River revamp

Reduced industrial pollution, mandated wastewater treatment upgrades and voluntary agricultural buffers all have helped improve conditions of the South River, where anglers will participate this weekend in the city’s annual Fly Fishing Festival, state officials said.

But “we still have a long way to go,’’ said Don Kain, water monitoring and assessment manager for the Valley region of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

The challenges remaining are numerous and complex for the 50 miles of river that snake from Greenville to Stuarts Draft to Waynesboro and ultimately to Grottoes and the Rockingham County line, officials said.

Health advisories remain, warning against eating fish pulled from the river, where mercury lingers.

And while the river’s industrial pollution is gone, Kain said, there is still significant nutrient pollution in the South and the south fork of the Shenandoah River.

Virginia muncipalities and local sewer authorities are spending millions of dollars, some of the money coming from government grants, to pay for wastewater plant upgrades that will reduce nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen coming from the plants and ultimately polluting the Chesapeake Bay.

In Augusta County, the service authority is working on a $70-million wastewater plant upgrade of three plants.

Service Authority Executive Director Ken Fanfoni said grant money will only pay $20 million of the cost, meaning the remaining $50 million will be paid by customers.

And Fanfoni said while wastewater plants are responsible for about a third of the bay’s nutrient pollution, the upgrades will only reduce that pollution by 8 percent.

“We won’t make our 33 percent load go to zero,’’ he said.

As part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, the South River is the subject of a request from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation for ramped-up regulation of stormwater runoff by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation spokesman Chuck Epes said the EPA is being asked to work on regulating the flow of stormwater from such urban sources as parking lots located in shopping centers or industries.

Epes said the greases and oils in those lots flow after rains into streams and ultimately the South River, and from there to the Chesapeake Bay.

Among the solutions for controlling runoff are retention basins, rain gardens or wetlands, Epes said.

Waynesboro’s increased commercial development makes it more vulnerable to urban stormwater runoff, Kain said.

“There are a lot of acres of paved ground which has to run off and go somewhere,’’ Kain said. “There is a greater potential of chemicals, oils and greases from vehicles if they are just allowed to be routed directly into a stream.’

Kain said the river is monitored on a monthly basis by the South River Science Team, a group of researchers from state agencies.

The science team tracks the location of mercury in the river, and is looking for answers on where the chemical goes and possible strategic removal of it.

The river’s mercury came from DuPont from 1929 to 1950, but there was no knowledge of its presence until the 1970s, officials said.

Under a settlement between DuPont and the Virginia State Water Control Board, a trust fund pays for 100 years of mercury monitoring in the river.

Kain said the risk of consuming fish from the river is communicated through posted signs, and work with health officials.

The problems now “are more subtle. And in spite of fixing one problem, we are finding another,” Kain said.

Meanwhile, the ultimate goal of improving the Chesapeake Bay’s health is still there.

So far, progress toward that goal is fleeting. The Chesapeake Foundation earlier this week said the bay’s health gets a score of 28 on a scale of 100, making it a “D.’’

Still, state Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Mount Solon, a member of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, said he sees progress in the watershed.

The improvements are not only in wastewater plants, but in farmers using buffers and other management practices to control agricultural runoff into rivers and streams, he said.

An issue not raised frequently in the fight to save the bay is the number of new residents who move into the watershed each year, officials said.

Hanger said about 175,000 people migrate to the Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania parts of the watershed each year.

The new residents have an impact on the health of the watershed, he explained.

And Hanger said one of the great impacts on the bay is urban stormwarter runoff.

As is the case with the South River, the bay’s woes will not solved overnight, Hanger said.

“It took us a long time to make this mess,’’ he said. “We can’t return the pristine nature.”