Scenic Rivanna: It's official
One of the many bills passed by the General Assembly this year was SB957, which adds nearly 10 miles of the Rivanna River below the South Fork dam to the state's list of scenic rivers. The demise of the Woolen Mills dam aided the designation, because scenic rivers can't be impeded, nor can another dam be built, says Southern Environmental Law's Kay Slaughter, who pushed for the official stamp.
9 comments
Don't think the people downstream from the South Fork Dam, along Pen Park and further down, have a clue how bad it's going to be if Ann is right and the water authority diverts water from the Rivanna into their $100 million dollar electricity fed pipe to Ragged Mt. Reservoir. This is a crazy costly idea that finally people are catching onto. Greg, I wouldn't call the Sierra Club, Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Board, Albemarle Citizens for a Sustainable Population, 6 City Neighborhoods and hundreds who signed petitions a small group of folks--think you're outnumbered.
Were the promised trees and shrubs ever planted? I'd heard at the time the people who tore down the dam were going to do some remediation on the abutting parcels along the river, but haven't heard anything since.
Yes! Another experiment that just did not work out. From "Dam Breach drops Rivanna, slowly" cited above is the following exerpt which is just not happening. Thousands of cubic feet of sediment and that 10 million gallons of Moore Creek effluent must be discouraging the river critters. God help them during a drought when the enviornmental releases for to 1.3 MGD at the SFRR dam.
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Once freed from the dam’s constraints, the Rivanna River is going to reshape its flow, predicts Alan Weaver from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. After the initial drop, the river level will rise again and clean out some of the debris that’s resurfacing, says Weaver, pointing to a shopping cart. In the fall and spring, trees and shrubs will be planted along the river.
Joining the shad will be the American eel, which hosts freshwater mussels, says Weaver. ââ?¬Å?Reopening 16 miles on the Rivanna may not sound like a lot,” says Weaver, ââ?¬Å?but it helps restore the habitat.”
Greg, Removing the dam at South Fork is that what you're advocating?
Still no Shad.
Hope SELC also care what will happen to the Rivanna if millions of gallons are sucked out of it and diverted to Ragged Mt. Reservoir under the water authority plan.
Right Richard guess this experiment didn't work. This happened in 2006
April 20th 2006
400,000 baby shad poured in Rivanna
by Hawes Spencer
Schoolchildren with buckets helped pour about 400,000 shad hatchlings into the Rivanna River yesterday, an event that presages the impending demolition of the Woolen Mills dam, an effort to give back to the American shad its hisoric spawning waters.According to WINA radio, the tiny fish have been marked with a chemical on their ear bones that identifies them as hatchery-born, and the re-stocking was co-sponsored by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the Rivanna Conservation Society.
As previously reported in the Hook, the Society has long lobbied to breach the 1830 Woolen Mills dam so the shad can return to spawning waters it hasn’t seen in nearly 200 years. However, the demolition plan ignited a fierce debate over the change to the Rivanna River and whether the shad will truly gain much new territory. Demo proponents say the claims are all wet.
Ann
You're mixing apples and oranges. If those opposed to the water supply plan were genuine in there concern for the Rivanna River and the environment, they would not be so concerned with the Rivanna Reservoir returning to its natural state- that being a river and not a reservoir....granted, most agree that some dredging of the SFRR is be necessary for water supply purposes. Furthermore, they would also acknowledge that the approved plan would also let natural flow return to the Mechums River.
The small group of anti-water supply plan citizens' claims are far from environmental....
Hey Guys,
Consider this, please. The Rivanna River Basin Commission has a theory called "Legacy Sediment". The Nature Conservancy actually came up with it but the RRBC (their shill organization) is spreading it as gospel with the stamp of governmental approval.
But the Chair of the RRBC is Sally Thomas (Sediment Sal). She is in favor of letting the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir fill with sediment. No dredging now. Our grandchildren will have to deal with it.
So I guess that Sediment Sal is leaving all that sediment as her legacy!