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Local group grades neighborhood watersheds
Rappahannock landowners and residents can now look at a Watershed Report Card to discover how healthy and well-protected their neighborhood watershed is.For example, Keyser Run watershed earns an “A,” Jordan River is a “B,” the Covington River is a “C,” and Upper Battle Run scores a “D.”
The Watershed Report Card is one of several products of a four-year study conducted by volunteers organized by Rappahannock Friends and Lovers of Our Watershed (RappFLOW), with technical support from the Culpeper Soil and Water Conservation District (CSWCD). Students at Rappahannock County High School helped to gather and analyze data, and produce the maps.
RappFLOW will present the watershed assessment to the county Planning Commission on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 7:30 p.m. in the courthouse.
There are 755 miles of streams in Rappahannock County. The quality of water in any stream is a direct reflection of the health of its surrounding watershed. The Report Card provides landowners with an objective, scientifically-defensible assessment of our local watersheds. The report will help a landowner understand watershed conditions in his or her neighborhood, and how these conditions affect water quality and stream habitat. It will help groups of landowners identify areas that are the least protected, and take voluntary actions to improve their watershed.
Hundreds of landowners across the county contributed information about their values, concerns and knowledge to help with this study. The county government also provides protections in its zoning, ordinances, and tax policies. The study examines 16 factors that affect the health and protection of a watershed. The Report Card includes scores for each watershed based upon the percentage of that watershed’s land area that:
is protected by the Shenandoah National Park,
is protected from further subdivision by conservation easements,
is covered with forests,
has trees along the stream buffer area,
is zoned as conservation or agricultural zone by the County, and
does not have highly erodible soils on steep slopes without forest cover.
The 55-page report is titled “People, Land, and Water at the Headwaters of the Upper Rappahannock River Basin.” It includes 44 large colored maps that show the topography, streams and ponds, impaired streams, water quality monitoring stations, watersheds, land cover, zoning, easements, stream buffers, erodible soils, roads, and many other features. Detailed maps are provided for three of the least-protected watersheds: Lower Rush, Upper Battle Run, and White Walnut Run.
Goals
Based on what they learned from this study, the volunteers suggest three goals that might be adopted by groups of landowners or other organizations who want to improve the health and protection of our watersheds.
Goal 1 is to increase monitoring of both water quality and water quantity across the county’s streams, and make this information easily accessible to the community.
Goal 2 is to increase the percentage of the 100-foot stream buffer area that is managed to provide protection for streams, from the present 62 percent to 80 percent.
Goal 3 is to increase the percentage of privately held land in conservation easement in the county from the present 20 percent to 40 percent, in order to protect farm and forest land from subdivision and fragmentation.
For more information about the watershed report, contact bev hunter@earthlink.net or phone 540-937-4744. The report will be available on DVD and online in November from the RappFLOW Web site www.rappflow.org
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