River’s mercury legacy studied

During two weeks traversing the length of Shenandoah National Park, the students and documentarians who make up EcoVenture 2009 hiked through sunshine, fog, frost and snow.

“We’ve seen four seasons, I would think,” said George Patterson, creative media director of the trip and The Downstream Project.

EcoVenture’s Shenandoah University student participants and father-son documentary team stopped in Waynesboro on Tuesday to learn about mercury in the South River from Michael Liberati, DuPont project director for the South River Science Team.

Like a dozen other expert presentations, that by Liberati and Virginia Department of Environmental Quality water compliance manager Don Kain likely will end up on the group’s travel blog site.

The monthlong journey counts for 12 credits for students as they turn the national park and Shenandoah River (which they begin paddling northward today) into their classroom. They’re specially equipped to share photographs, videos and journals through social media and blog sites.

“We’ve got some bad heels I can show you,” John Copenhaver, professor of religion and philosophy, said Tuesday under the Dominion Virginia Power Pavilion along the South River.

Copenhaver and his students listened on the riverbank as Liberati described a project to stabilize a 500-foot riverfront area while preventing hazardous material from entering the water.

Construction excavators worked while he spoke. Patterson filmed. Students tiptoed onto river rocks.

Because too much mercury seeps into the river, the Virginia Department of Health enacted fish consumption advisories in the 1970s. Mercury was used legally at the former DuPont plant from 1929 to 1950.  DuPont is obligated, under a settlement between the company and the State Water Control Board, to keep a trust fund in place to support a 100-year monitoring program for mercury.

EcoVenture has attracted hundreds of followers online, as photos, locator points and videos are posted each day. Yet students expect to have plenty of leftover stories from their days in the wilderness. They’ve hiked backcountry terrain, discovered the southern part of the park to be the rockiest and spotted a bear.

“The rump of a bear, at least,” Copenhaver said.

Senior Kelly Mitchell is studying water quality and fish kills for a special project at trip’s end. Sophomore John Stevens is thinking about invasive species. Sophomore Carl Chapman is looking at air quality and cancer.

And they’re all freezing in their sleeping bags each morning, Chapman said.

Patterson and his son Travis, a photographer, will piece together a documentary when the group is back in Winchester. George Patterson said a project goal is to foster an environmental alliance.

As for the documentary, the group has plenty of material to choose from.

“As for what we’re going to do with it, is really a mystery,” Travis Patterson said.