Local group receives grant

Organization acquires $3,600 for project aimed at reducing stormwater runoff February 8, 2012 By Matt Armstrong - Journal Staff Writer (marmstrong@journal-news.net) , journal-news.net CHARLES TOWN - The Blue Ridge Watershed Coalition was recently awarded a $3,600 Stream Partners Grant, which it plans to use for a project aimed at reducing water runoff and hydroplaning at the intersection of Mission Road and W.Va. 9. There are multiple parts planned for the project, and the coalition hopes to complete work by August or September, according to BRWC Chair Ronda Lehman. The coalition's goal is to preserve and protect the Blue Ridge Mountain's natural watershed. "Basically we want to stop the water that runs out across Route 9 that causes a real bad place to hydroplane," Lehman said in a phone interview Tuesday morning. "... It gets to be quite a little stream rolling across there and it's right on the corner, but if you're not turning onto Mission Road you have to make the corner and there's a big stream of water rolling across there. It could be quite problematic, and there's no shortage of accidents." The BRWC is planning to place rain barrels around the Mountain Community Center, which is located at the intersection, and there are plans to install rain gardens, a storage tank to hold rainwater, and riprap, which is material used to protect land against erosion. The coalition chose the project because it felt that it would be visible to both Blue Ridge Mountain residents and Jefferson County residents who take W.Va. 9 to work each day. The project could also help reduce Jefferson County's contributions to the Chesapeake Bay's problems, according to Lehman. "What we're doing is slowing down all that runoff that comes off the community center and rolls down onto Route 9, and that also in turn slows down the water on the way to the (Shenandoah) River, which is what takes all the particles and sediment out of it so it doesn't end up in the river and then downstream in the Chesapeake Bay," Lehman said. While the BRWC currently doesn't have a definite cost for the project, it's hoping to receive community donations and is in the process of looking for additional grants for funding. St. Andrews Church is paying for the rain barrels, the coalition is receiving a donated septic tank to hold excess water and Lehman is hopeful the West Virginia Division of Highways will provide some of the riprap, according to Lehman. Once the project is complete, the coalition will hold a public picnic to show residents what the project entailed. It's also hoped that when the results are viewed by Blue Ridge Mountain residents who have steep driveways that can be easily washed away during storms, they may take steps to prevent excess water runoff on their own property, Lehman said. Three other organizations in the Eastern Panhandle were awarded a Stream Partners Grant this year, according to Eastern Basin Coordinator Alana Hartman with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. "In the Eastern Panhandle, a lot of (grant money) has been used for vegetation to filter and slow down stormwater runoff, so either buffers like strips of trees along streams or rain gardens," Hartman said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon. The goal of the grant is to encourage watershed improvement projects in West Virginia, and applicants must show a specific improvement project in their applications. The Stream Partners Grant program is a joint program between the state's DEP, Division of Forestry, Division of Natural Resources and the West Virginia Conservation Agency, according to Hartman. Additional information on the BRWC is available online atwww.blueridgewatershed.org.

W.Va. rewrites plans to clean up Chesapeake Bay

MORGANTOWN (AP) - Farmers in eastern West Virginia have been working for decades to clean up rivers and streams in the Chesapeake Bay watershed - not only for the greater good, but for their own. "You can't raise livestock or keep animals without a good water source. That's one of the essential nutrients for any of us, for life," said Hardy County Extension Agent Dave Workman, who works with farmers in the heart of the state's poultry industry. "So nobody's going to really intentionally mess up their water," he said. "But, as with everything, you can always improve a little bit more." And that's what a coalition of state agencies is now requesting - a little bit more. The latest version of the state's Chesapeake Bay Watershed Improvement Plan calls on farmers to increase cover-crop plantings nearly 70 percent and dramatically expand stream restoration efforts to include 8,400 acres by 2025. Bay cleanup has been a particularly important issue for farmers because fertilizer and manure contain nutrients like nitrogen, which can wash from West Virginia's rivers and streams into the bay and contaminate the water. High levels of those nutrients can make the water toxic to aquatic life. The Department of Environmental Protection wants to hear from land owners and others who would be affected by those and other changes laid out in the latest draft of a plan going to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Workman said farmers in the South Branch Valley aren't likely to object. They see themselves as partners with the government agencies, not adversaries. Voluntary changes they've already made have left water far cleaner than it was 20 or 30 years ago, he said. Plus, they've had input on the plan now being considered. In 2009, the federal government ordered six watershed states and the District of Columbia to develop Watershed Implementation Plans, setting specific target reductions for nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment runoff from West Virginia. The EPA wants current nutrient levels cut 60 percent by 2017, and it wants measures in place to meet other targets by 2025. West Virginia submitted a plan two years ago, then redrafted it to include many changes for agriculture. In the latest version, EPA assigns 75 percent of the pollution from West Virginia's animal feeding operations to a part of the plan reserved for regulated pollution sources. Alana Hartman, Potomac Basin coordinator for the state environmental agency, said that signals a shift and warns farmers that these operations could be subjected to state or federal permitting to protect water quality. Although EPA has always had the authority to invoke the federal Clean Water Act and require permits for pollution sources, Hartman said it's rarely done so for farms in West Virginia. "By putting it in writing," she said, "it just makes everyone more aware of it." Other goals in the plan include: -Putting 90,000 acres in eight counties into nutrient management plans to control nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment runoff by 2025, an increase of 15,000 acres. That change also expands the target area from just Berkeley and Jefferson counties to the others in the watershed: Pendleton, Grant, Mineral, Hardy, Hampshire and Morgan. -Fencing off 5,200 acres by 2025 to reduce animals' access to streams. -Retiring 5,018 acres from agricultural use. -Expanding forest buffer areas by 1,570 acres. The plan originally envisioned shipping 40,000 tons of poultry litter out of the watershed counties and into counties that could use it as fertilizer, but that figure was cut to 12,000 tons. After talking with farmers and running computer models, the team realized "litter transfer would be really, really expensive, and we wouldn't get much impact," Hartman said. Instead, the plan focuses on other options that are more palatable to farmers. When all the strategies are put into the same model, Hartman said, West Virginia still meets the EPA's goals. Many changes West Virginia has already made have not yet been counted toward EPA's mandate, she said, so the state is now working to document all of those. The DEP is accepting public comment on the plan until Feb. 20. --- Online: W.Va. Chesapeake Bay Program: www.wvca.us/bay/

Second phase of bay plan on tap

Local details added to Phase I January 24, 2012 By John McVey - Journal staff writer MARTINSBURG - The draft of West Virginia's Phase II Watershed Implementation Plan is open for public comment, state Department of Environmental Protection officials announced recently. Called WIP II, it is West Virginia's plan to comply with new pollution limits imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through its Chesapeake Bay restoration initiative. Last year, EPA released stringent limits on the amount of nutrients, that is nitrogen and phosphorus, and sediment pollution that can get into the bay through its tributaries. The greater, eight-county Eastern Panhandle is in the Potomac River watershed, and the Potomac is one of the bay's major tributaries. Phase II builds on the first phase of the WIP, which was submitted in September 2010, but WIP II offers specifics about how local jurisdictions will reach the goals outlined in the first phase, explained Matthew Pennington, Region 9 Chesapeake Bay Program coordinator. For example, Pennington said that Phase II lays out how homeowners can cut down on the amount of nutrients that are washed off their lawns into local streams during storms by reducing the amount of fertilizer they use on their yards. He presented an update on the Chesapeake Bay program during Region 9 Planning and Development Council's meeting Monday afternoon. Region 9 encompasses Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan counties. The Chesapeake Bay restoration initiative has dominated much of Region 9's work plan for the past couple of years. Storm water runoff is one of the areas targeted by EPA to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution. Other areas that have been targeted are waste water treatment plants, land development and agriculture. According to the introduction to WIP II, the entire agriculture section of Phase I has been rewritten. West Virginia's plans to reduce pollution from agricultural operations was one of the sections that was severely criticized by the EPA's review of Phase I. A draft of WIP II is available at www.wvca.us/bay Comments will be accepted through Feb. 20. Comments can be sent to Alana Hartman, WVDEP-DWWM, HC 63 Box 2545, Romney, WV 26757 or to alana.c.hartman@wv.gov. The final draft of WIP II is supposed to be submitted to EPA for review by March 30.

Report links Chesapeake Bay cleanup, jobs

Jan 3 - RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A report by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation concludes that stormwater and sewage plant upgrades intended to help nurse the environmentally-battered bay back to health would create nearly 250,000 jobs. The report released today is aimed at countering claims that the multi-state, multi-billion restoration directed by the Environmental Protection Agency will be harmful to the economy and result in job losses, the foundation's president said. "That is not borne out by the facts," William C. Baker said in a statement. "Whether the target is EPA or the bay pollution limits, it is essential that the public understand that environmental regulations will create jobs to reduce pollution, and sustain jobs that depend on clean water." The report, called "Debunking the 'Job Killer' Myth," relies on a variety of industry experts such as engineers, reports and other sources to assess the impact of water pollution projects within the six states and the District of Columbia that comprise the bay's 64,000-square-mile watershed. It also reviews job-killing threats dating back to 1976 and Henry Ford II claimed that clean air and fuel efficiency standards would "shut down" Ford Motor Co. to illustrate historic claims that environmental efforts are bad for the economy. The report found instead that sewage and stormwater projects could provide work for 240,000 full-time jobs across the bay region - engineering jobs, construction and other employment for new pollution-control projects. The job projections include the so-called multiplier effect, or jobs created as a result of economic activity because of those upgrades. "Those jobs are going to be concentrated in the large metropolitan areas because that's where the greatest concentration of sewage and stormwater occurs," Baker said. Two key bay states, Virginia and Maryland, plan to invest a total of $3 billion to upgrade sewage treatment plants over more than a decade. That activity alone would create an estimated 60,000 jobs, the report said. It cites as an example a $305 million stormwater pollution control project in Maryland's Montgomery County that will create 3,300 construction and engineering jobs. Critics and some state and local officials have publicly questioned the ultimate costs of cleaning the bay, a task taken up by the EPA after decades of failure by the states to deal with its deteriorating environmental health. The bay's decline has created vast dead zones where no life exists, depleted oyster stocks and harmed other marine life. The overall cost of what has been called the most ambitious U.S. water pollution control project ever undertaken has been estimated in excess of $30 billion through 2025. It would be achieved through a "pollution diet" to reduce farm and urban runoff, which dumps nutrients in the bay, and improvements to systems that flush polluted water into the 200-mile-long bay. A state legislative report in Virginia concluded the job could cost state residents $13.6 billion to $15.7 billion. The report added, however, that the cleanup would also bring economic benefits, aiding industries such as tourism and seafood. Baker said he questions some of those cost claims and said history has shown the true costs are a fraction of "wildly exaggerated" estimates. "When you think of those construction workers building a sewage treatment plant, you certainly can make the argument that they're going out and spending more of that money that their making, and that is then going to create jobs in itself," he said. Besides the district, Maryland and Virginia, the cleanup plan involves New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia. The report concluded, "Despite rhetoric to the contrary, environmental regulations have a documented history of causing no harm to the economy, with job losses often more than balanced by jobs created by environmental cleanup."

More: Potomac Conservancy downgrades river's health

November 10, 2011 journal-news.net (AP) - Water quality in the Potomac was already bad and has grown worse in the past five years, as the river responsible for much of the District of Columbia's drinking water faces upstream pressures from forest loss and farming and downstream stress from growing development, the Potomac Conservancy said Thursday. In its annual State of the Nation's River report, the conservancy gave the waterway a D grade, down from D+ in its first report in 2007. The conservancy says there are new concerns as well, including contaminants such as chemicals found in the river that have been linked to so-called intersex fish that have both male and female traits. "The nation's river continues to face significant threats," said H. Hedrick Belin, president of the Potomac Conservancy. More than 6 million people now live in the river's basin in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, up 5 percent in the past five years. The river's vital signs have leveled off or declined as a result, the conservancy said, noting that in 2010 the river had the second largest decline in scores compiled by Chesapeake EcoCheck, a government university partnership, with four of six major health indicators declining. The river, for example, is often unsafe for swimming after heavy rains because many sewage systems are tied to storm drains that overflow, a problem that only increases with the population, the conservancy said. About half of the river basin is still forested, but development in downstream areas is depleting woodlands, with Prince George's County losing about half of its forests between 1993 and 2007. And upstream, where forests increased over the past century as farm lands were abandoned, that trend is being reversed due to growing development, the conservancy said. That's important because forested acres produce 95 percent less runoff during storms than paved areas of the same size. While many of the farms that remain are well managed, larger animal feeding operations are an increasing threat because of the amounts of manure the animals produce, Belin said. Runoff from manure and fertilizer from croplands, lawns and other sources harms water quality by promoting the growth of algae, which clouds water and robs oxygen once the algae dies and is broken down. That can lead to dead zones where the water lacks enough oxygen to support plants, fish and other organisms. The conservancy said progress has been made in the past five years, but not enough to get ahead of the growing problems. Many recommendations involve limiting runoff from developed areas. Forests also must be protected through conservation of existing areas and replanting, particularly along stream banks with a goal of a no-net loss of forests. The group is also calling for tighter toxic chemical controls. Todd Lookingbill, an assistant professor of geography and the environment at the University of Richmond, said the effect of development on streams and small waterways is often overlooked. Small waterways, which sometimes do not have water year-round, are "hot spots of biological activity'" that help remove pollutants, but they are often turned into culverts, channelized, or paved over. "By not allowing the water to interact with the land we are reducing the ability of the natural environment to filter these contaminants," Lookingbill said during a conference call. Lookingbill said development was also increasing in what he called "exurban" areas which are often rural. Developers, meanwhile, are often hampered by regulations that limit what can be done to reduce runoff, Belin said. Some communities, for example, require streets to be 30 feet wide when narrower streets would limit the amount of paved area. Developments in some places are also required to have a certain number of parking spaces, or don't allow more porous paving materials, he said. Local governments, he said, "need to step up in the coming months and lay out their plans for how they are going to reduce pollution in their communities." He said it will pay "tremendous dividends down the road in terms of clean and safe drinking water." Controlling runoff is a key feature of the federal Environmental Protection Agency's strategy for restoring the Chesapeake Bay, which the Potomac feeds, Belin noted. While gains have been made in cutting pollution from farms and sewage treatment plants, the EPA says pollution from urban and suburban runoff is still growing. The Potomac Conservancy has not graded the waterway since the first report in 2007. Conservancy spokeswoman Anne Sundermann said the new grade is part of its plan to reassess the waterway every five years. Jenn Aiosa, a senior scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the report isn't surprising, noting continued population growth. "I think the Potomac is, unfortunately, the perfect poster child for how we are changing the landscape," Aiosa said. While bay restoration efforts sometimes suffer from a disconnect between those who live far from the Chesapeake and don't see the link to their local waterways, Aiosa said the report could be a wake-up call for residents to demand clean drinking water. "There are a whole bevy of emerging contaminants that we have no idea what they mean for human health and they are out there in our drinking water," Aiosa said. The challenges facing the river as it travels from its rural headwaters, past Washington and into the Chesapeake show that keeping the district's drinking water clean, and ultimately the bay, requires the problem to be addressed on multiple fronts, she said. "We can't necessarily look for the silver bullet," Aiosa said. "We have to address wastewater treatment, the septic systems, the farms, the sprawl development, the roadways, everything."

Potomac gets downgraded

River’s water quality given D grade by conservancy November 11, 2011 journal-news.net (AP) -Water quality in the Potomac was already bad and has grown worse in the past five years, as the river responsible for much of the District of Columbia's drinking water faces upstream pressures from forest loss and farming and downstream stress from growing development, the Potomac Conservancy said Thursday. In its annual State of the Nation's River report, the conservancy gave the waterway a D grade, down from D+ in its first report in 2007. The conservancy says there are new concerns as well, including contaminants such as chemicals found in the river that have been linked to so-called intersex fish that have both male and female traits. "The nation's river continues to face significant threats," said H. Hedrick Belin, president of the Potomac Conservancy. More than 6 million people now live in the river's basin in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, up 5 percent in the past five years. The river's vital signs have leveled off or declined as a result, the conservancy said, noting that in 2010 the river had the second-largest decline in scores compiled by Chesapeake EcoCheck, a government university partnership, with four of six major health indicators declining. The river, for example, is often unsafe for swimming after heavy rains because many sewage systems are tied to storm drains that overflow, a problem that only increases with the population, the conservancy said. About half of the river basin is still forested, but development in downstream areas is depleting woodlands, with Prince George's County losing about half of its forests between 1993 and 2007. And upstream, where forests increased over the past century as farm lands were abandoned, that trend is being reversed due to growing development, the conservancy said. That's important because forested acres produce 95 percent less runoff during storms than paved areas of the same size. While many of the farms that remain are well managed, larger animal feeding operations are an increasing threat because of the amounts of manure the animals produce, Belin said. Runoff from manure and fertilizer from croplands, lawns and other sources harms water quality by promoting the growth of algae, which clouds water and robs oxygen once the algae dies and is broken down. That can lead to dead zones where the water lacks enough oxygen to support plants, fish and other organisms. The conservancy said progress has been made in the past five years, but not enough to get ahead of the growing problems. Many recommendations involve limiting runoff from developed areas. Forests also must be protected through conservation of existing areas and replanting, particularly along stream banks with a goal of a no-net loss of forests. The group is also calling for tighter toxic chemical controls. Todd Lookingbill, an assistant professor of geography and the environment at the University of Richmond, said the effect of development on streams and small waterways is often overlooked. Small waterways, which sometimes do not have water year-round, are "hot spots of biological activity'" that help remove pollutants, but they are often turned into culverts, channelized, or paved over. "By not allowing the water to interact with the land we are reducing the ability of the natural environment to filter these contaminants," Lookingbill said during a conference call. Lookingbill said development was also increasing in what he called "exurban" areas which are often rural. Developers, meanwhile, are often hampered by regulations that limit what can be done to reduce runoff, Belin said. Some communities, for example, require streets to be 30 feet wide when narrower streets would limit the amount of paved area. Developments in some places are also required to have a certain number of parking spaces, or don't allow more porous paving materials, he said. Local governments, he said, "need to step up in the coming months and lay out their plans for how they are going to reduce pollution in their communities." He said it will pay "tremendous dividends down the road in terms of clean and safe drinking water." Controlling runoff is a key feature of the federal Environmental Protection Agency's strategy for restoring the Chesapeake Bay, which the Potomac feeds, Belin noted. While gains have been made in cutting pollution from farms and sewage treatment plants, the EPA says pollution from urban and suburban runoff is still growing. The Potomac Conservancy has not graded the waterway since the first report in 2007. Conservancy spokeswoman Anne Sundermann said the new grade is part of its plan to reassess the waterway every five years. Jenn Aiosa, a senior scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the report isn't surprising, noting continued population growth. "I think the Potomac is, unfortunately, the perfect poster child for how we are changing the landscape," Aiosa said. While bay restoration efforts sometimes suffer from a disconnect between those who live far from the Chesapeake and don't see the link to their local waterways, Aiosa said the report could be a wake-up call for residents to demand clean drinking water. "There are a whole bevy of emerging contaminants that we have no idea what they mean for human health and they are out there in our drinking water," Aiosa said. The challenges facing the river as it travels from its rural headwaters, past Washington and into the Chesapeake show that keeping the district's drinking water clean, and ultimately the bay, requires the problem to be addressed on multiple fronts, she said. "We can't necessarily look for the silver bullet," Aiosa said. "We have to address wastewater treatment, the septic systems, the farms, the sprawl development, the roadways, everything."

Local river cleanup considered a success

Many tires, two TVs, trash removed

November 9, 2011

By Matt Armstrong - Journal Staff Writer (marmstrong@journal-news.net) , journal-news.net MILLVILLE - About 35 volunteers helped tidy up the Shenandoah River on Saturday as part of the Blue Ridge Watershed Coalition's first river cleanup. Volunteers at the event, which had to be rescheduled from its original date due to inclement weather, collected more than 40 discarded tires both along the riverbanks and in shallow sections of the Shenandoah River, according to event organizer and BRWC chair Ronda Lehman. The cleanup effort also netted two televisions and enough small pieces of trash to fill a large number of trash bags, Lehman said in a phone interview Tuesday. The cleanup covered an area of about four miles, from Shannondale Springs to the railroad tracks at Millville. "We had people in the water, but we got most of the booty off the banks, all the stuff that's getting ready to wash in," Lehman said. "We did geocaching and we marked stuff with flags because a lot of it I can get when I'm out in my kayak. "We're going to do another (cleanup) in July when the water's low and we're going to get grappling hooks and pull those tires out that way, because they're just embedded. ... They get filled up with silt, and they're just impossible to pick up after a while." Apart from individual volunteers the cleanup also attracted several local businesses, which provided sundry supplies for the participants. Rafting companies River Riders and River & Trail Outfitters provided rafts, guides, life jackets and paddles, while Appalachian Surveys PLLC donated water. Ridgefield Farms donated apples and a gift certificate for a Christmas tree, according to a news release from Lehman. "It's always a good day when the community comes together to make our corner of the world a better place," Lehman stated in the release. "It's a daunting task trying to save our water for future generations, and every event makes a difference." Information on the BRWC, its goals and future river cleanups can be found online at www.blueridgewatershed.org.