High Water Earns High Marks for Stream Restoration Efforts

A potentially record-breaking and damaging storm surge came down Spout Run earlier this month along with monsoon rains, just two days after this restored reach of Spout Run at Carter Hall spring below Millwood had been staked and seeded.

The Downstream crew joined stream restoration specialists, Seth Coffman and James Fulcher from Trout Unlimited, to document how well the site and intended improvements held up. It is estimated that over 130 cubic yards of sediment were deposited over the newly established flood plain area and kept from washing further downstream to the Shenandoah River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay.

We love it when a plan comes together. Congratulations to Seth and James for a great design and execution.

Citizen scientists get their feet wet

For the past few weeks, Gem Bingol of the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) has been wading into the waters of Westbrook and Roseville Runs with citizen volunteers to monitor stream health.  She and her volunteers share some of their experiences in a new video produced by The Downstream Project.

Both Westbrook and Roseville Run feed into Spout Run, a tributary of the Shenandoah River that is on Virginia’s Impaired Waters list for bacteria and for aquatic life. “Impaired” means that bacteria pollution levels in Spout Run are so high, it doesn’t meet state or federal standards for fishing or swimming. The stream also has so much sediment that many bottom-dwelling insects and other small creatures eaten by fish can’t survive.  With leadership from PEC, The Downstream Project (TDP), Friends of the Shenandoah and other community partners, Clarke County citizens are now working to restore the watershed as part of the C-Spout Run restoration project, and remove it from the Impaired Waters list by 2025.

With input from local residents and these groups, the state of Virginia has come up with a plan to restore Spout Run. The plan is now underway, but judging its success will be difficult without some indicators along the way.  That’s where citizen monitoring comes in.   Gem and her teams are looking for benthic macroinvertebrates – insects, crustaceans, worms, snails and clams that live on the bottom of streams – to see what kind of life Spout Run and its tributaries currently support.  As Gem explains in the TDP video below, some macroinvertebrates are more tolerant of pollution than others.  When she and her volunteers find a lot of critters that are tolerant, and few that are intolerant, she knows that stream conditions are harming aquatic life and will need to be improved to restore the watershed.  Benthic macroinvertebrate monitoring is particularly useful because it reveals not only the health of the streams, but also the health of the surrounding land in the watershed.  Sensitive stream creatures need all the components of a healthy stream ecosystem, including shade trees and plants along waterways.  When a watershed doesn’t have enough vegetation along its streams, many benthic macroinvertebrates will disappear.

But crawly creatures aren’t the only way to measure stream health.  As volunteer (and a director of the Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation Service) Wayne Webb notes in the video, Friends of the Shenandoah River has been measuring actual pollution levels at key monitoring locations on the Shenandoah for years.  Those pollutants include nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment from fertilizer, livestock and erosion.  Collecting both kinds of information at the same sites in Spout Run over time will help identify baseline conditions, point to potential sources of the problems, and reveal if corrective measures solve the problems.

It takes a lot of feet to cover the 14 miles of stream in the Spout Run watershed.  To attend a training session and become a citizen scientist contact Gem Bingol at gbingol@pecva.org or visit the FOSR website.

Clarke County Recipient of NFWF Small Watershed Grant

Clarke County, Va. will receive $141,600 (plus $87,800 in matching funds) to improve water quality and restore eastern brook trout habitat in Spout Run by working with farmers and residential landowners to stabilize stream banks, install fencing and convert turf to trees. As a partner in this effort, The Downstream Project videotaped the NFWF press conference in Arlington, Virginia.

Watch Announcement: remarks by David O’Neill, Eastern Partnership Office Director, NFWF; Jeffrey Corbin, Senior Advisor for the Chesapeake Bay and the Anacostia River, U.S. EPA; The Honorable James P. “Jim” Moran, U.S. Representative

NFWF News Release (download PDF)
ALL NFWF Grant Recipients (download PDF)

[Read more…]

Chesapeake Bay Foundation Supports Spout Run Cleanup

Clarke Daily News

Dear Editor,

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation congratulates everyone engaged in the Spout Run watershed cleanup. It takes just such communitywide, public-private partnerships to restore local streams, as all of us contribute in some way to the pollution of our waterways, and all of us can play a role in cleaning them up. The Spout Run partners are to be commended for moving forward to restore clean water to their community, those downstream, and ultimately to the Chesapeake Bay.

Success will mean a healthier, safer stream, a more vibrant local economy, and better quality of life for local residents and future generations. Kudos to all involved: Clarke County, local residents, farmers, Trout Unlimited, Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District, The Downstream Project, Piedmont Environmental Council, Friends of the Shenandoah River, and the Virginia Departments of Environmental Quality and Conservation and Recreation.

Ann F. Jennings
Virginia Executive Director
Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Notice of Public Meeting

The TMDL document will be available on the DEQ website the day of the meeting for public comment and review:

The final public meeting on the development of these TMDLs will be held on Wednesday February 24, 2010. The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) seek written and oral comments from interested persons on the development of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for the Spout Run watershed in Clarke County. Spout Run was listed on the 1998 303(d) TMDL Priority List and Report as impaired due to violations of the State’s water quality standard for bacteria and violations of the State’s general (benthic) standard for aquatic life. The benthic and bacteria impairments on the South Fork Shenandoah extend for 3.7 miles from the confluence of Page Brook and Roseville Run downstream to the confluence with the Shenandoah River. In addition, Page Brook was listed on the 2004 303(d) TMDL Priority List and Report as impaired due to violations of the State’s water quality standard for bacteria. This impairment extends for 8.78 miles from the headwaters downstream to the confluence with Roseville Run.

Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act and §62.1-44.19:7.C of the Code of Virginia require DEQ to develop TMDLs for pollutants responsible for each impaired water contained in Virginia’s 303(d) TMDL Priority List and Report.
The public comment period for the final public meeting and TMDL document will end on March 29, 2010. The public notice appears in the Virginia Register of Regulations on February 15, 2010. [Open Meeting]