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A series of fish kills and other environmental problems have rocked five of the most popular Blue Ridge rivers for fishing, canoeing, birding, and other outdoor pursuits.
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These rivers, which are in the Potomac Watershed, include the South Branch of the Potomac in West Virginia, the Main Stem of the Potomac (which forms the boundaries between Maryland and West Virginia and the Free State and Virginia), the Main Stem of the Shenandoah in the two Virginias, and the South and North Forks of the Shenandoah in the Old Dominion.
The problems became apparent in 2002 when a fish kill took place on the South Branch of the Potomac near Moorefield (which bills itself as “the Poultry Capitol of West Virginia”). When U.S. Geological Survey scientists analyzed the dead smallmouth bass, they observed that nearly one-half of the male fish possessed eggs in their reproductive tissue. Similar fish kills took place on North Fork in 2004 and the South Fork in 2005.
A possible cause for the sex change is endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs).
EDC compounds range from excreted birth control hormones to growth hormones fed to poultry and livestock. Other sources include the urine from animals and humans. The Potomac Watershed is infamous for cattle lounging, defecating, and urinating in the water and degrading, through overgrazing and erosion, the riparian zone. Few wastewater treatment plants anywhere monitor for EDCs.
Factory farming also has become more common in the Potomac Watershed. This practice, where animals are confined in very small enclosures, concentrates turkeys and chickens – and their waste. When precipitation and runoff occur, the effects on the watershed can be severe.
Ron Marafioti, conservation chairman for the Potomac River Smallmouth Club, maintains that part of the problem is the uncontrolled growth of the poultry industry, which now annually harvests 90 million broilers from West Virginia’s Hardy, Grant and Pendleton counties.
“The key problem with chickens is that there is no effective method to manage the residue, some 150,000 to 350,000 tons of phosphorus-rich manure and bedding and two million adolescent chicken carcasses a year. While this toxic residue is flowing into the streams and headwaters of the South Branch, Lost, and Cacapon rivers, policy requirements and funding assistance are ever so slowly being developed by West Virginia and federal environmental agencies. Bottom line...years will pass before the residues of this industry will be effectively managed.”
Marafioti emphasizes that urbanization is also a culprit, as the tendency of suburbanites to spread pesticides and fertilizer on their lawns (compounds that often end up washing into a stream), degrades the watershed as well. Other problems are occurring downstream on the Main Stem of the Potomac says Ed Enamait, a fisheries biologist for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
“The Potomac River appears to be receiving more organic material over the last several years as evidenced by increasing phytoplankton blooms,” he says. “Organic enrichment is suspected from the Shenandoah River as evidenced by the presence of blue-green algae, typically in late July, along the Virginia shoreline downriver beyond Edward’s Ferry.”
Water quality is no better in the Old Dominion. Steve Reeser, a fisheries biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, estimates that 80 percent or more of the adult smallmouth bass and redbreast sunfish died during the 2005 fish kill on the South Fork. The adult smallmouths that did not die typically display lesions.
Don Kain, water monitoring and compliance manager for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, informs that the DEQ has not been able to pinpoint the precise reason for the fish kills but that similarities do exist.
“We have looked for common threads in these three fish kills,” says Kain.
“All the watersheds are highly agricultural, with poultry predominating. These rivers have relatively high levels of nutrients. Our water quality analyses do not show any recent trends that would correlate with the fish kills, however.”
Reeser adds that a task force, made up of various groups interested in the watershed, has been formed. Some of the topics that the group is investigating include algae and aquatic plants, bacteria, sediment contaminants, parasites, viruses, water temperature, agricultural chemicals, manure applications, biosolids, immune suppression in fish, overall fish health, and water quality parameters.
Jeff Kelble, a former guide who saw his outfitting business dismantled because of the fish kills, has given up guiding to accept a proposed position as the Shenandoah Riverkeeper, which is part of the nationwide Waterkeeper Alliance.
“The Waterkeeper Alliance is the organization responsible in many ways for initiating a lot of the Clean Water Act laws through some late 1960's litigation against
GE, Mobil and others on the Hudson River,” says Kelble.
“The organization has expanded to include about 150 rivers.”
Kelble informs that he will be working closely with Potomac Riverkeeper, Ed Merrifield.
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“Merrifield has forged long term relationships with the heads of the environmental law clinics at Delaware's Widener University, Georgetown University, and the University of Maryland,” he says. “These have been invaluable arrangements where students handle all the legal research to study pollution issues, and have handled litigation when it has been necessary, pro bono. Therein lies the strength of the Riverkeepers, they don't back down when they know they are right about issues that affect their rivers.
“Riverkeepers are almost all regular people, most of which come to the position like I have, through outrage. Seems few of them are lifetime conservation professionals, which gives the group a regular citizen kind of a feel. The difficulty in the Potomac Watershed is that non-point source pollution seems to be the greatest issue, but the way the Clean Water act is written, it has historically been extremely difficult to apply.”
Trace Noel, who operates Shenandoah River Trips (SRT) in Bentonville, Virginia, relates that his business declined 10 to 15 percent in 2005 because of the fish kills.
“Typically for every dollar spent directly with an outfitter, an additional $3 to $7 is spent in the local community,” he says. “Most outfitters are micro businesses in which a 10 percent-plus drop in revenues can be very serious.”
Noel says that in terms of SRT, which is the smallest of eight outfitters on the Shenandoah in the two Virginias, the company lost between $15,000 and $18,000. Overall, he estimates that the Virginia and West Virginia communities along the watershed lost a minimum of $793,000. Many outdoor enthusiasts simply stopped visiting the rivers and nearby communities, spending their time and dollars elsewhere.
Noel describes the Potomac Watershed as suffering from “decades of abuse” and wonders whether the political will exists to remedy the situation.
For more information on EDCs: http//coastalscience.noaa.gov/news/feature/1102.html.
Shenandoah River Trips, 800-727-4371 or 540-635-5050, www.shenandoahrivertrips.com
Waterkeeper Alliance: www.waterkeeper.org
Potomac Riverkeeper: www.potomacriverkeeper.org, Email: ed@potomacriverkeeper.org
Jeff Kelble's email: jeff@potomacriverkeeper.org
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