Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Plan Comes Local:

Information and Discussion on What’s Next

MONDAY, May 14, 2012

2 PM – 4:30 PM

Virginia Dept. of Forestry Building, Charlottesville

For farmers, builders, local governments, business leaders, conservation advocates, and the public

For our planning purposes, please register by May 11 by contacting Jessica Lassetter at (434) 971-7722 or lassetter@rivannariverbasin.org.

Please join the discussion of how we can best move forward with the Bay cleanup plan and ensure the water quality of our own local streams and rivers. Presentations by  James Davis-Martin, DCR Bay TMDL Phase II Coordinator, and Russ Baxter, DEQ Chesapeake Bay Coordinator, plus the local perspective from a panel of local stakeholders and time for questions and discussion.

 This meeting is open to the public and is being hosted by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission (TJPDC) and the Rivanna River Basin Commission (RRBC). For further questions or information, please contact Steve Williams at (434) 979-7310 x110,  swilliams@tjpdc.or or Leslie Middleton at (434) 971-7722, middleton@rivannariverbasin.org.

Background: The Commonwealth of Virginia has submitted a detailed plan to the US EPA to show how the state will manage excessive nutrients and sediment that are polluting the Chesapeake Bay. This plan, the Virginia Watershed Implementation Plan Phase II (Virginia WIP II), also includes strategies that local governments in the Bay watershed of Virginia identified as ways to ensure pollution reduction at the local scale. To meet the reductions, everyone will have to work together, so the Piedmont Regional Pilot Project partnership is hosting this workshop to provide updated information to stakeholders and the general public.  Read more

This meeting is part of the Piedmont Regional Watershed Implementation Planning Project

made possible with funding from the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation.

Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ) is hosting a public meeting on water quality study update on local streams. Based on routine water quality monitoring, four streams in Charlottesville and Albemarle County have been added to the list of waterways in Virginia that do not meet water quality standards that define what is necessary for aquatic life in streams to thrive.

WHO:  The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Technical Advisory Committee (composed of local stakeholders, and Virginia Tech’s Biological Systems Engineering Department will host a public meeting on a water quality study for Moores Creek, Lodge Creek, Meadow Creek and Schenks Branch.

WHEN and WHERE: The meeting will start at 6:00 p.m. on March 15, 2012, at the City Space on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall.

WHAT: Virginia agencies have worked with Virginia Tech and local stakeholders to identify sources of sediment in local watersheds in Charlottesville City and Albemarle County.  Moores Creek, Lodge Creek, Meadow Creek and Schenks Branch in Charlottesville and Albemarle County do not meet water quality standards for aquatic life.  This pollution impacts the diversity and abundance of organisms living on or near the bottom of the stream.  For more information, click HERE.

WHY:   The purpose of the meeting is to present and discuss the study with community members and gather information for the next stage of the process.  During the study, DEQ and local stakeholders have developed a total maximum daily load, or a TMDL, for these streams. A TMDL sets a “pollution budget” for the stream which is the total amount of a pollutant streams can contain and still meet water quality standards. To restore water quality, pollutant levels have to be reduced to the TMDL amount.

WHAT’S NEXT:  The next step in the process will be the development of a “Clean-up Plan”  – actions, practices and strategies to reduce pollution to local streams in the Charlottesville/Albemarle area.  Come, listen, and be involved!

For more information: Please contact Tara Sieber, study coordinator in the DEQ Valley Regional Office in Harrisonburg, by phone at (540)574-7870, or by e-mail at tara.sieber@deq.virginia.gov. Additional information is also available on the DEQ web site at www.deq.virginia.gov/tmdl.

Based on routine water quality monitoring, four streams in Charlottesville and Albemarle County have been added to the list of waterways in Virginia that do not meet water quality standards that define what is necessary for aquatic life in streams to thrive.

The Rivanna River Basin Commission and local partners have received a grant of up to $267,000 to be used over the next two and half years to address the bacterial contamination of the Moores Creek watershed that drains portions of Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville. Project partners receiving funding include the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District (TJSWCD), Thomas Jefferson Planning District (TJPDC), and StreamWatch.

This funding from the Department of Conservation and Recreation will be used specifically to address the bacterial pollution coming from livestock operations, failing or non-existent septic systems, and pet waste. Over 60% of the funding will be made available as “cost-share” to help homeowners in the watershed address the sources of pollution on privately-owned lands. Most of the funding is federal EPA dollars, but a portion is from Virginia state funds.

During the grant-funded project, TJSWCD will reach out to homeowners in the watershed to encourage “best management practices,” or BMPs, ranging from exclusion fencing for livestock from to septic system pump-out and repairs. Funding will also be available to help homeowners connect to existing public sewer. Home composters specially designed for pet-waste will be made available for homeowners to encourage pet-waste collection that reduces polluted run-off to area streams due to cats and dogs.

Bacteria pollution in Moores Creek is from fecal coliform, found in the intestines of all warm-blooded animals, including dogs, cats, cattle, humans, and some wildlife. A 2003 plan? outlined many corrective measures including stormwater trunk repair and replacement and prevention of illicit discharges, and over 40% of these corrective measures have been completed or are planned soon. This project brings resources to the community to help with pollution reduction from homeowners and citizens.

The Moores Creek watershed covers 35 square miles of Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville. The creek forms much of the southern boundary of Charlottesville, draining the southern part of the city and parts of Albemarle County to the south and west of the city.  For a map of the Moores Creek watershed, see MooresCreekMap-AIR1

The Rivanna River Basin Commission reports that about 35% of Rivanna streams meet the criteria of “healthy waters,” based on an assessment tool developed by Virginia Commonwealth University developed specifically to identify healthy waters in the Commonwealth of Virginia. While this is a greater percentage than many areas in Virginia, the study highlights the importance of protecting existing healthy waters before they become degraded.

Of the 54 streams assessed in the Rivanna basin, 16 streams (29%) and 4 streams (7%) were “exceptional” based Virginia Commonwealth University’s INSTAR assessment tool developed for Virginia’s Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).

Thirty-six of the streams assessed in this study had occurrences of ecologically or economically important aquatic living resources, including brook trout, American eel, and smallmouth bass.

RRBC undertook this project because of the understanding that conservation and protection of healthy waters and their watersheds is the most cost effective means of protecting water quality and has the most benefit for the natural world because these efforts focus on maintaining the ecological integrity of natural systems.

RRBC is continuing to work to develop tools for integrating healthy waters into land use planning and decision-making in accordance with the spirit of and provisions for anti-degradation in the Clean Water Act.

More details on the project and the full report are available online at http://www.rivannariverbasin.org/dcr-healthy-waters.php.

Project funding for the Rivanna Healthy Waters Pilot Project came from USEPA through a grant from Virginia DCR.

VCU Scientists Collect Fish Sample in a Rivanna Tributary (summer 2010)

To provide expertise and recommendations to the Commonwealth’s team developing the Phase II Watershed Implementation Plan for the Bay TMDL, Virginia’s Secretary of Natural Resources, Doug Domenech, is appointing a stakeholder advisory group. Leslie Middleton, Executive Director of the Rivanna River Basin Commission, has been named to this group, which meets for the first time on April 26, 2011.

Ms. Middleton, who also served on the Phase I Chesapeake Bay TMDL Stakeholder Advisory Committee, will join members of local governments, representatives of the Virginia PDCs, and others to advise Virginia agencies as they detail the Bay TMDL pollution reduction goals from the major tributary level (such as the James) to the scale of local governments.

RRBC will continue to work with its partners, Thomas Jefferson PDC, Culpeper and Thomas Jefferson SWCDs, and the Rivanna local governments, during 2011 as information from localities is identified and utilized by the state to craft the Phase II Watershed Implementation Plan. The draft of this plan is due to EPA in November 2011.

On March 15, 2011, RRBC gave a presentation about the Piedmont Regional Pilot Project to the Middle James Roundtable, a collaborative effort that brings together stakeholders  to improve water quality through local and regional community-based watershed projects.

Ms. Joan Salvati, Director of DCR’s Division of Chesapeake Bay Local Assistance , and DCR’s team leader in development of the Phase II Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs), also spoke about Phase II WIPs.  She reported that DCR is close to finalizing guidance for local governments about Phase II, which will identify the accounting, documentation, and planning that will take place during 2011. She distinguished between the “allocations” that are a regulatory requirement that the Commonwealth of Virginia is responsible for — and the target reductions of nutrients and sediment that will be asked of localities to help meet the allocations.

The Rivanna flows muddy after a rain storm

The RRBC is developing the Rivanna Watershed Action Plan to help fulfill its mission of “promoting communication, coordination, and education, and by suggesting appropriate solutions to identified problems” in the Rivanna.

A Rivanna headwater stream

An important component of the Rivanna Watershed Action Plan will be on preserving the healthy waters that we are fortunate to have in our region.

Much has changed since TJPDC published the 1998 State of the Basin Report, so the RRBC is updating the information and will be working with partners to develop a comprehensive watershed plan over the next two years.

The watershed planning process will be coordinated with the pollution prevention measures that will be developed by Phase II Watershed Implementation Plans for the Chesapeake Bay TMDL.

Three Rivanna tributaries have made it to Virginia’s “dirty waters” with Virginia DEQ. That’s the bad news. Meadow Creek, Moores Creek, and Schenks Branch do not meet the Virginia’s water quality standard for supporting aquatic life. The good news is that DEQ will be working with Charlottesville residents and stakeholders to identify the sources of pollution and to develop a clean-up plan for the creeks. On Thursday, January 6, 2011, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Walker Upper Elementary School at 1564 Dairy Road, Charlottesville, DEQ will host a public meeting to discuss early results from testing and preliminary studies, and describe how developing the clean-up plan will progress.

The clean-up plan will start with establishing the pollutants of concern and developing a TMDL, or Total Maximum Daily Load, for those pollutants. This is the same process as EPA has just undergone with its state partners, only on a much, much larger scale for the Chesapeake Bay TMDL. We are fortunate to have this work underway in Charlottesville — because everything that we do to restore these streams to health will also help in our efforts to clean up the Bay.  Charlottesville City and RRBC staff will be at the meeting to talk about how this TMDL relates to the Bay TMDL.

For more information, contact Tara Sieber, study coordinator in the DEQ Valley Regional Office in Harrisonburg, by phone at (540)574-7870, or by e-mail at tara.sieber@deq.virginia.gov.

EPA signed and published the final Bay TMDL (Total Daily Maximum Load), a massive document that describes how the Bay will achieve water quality goals by 2025. The document, which includes Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs) from all six Bay states and Washington DC, can be accessed here. Of special interest is the Executive Summary and Chapter 8, which outlines how much of the each jurisdiction’s Nov 2010 WIPs were included in the final Bay TMDL — and how EPA intends to continue its oversight of the clean-up process.

The Bay’s water quality is degraded by excessive amounts of nutrients (phosphorous and nitrogen) and sediment that are part of run-off from the land and discharges from waste treatment plants and other sources. Many Rivanna stream segments are also unhealthy for some of the same reasons. The Bay clean-up plan requires that Virginia work in 2011 with local governments and others to identify the ways that these pollutants can be reduced — so, in the Rivanna watershed, what we do to restore our local streams will also help with the Bay clean-up effort.

The Commission has started a blog to provide updates to RRBC projects and related watershed events. You can sign up to receive these updates by RSS feed or email to your Inbox and are welcome to post relevant comments. The Commission continues to update content on its website frequently, especially a week before and after all Commission meetings, to include meeting materials for that meeting. The URL for the blog is http://rivannariverbasin.org/blog/.