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In brief: Greenway to nowhere, Richmond rundown, sucker punches and more

Schenk's Greenway, April 2015. Courtesy of the city

Greenway to nowhere

Perhaps you’ve noticed the small gravel trail that runs alongside McIntire Road, past the old Lane High School that now serves as the Albemarle County Office Building and the baseball field and then, seemingly, stops in its tracks at Harris Street. In 2006, the city began a project to build the multi-use trail, Schenk’s Greenway, as a connector between the office building and McIntire Park.

But the greenway has been closed and under construction since July 2015 for the first phase of a $1.5 million Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority project called the Upper Schenk’s Branch Interceptor Replacement, an upgrade to increase wastewater infrastructure capacity along that sewer line, according to RWSA spokesperson Teri Kent. It’s currently about 85 percent complete and scheduled for a substantial push in March with landscaping and site restoration finished this spring.

The trail will be paved to accommodate the expected increased use, says city trail planner Chris Gensic. The long-term trail plan is to connect the Downtown Mall and Preston Avenue to McIntire Park—Schenk’s Greenway will be the middle section of that trail.

Here's what it looks like now. Staff photo
Here’s what it looks like now. Staff photo

So much presidential activity

Teresa Sullivan's had a rough five years. Will she stay at UVA's helm? Photo: Ashley Twiggs
Photo: Ashley Twiggs

On the same day Barack Obama handed over the keys to the White House to Donald Trump, UVA President Teresa Sullivan announced she would be leaving when her contract expires in summer 2018, and the university will begin a search for a new prez.

Blogger arrested

Photo: Eze Amos
Photo: Eze Amos

Jason Kessler, the man who dug up Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy’s offensive tweets and who is collecting signatures to remove him from office, was arrested January 22 on the Downtown Mall for allegedly punching a man in the face, according to Tomas Harmon at the Newsplex. Kessler contends the punching was self-defense.

EPIC goals

Dave Norris, Jeff Fogel and Dede Smith. Staff photo
Dave Norris, Jeff Fogel and Dede Smith. Staff photo

A new city political organization—Equity and Progress in Charlottesville—debuted January 17, and features former elected officials such as Dave Norris and Dede Smith. It hopes to tap into the Bernie Sanders’ progressivism and elect candidates to tackle income inequity and affordable housing.

New Dominion Bookshop’s loss

Photo: Amanda Maglione
Photo: Amanda Maglione

Long-time owner Carol Troxell, 68, died unexpectedly January 18, the Daily Progress reports. Troxell bought the Downtown Mall store in the mid-’80s, and made it a popular haven for author readings and Virginia Festival of the Book events.

State parks high

Governor Terry McAuliffe says attendance in 2016 was a record, with 10,022,698 visitors, which topped 2015 by 12 percent.

Richmond rundown

The General Assembly has been in session two weeks, and here’s a snapshot of what’s happening.

  • Redistricting: Delegate Steve Landes, one of Albemarle’s four delegates (thank you gerrymandering), carried a constitutional amendment to take the politics out of electoral line drawing.
  • Misdemeanor DNA: Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding and Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci called for a study to expand DNA collection for misdemeanors like trespassing, petit larceny and assault in a bill carried by Delegate David Toscano and co-patroned by Landes.
  • Removal of elected officials: Already difficult in Virginia and requiring a petition signed by 10 percent of voters in the last election, this bill requires 20 percent of the voters’ signatures and a special election.
  • Bathroom bill: Delegate Bob Marshall’s bill, modeled after North Carolina’s, died quietly in a Republican-controlled subcommittee January 19.

Quote of the Week:

“Charlottesville is a ‘beautiful ugly city.’” —The Reverend Brenda Brown-Grooms’ description used at former vice-mayor Holly Edwards’ January 12 funeral was echoed—twice—at City Council January 17.

Correction: Equity and Progress in Charlottesville was misidentified in the original version.

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Let it ride: Majority of meeting goers want bikes at Ragged Mountain

Rachel Thielmann is an advocate for allowing mountain biking at Ragged Mountain, and she says her whole family would benefit. Photo by Eze Amos

The city of Charlottesville has so far held nine public meetings on the long-discussed topic of whether Ragged Mountain should remain a natural area or be opened for other uses, such as mountain biking or dog walking. Though a final decision looms, some say public opinion is cut and dried.

A year-old poll taken by Charlottesville Tomorrow showed that 83 percent of voters would prefer to see some shared-use trails on the property. Updated tallies, presented by the Charlottesville Area Mountain Bike Club and Rivanna Trails Foundation member Jon Ciambotti, show that while 84 people at public meetings since November 2014 have spoken out against bicycle usage at Ragged Mountain, 220 have asked the city to let the people ride.

Those numbers, according to the city, include some of the same people who are counted multiple times.

Rachel Thielmann, a mother of three girls on a local mountain biking team, is one of those advocates for shared usage.

“It would be awesome if my kids and I had the opportunity to get over to Ragged Mountain for a quick ride and be home in time to get dinner ready,” she says. “The reality is that nothing exists that fills that need.”

Opponents of shared trails at Ragged Mountain often cite Preddy Creek as a better place to ride, she says, but its Albemarle County location up Route 29 is nearly in Greene County and a 40-minute drive.

“Charlottesville is our community,” she says. “We live and work here, send our kids to school here, pay taxes, shop here and eat here. We are constantly encouraged to think local in our choices and this is an awesome mentality that we support. So why not be able to ride local, too?”

City spokesperson Miriam Dickler says biking is currently allowed in all city parks except for Ragged Mountain and the Ivy Creek Natural Area. But on a map of city parks, Ciambotti points to the three largest green areas: Pen, Darden Towe and McIntire parks, which are dedicated to other uses. At the first, he says a golf course spans across a large chunk of what would be a riding area, sports courts cover the second, and the third will soon be a botanical garden designated as a natural area. So shared-use trails at Ragged Mountain, he and Thielmann agree, are the perfect fix.

Thielmann calls shared-use opponents a “relatively small, but extremely vocal group” who often cite the ecological benefit of only allowing walkers and hikers on the trails. That’s a claim that has “absolutely no scientific support,” she says, because multiple studies have shown that bike tires on trail systems are no more impactful than hiking shoes or boots.

Though former city councilor Dede Smith, who has long advocated for keeping the area around the reservoir natural, did not respond directly to those studies, she says protecting Ragged Mountain is a matter of public health.

“To deliberately remove those protections at a time in our history when this original water supply has again become our only clean water reserve for the future, and when contaminated drinking water is in the news on a daily basis, is simply absurd,” she says. “To do that is comparable to denying climate change.”

As for the public opinion polls, she says the biking community brought large families of bikers to the first few public hearings, while those advocating for maintaining one of only two natural areas in the community “dominated” most of them.

“We’ve been amazed at how this process has not been based on facts,” Ciambotti says. “And how it’s mostly been based on hyperbole, fear and emotions.”

Mountain bikers often get a bad rap, he continues—they’re not all ripping Red Bulls in between backflips on their bicycles. In fact, many have the same overall goal as those who hope to keep the ban on bikes: preservation.

Members of CAMBC—the mountain biking club—are stewards dedicated to building sustainable trails in the city and county, he says. In fact, he estimates that they have already built about three miles of trail at Ragged Mountain in conjunction with the city.

Most of the mileage mountain bikers are proposing to make shared use is on the backside of Ragged Mountain—about an hour-and-a-half hike from the parking lot—leaving a good deal of the most convenient trails to be designated for hikers only. Some trails would remain for walkers only, his group proposes.

And when detailing damage to the environment, Ciambotti says the real factor of human impact is the level of use.

To be considered a natural area, Virginia state parks guidelines require 5 percent or less of the acreage be used for trails. Ragged Mountain, which has 980 acres and about eight miles of trail, is at 1.9 percent, according to Brian Daly, the director of the city’s parks and recreation department.

CAMBC has also offered to enter a memorandum of understanding with the city that would make the group liable for any accidents and require it to maintain the trails—to keep them clean and alert staff of any fallen trees across the path.

At the end of the day, Ciambotti says the argument is about exclusivity and who should be able to enjoy the great outdoors.

“I don’t want to bike on the road next to a garbage truck,” he says. “I want to bike in nature.”

Parks and Recreation Advisory Board members have indicated that they would like to make a recommendation to the Planning Commission and City Council, which will ultimately vote on the matter, at their October 19 meeting.

Updated October 7 at 9:25am with a more accurate headline and to reflect that nine public meetings, instead of nine public hearings, have been held on the potential shared use of Ragged Mountain. 

Updated October 11 to note that the numbers of those for and against biking include some of the same people who commented multiple times.

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In bloom: Algae in reservoirs ‘significant’

A bloom of blue-green algae covers the South Fork Reservoir on August 21, 2015. Photo courtesy of the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority

An unquantified, but substantial amount of blue-green algae has bloomed at the Beaver Creek and South Fork Rivanna reservoirs, according to a new report presented to the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority’s board of directors May 24. Consultants say the water supply at Ragged Mountain Reservoir is another one to watch.

Algae—caused by a nutrient overload—is problematic in a water system because it can cause taste and odor compounds, cyanotoxins and filter clogging.

At Beaver Creek and South Fork, consultants and RWSA staff have spent nearly $120,000 since 2014 on chemical treatments to stop the algae. While the consultants will present the board with a modified monitoring program for those reservoirs in the coming weeks, they have instructed staff to continue monitoring the water at Ragged Mountain, in which they have found occasional floating algae.

“I’d be very surprised if [Ragged Mountain Reservoir] didn’t develop problems very soon,” Alexander Horne, a professor emeritus of environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, says. He, along with Kelly DiNatale of DiNatale Water Consultants, presented the report.

RWSA board members had questions about cost and procedures, but they all generally seemed to agree that treating the blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, is a priority.

“It’s all going straight into your bathtub,” former city councilor Dede Smith said at the meeting. She has led the charge to keep Ragged Mountain Reservoir a natural area, while her opponents hope to make the area less exclusive by permitting dog walking, mountain biking and other recreational activities.

The side that leans toward permanently banning dogs and other pets often cites the harmful effects of animal droppings in the water supply.

“While livestock are the greatest contributor of animal waste, perhaps the least suspected source of animal waste is a man’s very own best friend,” the EPA states in a 2014 bulletin on its website. “Pets, particularly dogs, are significant contributors to source water contamination.”

The EPA has also cited dog waste as a contributor to excess nutrients that lead to algal bloom.

“It’s serious,” says Smith. “As a community, we have the opportunity now to prevent this from happening at what has become the single most important reservoir we have.”

But DiNatale points to research that shows Ragged Mountain may not need to remain sans Sparky for the overall health of the water supply.

“Animal droppings, whether from wild or domestic animals, represent a very minor source of nutrient inflows to the authority’s reservoirs,” he says. “We could remove all of the animals, both wild and domestic, but still would be experiencing algae blooms from all of the other sources.”

There’s always tension between allowing recreational activities near reservoirs and protecting the water supply, DiNatale says, and that’s partially why RWSA is looking for in-lake algae-management methods.

“With that said, it is always preferable to address whatever land use activities are manageable,” he says. “Every water provider would love to have a protected watershed without any animal or human impacts, but, as we know, that is impossible for virtually all of the country’s water supplies.”

But Smith cites a 2002 letter from the Virginia Department of Health to the authority, in which she says the department “admonished RWSA for not considering the quality of its raw water source.”

In the letter, the department stressed that the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments and the EPA have placed “greater emphasis on source water protection and preventing contaminants from entering water supplies in lieu of the past practice of removing contaminants at water treatment facilities.”

According to Smith, failure to protect the water source has already led to contamination of half of our reservoirs, the necessity to add chemicals and heavy metals for purification and about $25 million in new infrastructure to deal with the worst of the pollution.

“In other words,” she says, “don’t contaminate your raw water source in the first place.”

Related Links:

May 10, 2016: Critics still question Ragged Mountain plan

March 9, 2016: One local wants litter removed from the Rivanna

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Reservoir reservations: Critics still question Ragged Mountain plan

Former RWSA executive director Tom Frederick and Chair Mike Gaffney inspect the plaque that commemorates their efforts in getting the Ragged Mountain Dam built. Staff photo

Perhaps nothing this century has shaken the Charlottesville area more than the drought of 2002, when carwashes closed, restaurants served on paper plates and the water supply was within 60 days of running out.

And perhaps nothing has divided the community more than the multi-year battle waged over the plan to build a 129-foot-tall mega-dam at Ragged Mountain that would be filled with a nine-mile pipeline from the silting-up South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, from which most of the area’s water still comes.

Today, the pipeline is unbuilt and the South Fork is still filling with sediment, but the new $38 million dam at Ragged Mountain is complete and the reservoir is full, holding 1.5 billion gallons of water.

Champions of the Ragged plan gathered at the new dam on a rainy May 5 to toast the bounty of fresh water and celebrate National Drinking Water Week. Mike Gaffney, chair of the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority, noted the “herculean effort” to get the dam approved and built, construction of which started in 2012 and was completed in 2014.

Former RWSA executive director Tom Frederick, who led the dam construction effort after a plan to pull water from the James River was rejected and who just finished his tenure here to take a new job in Loudoun County, recalled the community’s fear of drought—and fear of clear cutting and destruction of habitat in the natural area around the reservoir.

“We’re putting to rest permanently the notion this would be an environmental wreck,” said Frederick. “We recognize and prove we as humans can live together with nature.”

Albemarle Board of Supervisors Chair Liz Palmer was on the Albemarle County Service Authority Board when the debate raged, and she noted that the new dam “was only part of the plan.” Palmer listed aging infrastructure—both the 1920s-built pipeline from Sugar Hollow reservoir used to fill Ragged Mountain and the Observatory Hill Water Treatment Plant, which processes water from the Ragged reservoir, are “antiquated,” she said.

Once the pipeline is built from South Fork Rivanna for water storage at Ragged Mountain, during times of drought, the pipe will be able to “gravity feed” back down to the South Fork, which has the largest water treatment plant, she said. That offers redundancy and “we don’t have to build a new treatment plant,” said Palmer.

The unbuilt pipeline is still the rub for those who fell into the camp that favored dredging the Rivanna rather than investing in the new dam. “It was a ridiculous idea to begin with,” says former city councilor Dede Smith, who founded a group called Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan. “It was $100 million of a $140 million project.”

“I haven’t seen any acquisitions of rights of way” to build the pipeline, says former vice-mayor Kevin Lynch, who also opposed the Ragged Mountain plan. “Most people are still getting water from the South Fork and nothing’s been done to that.”

The good news, Lynch adds, is the South Fork reservoir is silting up more slowly than it had in previous decades. “We’re good at building new stuff and not so good at maintenance,” he says.

“We’re going to get that pipeline built,” assures Gaffney.

“It’s in the capital improvement plan,” says Frederick.

ReservoirsLocations

The water level of the Sugar Hollow reservoir has been a concern for both supporters and opponents of the new dam. Between filling up Ragged Mountain and downstream releases of water into the Moormans River, which flows into Sugar Hollow, while other reservoirs have water overflowing their spillways, Sugar Hollow was nearly 14 feet below level April 30, according to a RWSA daily report.

“Sugar Hollow went down precipitously last summer, and it went down this spring,” says John Martin with Friends of the Moormans, a group that supported the Ragged Mountain Dam because that plan would allow larger releases from Sugar Hollow into the Moormans River.

The plan, modeled on the flow of the Mechums River, called for releases of 10 million gallons a day from Sugar Hollow into the Moormans. “The concern is that formula may be overstating the amount of water to be released,” says Martin. “Too much water is going out and not enough is coming in.”

RWSA has asked the Department of Environmental Quality to temporarily lower its releases to 5  million gallons a day.

Those “minor corrections” are something one learns during the process, says Frederick. He expects Sugar Hollow levels to fluctuate for a period of time, but ultimately the reservoir will fill up again.

Despite low water levels in Sugar Hollow, Martin says water flow in the Moormans is “tremendously improved” from before, when it would dry up every summer.

That’s what it’s always done, counter Lynch and Smith, who call the Moormans a “flashy” river—one that gets really high flows when it rains and low flows when it doesn’t.

Using the Moormans River and Sugar Hollow with its 17.5 square miles of drainage area is “not sustainable in the long term for this community,” says Palmer. She says that’s why the nine-mile pipeline from the South Fork Rivanna’s 260-square-mile watershed is needed. While the South Fork is good for collecting water, it’s not good for storage, but Ragged Mountain, a natural bowl, is, she points out.

Once the pipeline is built, she adds, the Sugar Hollow pipeline will be abandoned. But for now, Sugar Hollow remains Ragged Mountain’s lifeline.

With the rain coming down and the reservoir full, those there last week clinked their plastic cups and toasted clean water—1.5 billion gallons of it.

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Pedal to the metal: Advocates want bikes at Ragged Mountain

Sam Lindblom, president of the Charlottesville Area Mountain Bike Club, believes everyone should be given access to Ragged Mountain. Rammelkamp Foto

“It embarrasses me that some outdoors people feel that there are others who are not ‘pure enough,’” wrote avid trail hiker of 50 years, John Pfaltz, in a letter to C-VILLE the day after Charlottesville City Council voted 3-2 to table the decision on whether a prohibition on cyclists, runners and dogs would be lifted at Ragged Mountain Natural Area.

Pfaltz has made an annual hiking trip to Douthat State Park, where mountain biking and training is encouraged, for the last eight years, and says the cyclists have been invariably courteous and friendly.

“I’m sure a few are not, but I have not met them,” he adds.

Acknowledging that biking may damage a trail, Pfaltz says, “I can understand people wanting to [preserve] nature,” but, he adds “it keeps people out.” He also acknowledges hiking could damage a trail.

Sam Lindblom, president of the Charlottesville Area Mountain Bike Club, also believes everyone should be given the chance to experience nature, and he says the “epidemic” of people not getting outside contributes to poor health.

“We also know that if we want people to care about natural places, then they have to go there. They have to visit and experience them,” Lindblom says. “People tend to care about places they frequent.”

To make Ragged Mountain more accessible, Lindblom, who is also a longtime member of the Nature Conservancy, says his biking club supports the development of sustainable, shared-use trails, which could be made environmentally responsible with proper planning and by avoiding sensitive areas.

But, for some, any human activity at the natural area is too much.

“It is broadly accepted that there is a tier of disturbance to naturally sensitive areas,” City Councilor Dede Smith says.

Smith, who voted to table the decision, is opposed to lifting the ban on recreational use and believes it should be enforced further.

“It’s not a new principle to say that walking paths have the least impact [on the environment],” she says, “but yes, some areas should be off-limits, period. And that is where we need to focus our attention now.”

Preserving drinking water at Ragged Mountain is one of the main reasons Smith is apprehensive about allowing recreational activity at that location—the area has a two-square-mile watershed due to its “bowl-like” topography, she says.

“Anything bad that happens on that land, including a lot of dog poop and erosion, will end up in our drinking water,” Smith says.

For 14 years, Smith ran the Ivy Creek Foundation, which managed the Ragged Mountain Natural Area until September, when the land was transferred to the city after the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority built the new dam.

Out of 13 parks in the county, where Ragged Mountain Natural Area is located, six allow mountain biking. If it were to be allowed at Ragged Mountain, only one other park, Charlotte Yancey Humphris Park, would be reserved for passive recreation. Other parks allow a slew of activities including hiking, swimming, fishing and horseback riding, with access to grills, picnic shelters and playgrounds. Both Ragged Mountain and Charlotte Yancey Humphris are shared city-county parks.

Charlottesville Parks and Recreation Manager Doug Ehman says it’s going to be awhile before a decision is made, but he’s aiming for next summer. The city’s trails planner, Chris Gensic, plans to inform the City Planning Commission of the results of an environmental study by June. After the commission’s recommendation, the ordinance will go back to City Council for the official vote.