| | Upcoming Events in April:
April 7 - Free Screening of Gasland Part II at Court Square Theater in Harrisonburg
April 27 - Bird Walk and/or Bird Watch Canoe Float along Middle River in Ft Defiance. Join us at 535 Bailey Road in Ft. Defiance at 11:00 AM. Please register here to reserve a canoe space if you want to bird watch from a canoe.
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| | Middle River Watershed News & Notes
"Livestock with uncontrolled access to
streams in the Upper Middle River contribute to excess nutrient,
pathogen, and sediment inputs that are having a negative impact on
waters in the Shenandoah Valley and, ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay.
This project will focus on
the impaired stream segments of Eidson Creek (PS01), Bell Creek (PS04),
and Moffett Creek (PS05) within the Upper Middle River watershed with
concentrated focus on the special needs of non-operator farm landowners
and renters including a growing female community. These segments make up
approximately 67,037 acres and are being targeted because they are
known to be the three worst of the impaired stream segments with little
current activity."
To learn more about the goals of the Middle River Project, please click here. |
| | Why do farmers fence their livestock out of streams? |
| | What is a TMDL? There is a lot of talk about TMDLs in watershed news. Do you know what it means and how it relates to the conversation about water quality for the Middle River?
From the DEQ Publication Water Quality Improvement Plan for Middle River, Moffett Creek, Jennings Branch & Polecat Draft, Page 1:
"The Clean Water Act (CWA) requires that all of our streams, rivers, and lakes meet the state water quality standards.
The CWA also requires that states conduct monitoring to identify polluted waters that do not meet standards. Through this program, the state of Virginia has found that many
streams do not meet state water quality standards for protection of the
five beneficial uses: recreation, the production of edible and marketable natural resources, aquatic life, wildlife, and drinking. When
streams fail to meet standards, they are placed on the state’s impaired
waters list, and the state must then develop a Total Maximum Daily Load
(TMDL) for each pollutant. A TMDL is a “pollution budget” for a stream.
That is, it sets limits on the amount of pollution that a stream can
tolerate and still maintain water quality standards. In order to develop
a TMDL, background concentrations, point source loadings, and non-point
source loadings are considered. Non-point source pollution occurs when
pollutants are transported across the land to a body of water when it
rains. Point source pollution occurs when pollutants are directly
discharged into a stream. Through the TMDL process, states establish
water-quality based controls to reduce pollution and meet water quality
standards."
To download a copy of the DEQ Publication, please click here. The document is lengthy, but it spells out a plan to reduce the two pollutants, bacteria and sediment, that have created the impairment of the waterbodies listed above.
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