River pollutants run through it

Part 1 of a 2-part series

It doesn’t take long for pollutants to take the mercurial, spiraling ride on the water from the South River to the Chesapeake Bay, depending on the obstacles they encounter.

Coming from many sources, the pollutants – from fecal bacteria, to nitrogen and phosphorus, to the ever-present mercury – enter the South River, heading north toward the Shenandoah River before meeting up with the Potomac River as it empties out hundreds of miles southeast into the bay.

Nutrients, according to the Department of Environmental Quality’s Robert Brent, spiral downstream, bumping into plants and animals. They use them until they die, and then enter the water again. Each individual nutrient may be used several times in that fashion before it reaches the Chesapeake Bay.

“It has a long life of its own,” said Brent, a regional Total Maximum Daily Load Coordinator for DEQ. “It doesn’t just float directly downstream, because all living things need phosphorus or nitrogen.”

It’s usually a matter of months, at most, but can take as little as just a matter of days.

The Chesapeake Bay today is a large dead-zone where much of the aquatic life that would otherwise inhabit it has diminished or disappeared.

And on the South River, which extends for more than 25 river miles from Waynesboro to the confluence of it and the North River at Port Republic, the scope of the problem has changed little since the DEQ began its oversight more than 30 years ago.

“It’s a little bit of a difficult question to answer,” Brent said. “In terms of the mercury question, we haven’t seen much change over the years.”

When it rains, he said, mercury in the soil from the floodplain and the banks washes into the South River. There isn’t a lot of mercury in the river itself, but “there’s still a lot left in the floodplain.” The banks have a “reserve” of mercury.

“Since we’ve been monitoring the fish in the 1970s, levels have stayed about the same,” Brent said. “We haven’t seen that problem die off like we thought we might.”

The mercury contamination, which stretches from Waynesboro for 125 miles downstream to Front Royal, dates back to 1929, when for 21 years the former DuPont – now Invista – plant in Waynesboro discharged mercury into the river.

DuPont and the State Water Control Board reached a settlement in 1984 forcing the company to establish a trust fund to support a 100-year mercury monitoring program.

Earlier this summer, fish from 18 collecting stations showed mercury levels similar to previous years, but higher, still, compared with 2005. Because of the high mercury levels, the Virginia Department of Health has a fish consumption advisory for all South River fish except stocked trout.

“Mercury in fish remained elevated in the entire system below the DuPont footbridge,” the report said. “The levels are highest in the South River and lower in the South Fork Shenandoah River below the confluence with [the] North River.”

Methyl mercury makes up about 90 percent of all mercury in the South River. Advisories are issued when fish are found at 0.5 parts per million. DEQ lowered that level from 1.0 ppm that was in effect until 2001.

In 2007, redbreast sunfish, smallmouth bass and white suckers found at several areas along the river in Waynesboro, as well as Crimora, Dooms and Grottoes, all had higher-than-allowable levels of mercury, with some reaching more than 2.0 ppm up to 3.0 ppm.

Runoff from stormwater, poultry farms and other man-made products have caused the large portion of the fecal bacteria and other aquatic life impairments in the South River, and in other rivers and streams in the bay’s watershed.

Nutrients get into the river, in large part, because the city’s wastewater treatment plant – like the others around the state and in the watershed that are undergoing upgrades – have not filtered out as much as need be.

Bacteria problems in the South River are worse in the summertime and after it rains, but Brent says the aquatic life issues have remained a constant.

“The level of bacteria changes every day depending on the conditions,” Brent said. “I think the aquatic life issue has stayed about the same over the years.”

The eyesore of the South River, however, comes from the more visible trash left along the river.

Without cleaning it up, any dreams by the City Council, or by developers along the river, to use a potential downtown asset will be wasted.

The city is ready to start the Greenway Trail Project along the South River near the plant, and city officials say they would like to see the area become a haven for trout fishing.

“There’s been a big discussion about creating an urban fishery that starts at Stuarts Draft down,” said Assistant City Manager Jim Shaw.

Vice Mayor Frank Lucente, noting he has walked along the proposed Greenway area from Wayne Avenue to Main Street, has vowed to lead a volunteer crew to clean up the South River once the trail project is complete.

“That’s what I’m going to do,” Lucente said. “We’re just going to start walking along the river, and we’re going to look in the river and [say], ‘Wait a minute, there’s tires in there,’ ” along with other trash. He believes he can get volunteers out with the charge of “let’s clean this river up” and increase the river’s influence as a trout fishing mecca.

Brent, meanwhile, believes bacteria and aquatic life issues can be taken care of within about five years. The South River is about 20 percent impaired — not severe, he said.

If fecal bacteria exists in the river, it could indicate the existence of other disease causing bacteria, also, which could cause gastrointestinal illness or infection in humans and could affect livestock health.

Brent says that it is not safe to swim in the South River, with 23 percent of samples taken from a testing point in Harriston over the last six years showing higher-than-acceptable bacteria levels. In the past five years, bacterial levels at various South River testing stations have ranged from eight to 25 percent.

Impairment stage occurs when 10 percent of the samples exceed the standard. Brent thinks the South River can return to that level within about five years.

“That’s not a huge, huge challenge,” Brent said.

The mercury, on the other hand, will take much longer.