that
the fish kills are not happening locally in Harrisonburg, citizens nevertheless
want to know what can be done. “More people are asking about Black’s Run now,
because they have an awareness, and it is something they can take action in and
participate.”