The beauty of the James River, here partially shrouded in fog, is matched only by its storied past. Photo: Robert Llewellyn
Upon finding the source of the Jackson River, parent to the James River, Earl Swift writes in Journey on the James: Three Weeks through the Heart of Virginia: “From this trickle grows a river that offered sustenance to Indian and early colonist, carried pioneers to new lands of the West, bloomed red with the blood spilled in three wars. No other feature of American topography has so witnessed the country’s history. The continent’s first permanent English settlement, Jamestown, rose on the river’s bank. George Washington explored it, fought on it, and hatched plans for a grand canal system along its shore. On the run from the Redcoats, Thomas Jefferson may have holed up in a cave in its bluffs.”
Distiller Denver Riggleman secures the 5th District GOP nomination by one vote.
Submitted photo
Riggleman snatches 5th District Republican nomination
Five days after Congressman Tom Garrett announced he would not seek re-election to deal with alcoholism, distiller and former gubernatorial candidate Denver Riggleman fended off 10 other candidates in a five-hour marathon meeting June 2 at Nelson County High in Lovingston and secured the nomination by one vote.
Because Garrett’s announcement came so late in the election cycle, the 5th District GOP committee’s 37 members decided who the party’s pick would be to face off against Dem nominee Leslie Cockburn in November.
The committee had four rounds of voting, and until the last round, Riggleman trailed Cynthia Dunbar, who lost the 6th District nomination two weeks earlier and whose far-right positions would have made the red-leaning 5th District a toss-up, according to pundits at UVA’s Center for Politics.
Riggleman and his wife, Christine, own Silverback Distillery, which uses the nickname the couple’s daughters bestowed upon Riggleman, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer and Department of Defense contractor.
Last year, Riggleman briefly was a candidate for governor before withdrawing. The libertarian-leaning Republican says he’ll join the House Freedom Caucus if elected to Congress.
Riggleman has publicly groused about Virginia’s Prohibition-era laws governing alcohol sales, and he told the Washington Post if he’d known about the state’s arcane regs, he and his wife would never have set up shop here. Riggleman also has fought Dominion Energy, which planned to run its controversial pipeline through his Afton property.
“I need you to have an understanding of what it really means to be black.”—Activist Rosia Parker to City Council June 4 after she was not named to the city police citizen panel
Civilian review board controversy
City Council named seven people to an independent police review panel in a 3-2 vote Monday, and consternation ensued. Mayor Nikuyah Walker and Councilor Wes Bellamy voted against the appointments, which did not include some police critics like civil rights lawyer Jeff Fogel. Activist Don Gathers, who was appointed to the board, said the fact the council vote was made on racial lines “should be problematic to people.”
“The Silly Clowncil Song”
Charlottesville City Council meetings have become must-see TV over the past year as they spiraled out of control. Now council has its own parody song and video, courtesy of former tea partier Carole Thorpe and former councilor Rob Schilling. Thorpe sings and penned new lyrics to “Goodbye Cruel World,” a 1961 James Darren hit, and Schilling produced the video.
New confederate real estate
staff photo
A billboard courtesy of the Virginia Flaggers has been catching eyes on East High Street since May 1. A bronze Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson is depicted riding his trusty steed next to a quote that’s attributed to him: “All I am and all I have is at the service of my country.” Says proud flagger Grayson Jennings, “Looks good, doesn’t it?”
Slow down, Nikuyah
When Mayor Nikuyah Walker was pulled over for allegedly driving 43mph in a 25mph zone in September, she was given a ticket and convicted in November. She appealed the driving infraction June 1 in Charlottesville Circuit Court, where a second judge also found her guilty of driving too fast, but reduced her fine by $200, to $90, according to attorney Jeff Fogel.
Television tactics
UVA Health System professionals are testing whether focused sound waves can treat hypothalamic hamartoma, a rare brain mass that causes a “giggling” form of epilepsy, after the experimental approach was used on a recent episode of “Grey’s Anatomy.” Neurologist Nathan Fountain, the principal investigator of this clinical trial, says, “It was a very clever and surprising use of our research.” UVA is recruiting test participants from ages 18 to 80.
The water’s (mostly) fine
photo Tom Daly
Just in time for swimming season, new bacteria monitoring results from the James River Association show that the river is generally safe for recreation about 80 percent of the time. The other 20 percent? Eh.
Seventeen percent of collected samples showed levels of pollution that are unsafe for swimming, but those were mostly taken after significant rainfall, when bacteria washes into the James from surrounding land and sewage systems.
“This data demonstrates that our local waterways are safe for recreation most of the time, but extra caution is necessary after rainstorms,” says Jamie Brunkow, a James River riverkeeper. In other words, the throngs of people who will undoubtedly flock to the river in the summer heat might want to check its conditions before they grab their beach towels and beer coolers.
And the association makes that easy with its website called James River Watch, which shows what’s up with the waterway at all times.
The health of the river is determined by location, with highest health scores of 100 percent given to Chickahominy Riverfront Park in James City and the James River Fishing Pier in Newport News, and the worst score of 63 percent given to Rocketts Landing in Richmond. Both Charlottesville public access points on the Rivanna River, a tributary of the James, at Riverview and Darden Towe parks, pass with percentages in the mid-80s.
JUST THE FACTS
• 4 million annual visitors to the James River
• 6.5 million pounds of commercial seafood caught annually
• 200 public access sites on the James and its tributaries
• 236,217 hunting and fishing licenses purchased within the watershed in 2016
• $18.9 billion annual economic benefits provided by the river
Catch a flathead catfish in the James River, and you’d better throw it back. Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife service
Quillback carpsucker. Flathead catfish. Gizzard shad. American eel. Carp. If you catch one of these in the James River, you’re better off throwing it back in.
Danny Hodge, a visiting fisherman recently stationed on the James, did just that when he says he reeled in a 20-pound catfish last month.
“I wouldn’t eat none of them,” he says, standing on the riverbank in Scottsville. With a tackle box to his left and a fishing pole gripped in his right hand, he says the warning signs about contaminated fish (there’s no threat to swimmers) posted around the river worry him.
Locally, those five species are most likely to be contaminated with high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls—or PCBs—according to signs posted by the Virginia Department of Health at James River public access locations.
PCBs, a known carcinogen, are a group of man-made chemicals that consist of 209 individual compounds and were once used as coolants and lubricants in transformers and other electrical equipment. Though the federal government banned their production in 1977, their legacy remains.
Chris French, a former Virginia Department of Environmental Quality employee and a current member of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s toxic contaminants group, says PCBs are still entering waterways from old, remediated sites that haven’t been cleaned up, and also from burning waste oils.
When PCBs wash into a body of water, they settle into vegetation, which travels up the food chain when a big fish eats a smaller one. The highest levels of the toxins are found in the most predatory fish, such as catfish.
Bob Peyer, another out-of-towner, sat in his jacked-up black truck while he looked out over the water. “Never eat the catfish,” he warns, and mentions the PCB levels in his home state of Wisconsin, where the Fox River is so toxic that those studying it suit up in protective gear and respirators before wading in.
How much exposure is too much?
“Oddly enough, it really varies from state to state as to what the acceptable level of ingestion is,” says Pat Calvert, a James River Association riverkeeper. For at least six years, he says, the DEQ has been working to set a total maximum daily load of PCBs and a pollution diet for the river. Without establishing those numbers, it’s hard to initiate cleanup efforts.
“I would like to see the DEQ step up and prioritize setting the [total maximum daily load] for the James River,” Calvert says, but progress has been slow. In the past, he’s volunteered to post warning signs, like the one Hodge saw, to raise awareness for the issue—and because the Virginia Department of Health is required to post them at all public access points, though many sites are missed.
“Over the last 10 years or so, science has indicated that PCBs can also mimic hormones in various animals and people,” French says, and the endocrine disruptors could cause developmental concerns. He believes more studies on the actual effects of PCBs need to be commissioned, and existing ones need to be updated with new technologies to better reflect their current status.
“It could be a bigger issue than we realize, or not as much of an issue as we once believed,” French says. “We really have no way of knowing until we have updated and current, relevant data.”
Wastewater will be discharged from the Bremo Power Plant in Fluvanna County. Photo by Robert Llewellyn
Environmental groups and concerned citizens worry that Dominion’s intentions to dump millions of gallons of wastewater per day into the James River won’t go swimmingly.
Alleging that the wastewater potentially being discharged from a Fluvanna County power station will contain coal ash and toxic metals, some are worried about the environmental impacts on the river in which many swim, fish and boat.
The Department of Environmental Quality has issued the permit, but is allowing comments from the public until December 14.
“I will certainly not swim in those waters,” Pat Calvert, a riverkeeper with the James River Association and longtime boater says, if the DEQ permanently allows Dominion’s proposed permit. It’s his job to keep the river clean, and he says it’s his intention to protect water quality and river integrity.
Calvert says millions of Virginians rely on the river for drinking water, recreation and economic value. Various levels of danger are associated with each chemical present in the coal ash wastewater—lead, arsenic, mercury, selenium, boron and thallium—that could be dumped and, though the DEQ will require the chemicals to be diluted and present below certain levels, he says most of the contaminants are heavy metals with varying levels of toxicity, radioactivity and potential for damage to water quality and human and aquatic health.
“Those who may ingest or be exposed to discharged wastewater could be affected by these substances, particularly while they are less diluted and in higher concentrations,” he says. “Fishing could be affected through the effect on the game fish and the forage.”
The wastewater in question will be discharged from the Bremo Power Station in Fluvanna. Last April, Dominion announced it would close its coal ash ponds at four sites, including one at Bremo, but critics say the power company basically closed the ponds by covering them up and allowing the pollution to continue indefinitely. Now the water needs to be removed.
A DEQ employee says he’s aware of the concerns, but says some people don’t understand exactly what his organization aims to permit.
“We’re not authorizing Dominion to dump coal ash into the James River,” says Brandon Kiracofe, the water permits and compliance manager for the DEQ’s Valley Regional Office. He says controlled discharged wastewater flowing from an outfall pipe will be diluted at high enough levels that none of the chemicals present in the water will be dangerous. The DEQ will monitor the water before it’s discharged, he says, to make sure levels of chemicals in the water don’t surpass the limits that are set.
Dominion spokesperson Dan Genest says as soon as the permit is issued, the company will start building two treatment facilities on the property, and all wastewater will be treated before it’s discharged.
“We commend them for caring about the James River,” he says about the activists trying to shut the project down. “But we all share the same goal—to make sure the discharges do not have any effect on the James River.”
Public comments can be e-mailed to Beverley Carver at beverley.carver@deq.virginia.gov.
Updated November 9: The original story misstated the e-mail address to which comments should be sent.
