As a part of an educational lecture series by Friends of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, local award-winning author and activist Chris Bolgiano gave a lecture about legacy sediment created from deforestation during the late 1800's and early 1900's that still affects our local rivers to this day. The lecture is titled "A Sedimental Journey: How Historic Deforestation Degrades Waterways Today" and was recorded on May 2, 2021. You can watch this interesting lecture HERE.

From the Friends of the North Fork's website: "Deforestation in the late 1800s and early 1900s led to a huge loss of tree cover and thus sediment following that time period, as the sediment was no longer held in place by tree root systems. This sediment is referred to as ‘legacy sediment’ and was washed into the bottom of watersheds where it still can be found today. These thick layers of sediment (on the scale of three or more feet) that represent historic occupation in the Shenandoah Valley since 1740, are overlain on top of thinner layers (on the scale of centimeters) of sediment that represent much longer time periods (on the scale of thousands of years). The magnitude of the thickness of this sediment is visible in in-cut banks you can see if you take a float or walk along the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, and can lead to severe water channelization, consequent erosion, and large sediment loads in the North Fork of the Shenandoah—acting as a concerning pollutant in our waters and downstream."