VDEQ releases report on Rockfish River water quality

After more than eight months collecting data, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality released its report last week on what is mucking up the waters of the Rockfish River in northern Nelson County.

In the north fork, south fork and main run of the Rockfish River, the culprits are mostly livestock, wildlife, pasture land and human contamination, Tara Sieber, the regional coordinator for DEQ, said.

For eight years, the DEQ tested the Rockfish River, along with its north and south forks and Taylor Creek, for water quality standards and found that portions of the river do not meet Virginia’s water quality standards and have been declared “impaired.”

In Virginia, state law requires that all streams be “swimmable,” and meet the set water quality standards set by DEQ which say streams cannot fail water quality tests for bacteria more than 10 percent of the time.

Too much bacteria in the water can pose a “human health risk,” Sieber said.

The streams in the Rockfish watershed were tested once a month by trained DEQ personnel.

The study and plan to clean up the streams are called the Total Maximum Daily Load Implementation Plan.

Sieber said the DEQ looks specifically at E.coli bacteria when doing water quality testing and that the streams in Nelson that were declared impaired had too much of that bacteria in them.

The north and south forks of the Rockfish River, the main stream of the Rockfish River and Taylor Creek all have testing sites at their mouths where DEQ took samples.

“Our goal is for the Rockfish River as a whole to be swimmable and fishable,” she said.

The DEQ presented the first phase of its findings on the stream impairments in January. On Sept. 7, they presented the second set, which details where the bacteria contamination in the Rockfish River is coming from.

According to the DEQ, more than 86 percent of the bacteria coming into the north fork of the Rockfish River is directly deposited there from livestock and wildlife. Water runoff from pastureland accounts for 10 percent.

Sieber said another contributor to the bacteria are “straight pipes,” sewage pipes that connect directly to a toilet and run straight to the stream. These are found in some older homes, she said.

Wildlife and livestock directly depositing also account for 64 percent of the bacteria in the south fork of the Rockfish River, according to the DEQ. Straight pipes account for 30 percent of the bacteria in that portion of the river.

On the main section of the Rockfish River, livestock and wildlife contribute 77 percent of the bacteria directly deposited into the stream. Straight pipes and water runoff from pasture land account for 22 percent, according to the DEQ.

Sieber said the ultimate goal of the study is to clean up the rivers and remove the Rockfish River and its north and south forks from the state’s “dirty waters” list.

The next step in the process of eliminating the bacteria in the waters is to develop a clean-up plan, Sieber said.

With public input, this plan will help identify actions and practices that need to be put into place to reduce the amount of bacteria being dumped into the streams.

“We are looking for effectiveness and efficiency,” Sieber said. “We want to know how can we get the biggest bang for our buck.”

Sieber said other localities have had success stories on cleaning up their streams and rivers but there is no “golden ticket,” and each locality must develop its own specific clean-up plan.

One suggestion is to fence in livestock and pastureland, keeping animals directly out of the streams.

Paul Davis, of the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District, said there are funds available to help local farmers and livestock owners with fencing in their land and building water access for animals.

The DEQ is continuing to take public input on the findings and clean-up plan and will be forming local steering committees to help develop the implementation plan.

For more information, contact Tara Sieber at (540) 574-7870 or tara.sieber@deq.virginia.gov.