Small Steps to Cleaner State Waters

The miles of waterways troubled by pollution in Virginia keep increasing. That’s the bad news from the latest water quality report issued last week by the state Department of Environmental Quality.

But the news is not necessarily all bad. That’s because the state analyzed more bodies of water than ever before. And when that happens, officials say, the numbers tainted by one form of pollution or another is bound to increase.

Investigators and citizen volunteers analyzed a record number of watersheds for the 2010 study — 98 percent of all public waterways from the Chesapeake Bay to the Tennessee River.

The more they looked, the more problems they found. The report shows that 86 percent of all watersheds were tainted by at least one pollutant during the sample period from 2003 to 2008.

The biggest culprits in state waters, as usual, are low oxygen, excessive bacteria or contaminated fish. The miles of waterways showing up with one or more of these problems has increased from 2,611 in 1998 to more than 12,000 miles this year.

But that, again, is a result of more waterways being examined and the use of better research methods that show a clearer picture of the water’s health.

DEQ director David Paylor put the results in perspective when he said, “We continue to find watersheds where pollution is a problem. But we are also seeing more areas where water quality has improved.”

As an example of that, he said that this year the state will remove more waterways from its so-called “dirty waters” list than it will add.

Overall, about 12,000 miles of rivers and streams are classified as “impaired” by at least one pollutant in the new report. The state has some 52,000 miles of rivers and streams. More than 96,000 acres of the state’s 116,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs are impaired, along with 2,200 square miles of estuaries, including much of the Chesapeake Bay. The state has 2,300 square miles of estuaries.

One environmental group cautioned that the report could be interpreted as being too rosy for the state’s waterways. Mike Gerel, senior scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the “report is clear evidence Virginia’s streams, rivers and the Chesapeake Bay are still under siege.”

He added that the state “simply must take more aggressive steps to reduce pollution, especially pollution running off farms, streets and parking lots.”

The biggest pollution source statewide continues to be bacteria, either from farms, sewers, septic tanks, pets or wildlife, according to Darryl Glover, manager of state water quality monitoring and assessment programs at the DEQ. He added that when the source of these contaminants can be traced, solutions can be implemented.

The latest report card on Virginia’s waters does indicate some overall improvement in the water quality. That can be attributed to people taking the environment more seriously, better controls on farmland to reduce pollutant runoff and better wastewater treatment plants, which have reduced the amount of nutrients released into Virginia’s waters.

As the Chesapeake Bay Foundation folks have said, however, the state still has a long way to go. Getting there in small steps seems to be the Virginia way.