Huntley Meadows Park restores hemi-marsh

Northern Virginia:

“A hemi-marsh is a shallow wetland with water levels that change seasonally. It’s not a lake. The ideal hemi-marsh — ‘hemi’ means ‘half’ — is 50 percent water and 50 percent plants, a combination that provides biodiversity, a healthful balance for a wide variety of local native plants and animals.

Huntley Meadows Park, which has the largest nontidal wetlands in Northern Virginia, just completed a project to bring back the hemi-marsh ecosystem that beavers created there in the 1970s…

Over the years, this huge natural area south of Alexandria became surrounded by roads and houses. That development caused tons of silt (small particles of rock and soil) to flow into the wetlands, reducing the water’s depth by one-third, destroying habitats and encouraging silt-loving plants such as cattails to take over, crowding out other plants.”

~Writes Ann Cameron Siegal of the Washington Post

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Environmental Finance Center to Host Workshop

Central Shenandoah PDC:

“The CSPDC is assisting the University of Maryland's Environmental  Finance Center (EFC) in hosting a workshop in the region that will provide information and resources for financing effective stormwater management programs.  The goal of the workshop is to build capacity in the Shenandoah Valley for implementing effective programs to protect and improve the quality of water in local streams, such as Blacks Run in Harrisonburg, the South River in Waynesboro, Lewis Creek in Staunton, the Maury River in Buena Vista, and others. 

The workshop will cover topics relevant to both the Virginia Stormwater Management Program, which regulates post-construction stormwater runoff from construction sites, as well as financing strategies for localities that operate Municipal Separate Stormwater Sewer Systems (MS4).  EFC and other experts will speak on topics ranging from assessment tools to innovative marketing strategies.

In addition, this workshop will provide a unique opportunity for municipalities to share successes, challenges, and ideas for implementing successful stormwater programs.  The workshop is funded by the Chesapeake Funders Network.  It will be held at James Madison University's Festival Conference Center on May 22nd from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. ”

~Central Shenandoah PDC

Visit the event page for registration and agenda - click HERE. 

Oil and gas leases in bay region spark debate

Chesapeake Bay Region:

“A company that’s leasing oil and gas rights in Virginia’s rural coastal plain has tapped a gusher of concern. Some people worry that drilling could pollute waters in the Chesapeake Bay region and turn pastoral Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula counties into noisy industrial zones.

But the president of the Texas company acquiring the leases, Shore Exploration & Production Corp., said drilling could turn landowners into millionaires and help the environment by providing relatively clean-burning natural gas… Much of the bay-region controversy centers on a drilling method called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.”

~Writes Rex Springston of the Richmond Times-Dispatch

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AG Herring backs federal Bay cleanup plan

Chesapeake Bay:

“Attorney General Mark R. Herring announced Thursday that he filed an amicus brief in support of the federal Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan that is being challenged in a federal court case by the American Farm Bureau Federation and attorneys general in 21 states. The case is pending before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a federal district court had upheld the plan…

Efforts to clean the bay have been underway since the mid-1980s. The latest plan aims to put enough pollution controls in place by 2025 to restore the bay, with most of the controls being implemented by 2017. The effort could cost Virginians more than $15 billion, according to state estimates.

Former Gov. Bob McDonnell’s administration worked to develop the current cleanup plan. But some environmentalists complained last year that the state was falling behind in meeting certain goals, including the use of modern methods to reduce stormwater runoff.”

~Writes Markus Schmidt of the Richmond Times-Dispatch

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Supervisors consider fee structure for stormwater management

Gloucester County:

“The Gloucester County Board of Supervisors was asked at its April 1 meeting to consider fees for stormwater management to advertise for a public hearing on the matter, which is scheduled for June 3. Gloucester’s environmental programs administrator Scott Rae updated the board of supervisors during its meeting in the colonial courthouse on a stormwater management program, mandated by the state’s Department of Environmental Quality.

Gloucester supervisors are exploring managing the new requirements locally versus having the state DEQ administer the program. Therefore, the county must submit its final plan to DEQ by mid-June. According to Rae, the purpose of the stormwater management plan is to protect local water resources by minimizing off-site transport of sediment and other pollutants during and after construction.

County staff is currently proposing a set of fees for developing property in Gloucester, with a stormwater review base fee of $750, plus a per-acre cost and a land disturbance base fee of $200, plus per-acre cost. However, the board of supervisors will essentially have the final say in setting the fees for permitting and stormwater review.

Rae told supervisors that one thing they must decide is whether to set the fees lower to benefit business development, effectively offsetting county services through the use of general fund money, or they may set fees at a higher rate to meet the services provided and reduce reliance on the tax-sourced general fund.”

~ Writes Quinton Sheppard the Gazette-Journal

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Cleanup continues at former waste burn pit in Hanover

Hanover County:

“The H&H burn pit was a clearing in the woods where people got rid of toxic waste the old-fashioned way — by dumping it in a hole and setting it ablaze. Neighbors recalled seeing black smoke rise hundreds of feet in the air and then settle over the community. ‘We used to go back in there and play in the pit,’ said retired truck driver Lester Gordon, 65, standing on his back porch near the site.

The 1-acre site lies just off U.S. 33 in the rural Farrington area of southwestern Hanover County. The Haskell Chemical Co. used the site from 1960 through 1976 to dispose of waste including solvents from the cleaning of printing presses, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The waste was hauled to the site in drums, poured into two pits and burned. Toxic chemicals called PCBs ended up in the soil and on the muddy bottom of a small stream. Pollutants including benzene and trichloroethene, or TCE, built up in underground water. PCBs, benzene and TCE have been linked to cancer.”

~ Writes Rex Springston of the Richmond Times-Dispatch

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Toxic Superfund sites are still with us

Virginia:

“They were the worst of the worst, the most-dangerous toxic-waste dumps in Virginia. Bearing names like Avtex, Kim-Stan and Greenwood, these poisoned plots spawned long-ago headlines and, in at least one case, killed people. Today they are Virginia’s 31 Superfund sites, still with us after years of cleanup — safer but not yet tame.

‘By definition it poses health risks to the public’ if a site sits on the Superfund list, said Noah Sachs, an environmental law expert at the University or Richmond School of Law. The nation’s most hazardous waste sites go on the Superfund list, named for a pool of federal dollars created to help clean the properties.

In Virginia, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has spent or obligated more than $250 million for cleanups at Superfund sites. Many military installations harbor Superfund sites, and the Department of Defense has spent or obligated more than $760 million. The state has kicked in more than $8 million.”

~ Writes Rex Springston of the Richmond Times-Dispatch

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