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“All land is part of a watershed or river basin
and all is shaped by the water which flows over it and
through it,” writes Patrick McCully in Silenced
Rivers. The environmentalist could be describing
the Old Dominion, which has also been shaped by its rivers,
both literally and figuratively.
On March 22, Virginia’s Department of Environmental
Quality released its most recent water quality study,
which reports on the level of the Commonwealth’s
water quality for such uses as swimming, drinking, fish
consumption and wildlife use. It turns out that our rivers
don’t rank high for swimmers, reports the March
23 Richmond-Times Dispatch (“Dirty Waters”
Study Finds Plenty in Virginia ’s Rivers, Streams.”)
More than half are considered polluted.
But while areas such as 115 miles of the lower James River
near Jamestown, and the mouth of the Lafayette River near
Norfolk were considered “impaired,” other
areas, such as the Pamunkey River, a tributary of the
York, and the Northwest River in Chesapeake now have a
clean bill of health.
How did our rivers get to this condition? Turn with me
now to a brief examination – a plumbing of the depths,
if you will – of Virginia’s waterways.
Virginia ranks 21st among the 52 states in water area
(2.6 percent compared with 13 percent for Rhode Island),
and some of our rivers are unique. In a 1995 paper “Heritage
of the James River ,” Ann Woodlief, a professor
at Virginia Commonwealth University, notes that the James
– the Commonwealth’s longest river at 340
miles – is also the only major river in the U.S.
to run completely within one state. She says that it was
the first American river to be given an English name.
The misnamed New River, part of which flows through southwestern
Virginia, is considered one of the oldest rivers in the
world. It dates from the Jurassic period, about 180 million
years ago. Since it predates a continental collision,
it still flows from south to north. The collision of North
America and Africa, which created an uplifting of rock
that formed the Appalachian mountains, changed the direction
of most of Virginia’s other rivers.
(Interesting side note: according to Charlie Grymes, a
Geography of Virginia instructor at George Mason University
in Fairfax, 25,000-foot-high mountains once stood where
Emporia, Richmond, Bowling Green, Virginia Beach and Chincoteague
are located today. Rivers slowly etched them away: www.virginiaplaces.org/watersheds).
In the 17th century, colonists hoped to find a water route
to the Far East through old Virginny. That hope sank when
they ran into the Appalachians. Ever the capitalists,
the colonists next tried to ship sturgeon roe from the
James River to England to fuel the European caviar rage.
They made the mistake of not inventing refrigeration first,
and the roe didn’t keep on the voyage across the
ocean.
In the 19th century, Virginians finally hit on a use for
the rivers near metropolitan areas: human waste receptacles!
By 1900, the James River was polluted through Richmond
and Lynchburg. One state legislator who opposed a 1912
bill to control waste disposal proclaimed proudly, “The
rivers of Virginia are the God-given sewers of the State.”
We’ve since realized that that kind of attitude
just won’t wash.
I’ll leave you with a watershed moment (literally)
regarding rainwater, rivers and “runs.” The
Commonwealth’s 20 major rivers are grouped in nine
watersheds. A watershed consists of an area where all
precipitation flows to a stream, or set of streams, and
“runs” (Virginia-speak for “creek”).
Rain falling on southwestern Virginia travels west to
the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers, eventually making it to
the Mississippi River and New Orleans. Farther east, rain
ends up in either the Roanoke River watershed, which empties
east into the Albemarle/Pamlico Sound, or the James River/Potomac
River watersheds, which discharge into the Chesapeake
Bay. Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality
estimates there are 50,537 miles of rivers and streams
in the state, discharging 25 billion gallons of water
per day.
April 12, 2004
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Nice & Curious
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