In past years (2005, 2009, 2010, 2011), Loudoun Watershed Watch has submitted nominations of new sites for stream monitoring by the state.  Virginia DEQ responded and expanded their monitoring, but only where budgets would allow.  If you would like to suggest additional sites for monitoring, please submit them to info@loudounwatershedwatch.org and Loudoun Watershed Watch will compile them as our submission.

You can view previous nominations and responses here.  Also, there is a map of candidate sites posted at http://www.loudounwatershedwatch.org/subitem3_4.html

This publication provides a great illustration that is fun for kids and adults alike as well as puzzles and games.

The Watershed Map was recently distributed to 4^th graders at Newton Lee Elementary in Ashburn.

http://www.loudounwatershedwatch.org/pdf/LWW_Educational_Map.pdf

One coalition that we support is the Choose Clean Water Coalition, and given that hurricane Irene is coming our way and we’re about to see a lot of water, I thought I’d highlight that here today.

The Choose Clean Water coalition brings together people and nearly 200 organizations from Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia, working together to help everyone in the region choose clean water.

You can follow the work of this coalition through Facebook, Twitter, and through Podcasts, as well as through the website which summarizes key issues.

Clean water is truly one of the very few things we cannot live without, yet here in the US we certainly take it for granted. 

Here in Loudoun, we live in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and some serious work needs to be done to restore the habitat and thereby the water that runs through our communities.

If you’re interested in learning more about water quality and getting your feet wet locally, check out our Stream Monitoring Program.  It’s a lot of fun!

Here’s a really cool resource to find out: Loudoun County Stream Assessment

Simply enter your street address and click “find”.  A map will pop up showing the streams near you.  Click on the yellow pin points to pull up the reports.

Visit Loudoun Watershed Watch for more information as well as the County’s Stream Assessment pages.

Saturday, June 11, 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Join Keep Loudoun Beautiful for a trash pick-up along the Goose Creek using canoes and professional guides from River & Trail Outfitters. Refreshments and t-shirts will be provided at the end of the event. Reservations are required. Must be at least 8 years old and all those under 18 will require signed permissions from parent or guardian. For more information and to register, visit www.keeploudounbeautiful.org. For questions not answered there, contact us at info@keeploudounbeautiful.org or (703)771-4231.

Wow, it was a great night!

We enjoyed the music of Andrew McKnight.

We checked out stream organisms that serve as indicators of water quality.

We talked together about the importance of stream buffers for Loudoun!

Then, we rallied for a sustainable, healthy environment and lots of us took the opportunity to speak before the Board of Supervisors and tell them that we support minimum 100′ riparian buffers along our streams! 

Many thanks to all who came out in support of Loudoun’s Clean Streams and a healthier environment!

Photos from the rally are posted on our facebook page.  Keep up with the issues and information through the Loudoun Clean Streams Coalition.

Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy will host a stream monitoring training event on Sunday, May 1, at the Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve Education Annex.  

The training session will consist of classroom instruction on macroinvertebrate identification from 2-4 pm and then field instruction on the monitoring protocol from 4-6 pm.  

Please consider joining us for one or both parts of the training.  

This is not a certification event but will cover everything you need to know to become a certified stream monitor.  The classroom portion of the training will focus heavily on macroinvertebrate identification and should be helpful to people of all experience levels.

Visit our May calendar for more information and events.

Seven committee members were appointed in January after seeking reestablishment and active participation in the State’s Scenic River Program.  Supervisor Sally Kurtz, State Senator Mark Herring, local citizens and organizations supported the revival effort.
 
Anne Larson, appointee and strong advocate of Catoctin Creek’s beauty and natural resources, commented: “The formation of the Committee has been a long time coming. I am so proud to be a part of this important event.”

Other committee members are Otto Gutenson (Chairman), Patti Psaris (Vice Chairman), David Ward (Secretary), Norma Wilson, Eleanor Adams and Nancy Beaver; the last two served on the original Catoctin Creek Scenic River Advisory Board from the 1970s through the 1990s. All live on or near Catoctin Creek.
 
At the first meeting of the restored committee, Lynn Crump, Environmental Programs Planner for DCR, and Dick Gibbons, Chairman of the Virginia Scenic River Advisory Board, gave a history and overview of the Scenic Rivers Program.

Today 24 river segments totaling more than 529 river miles have been designated State Scenic Rivers. Designation gives riparian landowners, local citizens and local governments a greater voice in the planning and implementation of federal and state projects that might affect the creek.

All state agencies are required to consider the visual, natural and recreational values of a scenic river in their permitting process. Riparian landowners are offered advice and incentives to preserve those values. Local governments are kept in touch.
 
Sixteen miles of Catoctin Creek are designated “Scenic River,” from the bridge near the mill at Waterford north to the Potomac. Goose Creek and Catoctin Creek are the only Scenic Rivers in Loudoun County, each now with its own local advisory committee.

Advisory committees work with local government and the Virginia Scenic River Advisory Board to keep all parties informed of plans and relevant matters affecting designated waterways.
 
When the original Catoctin Creek Scenic River Advisory Board was dissolved in 2003, due in part to state government reorganization, Catoctin Creek lost its voice. Reestablishment in 2011 is cause for celebration.
 
Full details about Virginia’s Scenic River Program are available at
http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/recreational planning/srmain.shtml

Since then, we have gathered huge amounts of data on the state of Loudoun Streams, published reports on quality of water running through our neighborhood streams, and used the facts to speak out at County hearings for the need to restore the habitat that surrounds our waterways. 

If you would like to be a part of this important citizen science effort, you can volunteer to monitor with one one of our existing stream teams. By doing this, you’ll learn the monitoring protocol, and learn how to identify different indicators for water quality.

We monitor just twice a year, so if you volunteer at a time between monitoring windows, we’ll still line you up on a team and you’ll just need to hold tight for the next window.  

We are using VA Save Our Stream Protocol.  You can learn more about the protocol at http://www.loudounwatershedwatch.org/subitem5_4.html

For over a year now, Loudoun County has been working on an ordinance to protect our streams by preserving vegetated streamside buffers.

Vegetated streamside buffers, or riparian buffers as they are also know, are strips of grass, shrubs, and ideally trees and shrubs along the banks of rivers and streams. They serve as a buffer between our uses of the land and the water itself, and are the last line of defense for water quality.

To understand how a buffer works imagine drinking a cup of coffee made without a filter or even one with half a filter; think of all the sediment that would end up in your coffee.

Unfortunately, the people opposed to this ordinance are using fear tactics and mistruths in an attempt to derail this effort. They falsely claim that there is no sound science supporting buffers when there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of documents based on extensive scientific research that demonstrate the effectiveness of streamside buffers, and especially forested buffers.

By cherry picking some of these reports, they claim they prove their point of view, when the opposite is true. The opposition claims a streamside buffer ordinance will harm property values and the county’s finances when it has done neither in the 84 Virginia counties that have already adopted the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance. Seven of those 84 counties have Triple-A bond ratings and most of them received that rating after they adopted the Ordinance.

Obviously, it did not harm their finances or their ability to balance their budgets. Although Loudoun County is not required by law to adopt the ordinance, a 2003 report, Implementation of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission of the Virginia General Assembly, states (pages 90 – 91) that “hundreds of studies have been done on the impact of vegetative buffer and forest buffers on water quality” and “the hundred-foot buffer zone that is used in the Bay Act is within the typical range that is described as effective in the scientific literature…”

The report goes on to state “the expansion of the program could assist in minimizing nutrient and sediment influxes to waterways …” It is not surprising that one of the country’s fastest growing counties, Loudoun, is the first jurisdiction listed each time expansion of the program to non-Tidewater areas is mentioned.

During the Board of Supervisor’s stakeholders meetings, the opposition found people to represent Homeowners Associations that not only have no lots impacted by the ordinance, but also their “representatives” neither lived there nor had any legal connection with the HOA. Under those circumstances one has to wonder how many valid members of the Homeowners Association were aware this was occurring. Recently their attacks have become more strident and outrageous.

They have personally attacked, named and demanded that county employees who were explaining why the ordinance was valid and important be fired. They are even claiming that these employees will be investigated by the State Attorney General.

It is obvious that they are interested in intimidating those same employees into silence and hope the Board of Supervisors will be swayed by their threats. One can only hope that reasonable people will see the absurdity of this sort of campaign and let their representatives on the Board of Supervisors know how upsetting the outrageous behavior of the opposition is and how important it is that the county adopt the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance now.