Environmental officials work to craft water quality rules

When it comes to keeping pollutants, particularly dangerous E. coli bacteria, out of rivers and streams, some Lynchburg area waterways just don’t measure up.

With that in mind, a watershed management resource organization and area environmental officials are working on putting a plan in place that would, they hope, cut the bacteria to required levels within five to 10 years.

In December 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency approved an assessment of the volume of bacteria the James River and six of its tributaries could handle and still be used safely for recreation, known as the Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDL.

The TMDL was approved after studies showed the James, as well as Ivy Creek, Fishing Creek, Blackwater Creek, Tomahawk Creek, Burton Creek and Judith Creek to be “impaired,” or containing bacteria levels above acceptable standards.

James Kern, of MapTech Inc., led an informational meeting Thursday night at Lynchburg College, with the intent of spreading awareness about the problem and getting citizen support to put in place a plan to bring bacteria down to acceptable levels.

MapTech, he said, is working with Virginia’s Region 2000, the City of Lynchburg and Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality to develop the plan.

“There’s a lot we can do to clean it up,” Kern said.

“The TMDL … has set the bar for us to get to.”

Kern said there are plenty of ways of cutting down the amount of bacteria getting into the water.

Those range from simply picking up after pets relieve themselves in the yard to building fences to keep cattle out of the water to building green roofs that cut down on stormwater runoff, which could cause sewers to back up.

Bedford County resident Bob Blair, of Blair Marketing, said he came to the meeting out of curiosity, and wanted to do his part in improving water quality.

“I’ve been very much involved with (Lynchburg’s Combined Sewer Overflow) project,” Blair said.

“One of the things that we learned,” he said, “is that citizens in this area are people who don’t want to mess up where they live, this beautiful area.”

The key to success in implementing any plan related to the TMDL, he said, will be in properly spreading awareness.

“This problem affects everybody from businesses to homeowners to renters to kids, so it’s kind of everybody’s problem,” he said. “They need to be made aware of it.”

Blair’s main question of the night was an attempt to pinpoint what sources of bacteria were the most significant.

Kern said there was no simple way to dissect that information, but he provided an estimate of how much of each source needed to be curbed before bacteria levels would be acceptable.

For example, he said, Beaver Creek would need to reduce bacteria from livestock in the creek by 99 percent, bacteria from cropland runoff by 99 percent, and contributions from urban and residential areas by 64 percent.

The plan also calls for elimination of all runoff from illegal sewer pipes, which Kern said many people don’t even realize they have on their land.

Kern said organizers of the project are attempting to build working groups, comprised of citizens and officials who will study particular problems and propose the best way to handle them.

The idea, he said, is to have recommendations in place by August.

“The ultimate goal is water quality in the streams,” he said. “If there are options out there, we want to look at them.”