Rivanna River Sojourn

More than 60 paddlers spent Sunday April 19 on the Rivanna as a part of the Second Annual Rivanna River Sojourn.  RCS, Blue Ridge Mountain Sports and the County of Fluvanna joined together to host the event.  The Sojourners met at the Heritage Trail Park where the safety briefing took place.  Then with the canoes and kayaks loaded on the trailers the group board the Fluvanna County Bus heading for Milton/Shadwell.  There the group was greeted by the UVA Sailing Club.  What a wonderful gift to have these UVA students haul the boats and gear down to the River.  The Sojourners paddled more than 10 miles to Crofton where they joined with the Mini Sojourners for lunch before heading down river to the DGIF boat launch in Palmyra.  After a short walk back to the Heritage Trail Park, the Sojourners had a party, with dinner, music and prizes. Ethan Bradley won a prize for the most trash collected, follow by John Grubb and Chris Yates, who also collected a lot of trash.

Kudos to the Oakland School and STARS kids for their strong showing on the river and for the fun they shared with all of us.

Rivanna Conservation Day Buffer Planting

The Rivanna Conservation Society, Glenmore Country Club, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, the County of Albemarle, the VA Department of the Forestry, the Department of Recreation and Conservation  joined together to sponsor Rivanna Conservation Day.  More than 150 volunteers came out on March 22 to plant more than 2000 trees along 15 acres next to the Rivanna River. All participants received a Rivanna Conservation Day T-Shirt and a sapling to plant at home.

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 For more information contact RCS at 434 97 RIVER (977 4837 or email us at rcs@rivannariver.org

Youth Watershed Summit on World Water Monitoring Day

The October 18 Youth Watershed Summit on World Water Monitoring Day was a great success, with young people and their parents sampling the water for pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen and clarity; examining the aquatic biota; analyzing tree rings and learning about the impact of tree canopy on water quality and participating in Enviroscape.

 

The event was enhanced by the presentation by Councilman Huja who acknowledged and signed (for Mayor Dave Norris) the World Water Monitoring Day Partnership Proclamation between Hsin Chu City, Taiwan and The City of Charlottesville.   (see related article) Councilwoman Holly Edwards and her three daughters were also on hand to evaluate the health of Meadow Creek.

 

 

 

Thank you all so very much for helping to make the Youth Watershed Summit on World Water Monitoring Day a success.  It was a beautiful day and in addition to the student participants and their parents, we were delighted by the interest of the many passersby who had lots of questions about the Meadow Creek Restoration Project.

 

RCS and its partners – The City of Charlottesville, The Nature Conservancy, The Ivy Creek Foundation, with the support of the counties of Albemarle and Fluvanna. And, the event could not have been possible without the tireless efforts of Kristel Riddervold and Dan Frisbee (City of Charlottesville) Diane Frisbee (The Nature Conservancy) and Karen Joyner (Ivy Creek Foundation.   We are also very appreciative of the participation of our friends at the VA Department of Environmental Quality James Beckley and Stewart

Torbect.

 

 

   

 

Our wonderful facilitators and volunteers brought the energy so critical to assuring that the young and the not so young ones had fun and learned a lot in the process.

1.      Biological Water Monitoring – Leaders:  Diane Frisbee, The Nature Conservancy,  Karen Joyner, Ivy Creek Foundation and Mr. Dish

2.      Chemical Water Monitoring  - Leader:  Tanner Council, Rivanna Conservation Society

3.      Tree Ring Analysis: Leaders – Kristel Riddervold, City of Charlottesville and Nelson Shaw, State Forester  

4.      Scavenger Hunt and environmental art  - Leader:  James Yates, Virginia Museum of Fine Art

5.      Enviroscape – Leaders: James Beckley and Stewart Torbeck, VA Department of Environmental Quality

6.      Registration: Laurie Miller, Lauren Laskey and Athman Adiseshan

7.      Coordination and Facilitation – Robbi Savage and Derek Fiske

 

NBC News Coverage

 http://www.nbc29.com/global/story.asp?s=9200116

 

CBS News Coverage

 http://www.charlottesvillenewsplex.tv/home/headlines/31238754.html

 

Photo Gallery Complements of Michael Davis

 http://gallery.me.com/yellowfishmd#100301

Annual River Clean A Huge Succecss

On a glorious September morning more than 200 volunteers flocked to the Rivanna River, from its headwaters to the confluence with the James River in Columbia, VA, to give the river its annual fall cleaning.  Hundreds of trash sacks were bulging full of debris and garbage, most of which RCS and its primary partner the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District, (TJSWCD) was able to recycle.

More than 1000 pounds of heavy metal was pulled from the Woolen Mills/River View Park section of the river. According to one volunteer, Sally Thomas, chair of the Rivanna River Basin Commission, “this huge haul of metal is the result of decades of misuse of the Rivanna.  With the breach of the dam last year we are now able to see and remove the car parts, pipes and metal plates.”

According to Robbi Savage, RCS Executive Director “the wonderful thing about this event is that it brings members of our community to the river to contribute their time and energy to its care.  Children and their parents can work together to make a difference.  Students from throughout the watershed (espeically those at UVA) did a lot of the heavy lifting and we couldn’t have gotten all that metal out of the river without them.”

Garnett Mellen, (TJSWCD) said that “this is our chance to give back to our river, to show our appreciation for the water that we use for drinking, bathing, swiming, paddling, farming and so on”

Summarizing the day, RCS President Angus Murdoch said “it’s a lot of work to plan and put this event together and it is worth every minute of prepreparation because at the end of the day our river is cleaner than it was just a few hours before.  When you see all those bags of trash now on land waiting to be collected and appropriately disposed of and when you know that that trash was in our river polluting the water, it makes it all worthwhile.

Great Fun on Old Farm Days – by Laurie Miller

Old Farm Day was started 13 years ago as a way of showcasing antique farm equipment and old farming techniques. OFD has expanded into a day full of fun and family, where folks come to exhibit such heritage crafts as basket weaving, pottery, iron work, fiber spinning and horse shoeing techniques.  Pleasant Grove, site of OFD, is an historic home which its above on a high plain above the Rivanna River.   

 

The weather was glorious and it was a great day for selling kayak and rain barrel raffle tickets. A crew of Boy Scouts were kind enough to help set up the shade tent and by 10am the RCS Exhibit was set –many thanks to Austin and his buddies for their help.  Raffles are fun there was much excitement around the potential to win a kayak or a rain barrel. And, since all proceeds benefitted RCS’ efforts to protect the watershed many folks purchased tickets simply to support the organization.

 

Emily Shanklin (pictured) came by the booth with her parents, and many wanted to sit in the kayak and try out the paddle.  This, of course, encouraged the parents to purchase yet another “winning ticket” in the hope of taking home the powder blue Perception 10’ kayak, a royal blue PFD, and a snap-together kayak paddle.  These items were all generously donated by John Holden, general manager of Blue Ridge Mountain Sports in Charlottesville.

 

Robyn and Roger Black (who along with Chet Maxey, David Carter, and Steve Pence co-founded the RCS back in 1990), came over to help sell tickets. Roger is a bit of a celebrity in Fluvanna so lots of folks came by to visit, which was great for ticket sales.

 

At 3:10pm, Jody one of the Boy Scouts who helped put up the shade tent came by to draw the winning kayak ticket. Jordan, another Boy Scout, drew the rain barrel winner.  Jane Zimmerman was so excited about winning the kayak and Gerald Watts won the rain barrel. Jane (pictured here with her husband and Laurie Miller) had convinced her husband to purchase a set of five tickets early in the day because she was so hoping to win the kayak so she could paddle “my Rivanna,” as she lovingly describes the river.  “I FINALLY WON!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

4-H CAMP at Mint Springs

On Tuesday August 12 and Wednesday August 13, RCS supported the 4-H in sponsoring its first CAMP at Mint Springs.  Tanner Council volunteered to help chaperon the group on Tuesday and on Wednesday “Robbi Savage facilitated the morning session of water quality monitoring, studies about the watershed and reporting out on what the students found at Mint Springs.  Ït was great and I actaully leanred a lot,” said one young girl. ’” Oh, and Tanner is treally cute.

WVAX Interviews RCS for the Political Corner

On August 16 the RCS Executive Director was interviewed by Fred Hudson of the WVAX’s Political Corner. The 1/2 hour show focusses on issues relating to the County of Albemarle and of course the environment and our natural resources is a big topic of debate and discussion.

Thanks Fred, that was great fun….

Rivanna Clean Up at Free Bridge

First year students from the Darden School (@ 35 plus professors) joined the youth group from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Ivy for a major clean up on the Rivanna at Free Bridge.  For several hours on August 23, this group of nearly 50 young people pulled a sink, a car battery, a muffler, a metal bed frame and an air conditioning unit, plus hundreds of bottles, cans and debris from the River.  One young person said “how can people trash this river with all this junk?  Don’t they know that fish swim here and we drink this water…What are they thinking?”

Thanks to the organizers are Darden and St. Paul’s Ivy and thanks to all the young people who spent their Saturday morning caring for their community.

PBS Chooses RCS for C’Ville Inside Out

The Rivanna Conservation Society spent Friday afternoon with Terri Allard filming a segment for WHTV’s Inside Out.  With a gaggle of volunteers doing a mini river clean up and a filing crew of 5, Terri and RCS Executive Director Robbi Savage told the story of the Rivanna Conservation and its role in caring for the health of the Rivanna River and its watershed. 

The filming site was Woolen Mills, where just a year ago RCS and its River Restoration Committee, chaired by Jason Halbert, brought the 177 year old dam down block by block.  The goal of the dam breach is to bring back the natural flow of the Rivanna River and allow the American Shad to spawn in their upstream home.

Air date for PBS’s Inside Out is scheduled for Nov 20, 2009.  Check it out.

Water Monitoring at 4-H Camp

Holiday Lake was the site of this year’s Fluvanna and Greene County 4-H Youth Camp.  This week long event featured an afternoon of water quality monotoning.  Robbi Savage, Executive Director of the Rivanna Conservation Society guided the students through a series of monitoring tests for pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen and turdibity (clarity).

Nearly 200 young people gathered water samples, conducted chemical testing and discussed the results of these tests to determine water quality.  According to Maliek Mallory, a fifth grader from Greene County, “I had a blast and learned a lot about water and water pollution.”