July 31, 2008
Between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay is a place that takes you back in time. It's known as Virginia's Northern Neck. Steep in history with some of this country's oldest settlers and the birthplace of our first president, Virginia's Northern Neck is a region where visitors find charming small towns, quiet life and an ideal place for retirement with its low taxes. Just as laid back as the area itself are the native realtors. This laid back lifestyle has been instilled in them since birth. It is this comfort zone that the native realtor is in that makes his clients feel right at home with him. Some native realtors are retired waterman. Well almost retired as they still fish a few crab pots and oyster several weeks each fall. It is something that they can't totally get out of their blood. Some realtors can tell you where the best restaurants and shopping are but when you get in the car with native realtor he'll probably take you to a place where you can get a sandwich and sit by the water. Sometimes he'll even swing into a place where the local crabbers tie up or might take one of the 2 water ferries that cross 2 of the many rivers in the Northern Neck. Some people get there news from the paper or internet but when you ride with a native realtor you'll learn that the best way to find out what is happening is to talk to the people.
July 29, 2008
Copied from Free Lance Star
LIVELY
–When visitors to Belle Isle State Park have questions about the pristine, 733-acre facility on the Rappahannock River, it's a good bet that manager Tim Shrader will know the answer.
Since 1993, not long after the site with six miles of shoreline was purchased with state park bond money, Shrader has been on site in Lancaster County in the Northern Neck.
In the beginning, said the friendly, soft-spoken park chief, he was a one-man staff, spending many a night on the property in a building that had no running water.
In the years since, the facilities and staff have grown slowly. There's now a campground with 28 sites, boat ramps and a snack bar, a restored mansion and guest house rented out for weddings and vacations, trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding, and several picnic shelters.
A new visitor and educational center has been completed. So far, only its administrative offices and educational room are open to the public.
Because funding is still in the works, the green building that cost just over $2 million is still a work in progress.
The center is built with windows and big porches along its waterside to maximize river-gazing.
A high-pitched roof and open beams provide a large, beautiful space for displays that Shrader said will probably partly be made up of information about the Native American population that called the Northern Neck home long before European settlers arrived.
The visitor center has nuts-and-bolts facilities as well: offices for park staff, space for a gift shop, restrooms, a place to welcome visitors and space for meetings and educational programs.
Shrader said it was important in the design of the visitor center to have an environmentally friendly profile and landscaping to fit into the environment.
To that end, the building with long-lasting concrete siding was constructed with dark hues and earth tones, with gutters that empty into large rain barrels for watering plants, and light tubes that save energy by filtering natural light into the center.
Another feature that Shrader and the rest of the staff likes: windows on the ground floor and in the peak of the exhibit space that open and have both screens and shades for managing air flow and sunlight.
"The building is also built to use as little energy as possible, with eight to nine inches of Styrofoam in the walls for insulation," said Shrader.
Native plants and bushes were used in the landscaping, with long grasses and wildflowers planted a little farther out.
"We want to make it an animal-friendly environment but still maintain the view of the river," said Shrader, who noted that the building's architect went as far as checking the center's location from a boat on the river to put the building in the right spot.
Shrader said that as the park expands its staff, it will be able to take advantage of the park's rich wildlife and diverse ecology in educational programs.
With fields, forests, riverfront and marshes on the grounds, and wildlife that ranges from a small heron rookery to deer, foxes and more, the park can be the perfect outdoor classroom.
"We've come a long way from the park's first years," said Shrader. "This new visitor center will help us to continue that growth."
Aside from the Native American history, the land has more recent history as well.
The property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. John Bertrand, a Huguenot, first acquired the property in 1692.
The Downman family operated Belle Isle plantation on the site throughout the 19th century.
dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/bel.shtml
Rob Hedelt: 540/374-5415
Email: rhedelt@freelancestar.com
July 18, 2008
Dutch Harbor-Unalaska netted the top landings slot for the 19th consecutive year, according to NOAA's Fisheries Service. Reedville, Va., ranked as the number two port for quantity of landings in 2007 with 421.0 million pounds. Empire-Venice, La., was third at 323.1 million. The major fish product landed in both Reedville and Empire-Venice was menhaden.
July 15, 2008
Human Interest Story From the Northern Neck News
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We were just about finishing lunch at the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge when a call came in from concerned citizen that a nest containing 3 young ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) had slid off its platform and was floating in the water near the mouth of Cat Point Creek near Naylor's Beach. We sprang into action, gathering our hip waders, raptor gloves, kayaks, and a tub in which to place the chicks and float them to safety. Sure enough, the chicks were huddled on the remains of the nest, which was barely afloat, causing them to become wet and risk becoming chilled. The parents were circling overhead, calling and collecting old sticks from the nest, attempting to rebuild. (Not a well-considered move, as the piling was tilted at 45 degrees.)
The first idea was to paddle out to the nest pole with the tub and try to place each chick in the tub. But the laws of physics and the chicks themselves would have none of it. Every attempt to reach or grab just pushed the kayak away. The water was too deep and the bottom to muddy to stand in, and the oldest and closest chick was prepared to attack. Okay, plan B: Float the whole mess to the shore and transfer the chicks onto something stable and floatable. Since there was no way to tie onto the nest remains and tow it ashore, it had to be pushed by the kayak, a difficult, tedious process that took what seemed like forever. Either the nest kept going off to the side or the bow of the kayak kept overtopping it. Meanwhile the soggy raft was sinking and disintegrating, and the chicks were getting wetter. But eventually the awkward affair reached shallow water where there was a hard sand bottom, enabling us to work more efficiently. Just in time, we were able to lift each chick out of the disappearing nest remains and place them onto a hurriedly built "nest" fashioned with sticks on top of an inner tube. (Fortunately, the caller, who stayed to help, had an inner tube with him!) The chicks seemed to accept this temporary fix well enough, so we towed it out to the piling and tied it securely, leaving enough slack to accommodate the tides, until a more permanent solution could be delivered. It was not possible to place the makeshift nest back on the original piling.
As we watched from the shore, the parents continued to call, circle and retrieve the floating sticks of their old nest. Our biggest concerns were the puncturing of inner tube by the talons of the chicks or the parents, or the attaching line becoming wrapped around the piling, causing the inner tube to tilt, causing the loose sticks to slide off when the tide dropped. Last but not least, would the parents continue to feed and care for the chicks on this floating nest?
To address the first two concerns, we quickly arranged to have more stable platform built made of old styrofoam sections used for floating docks. When this arrived, we had to bring the chicks on the makeshift inner tube nest back to shore, and then lift everything onto the new floating dock. Then we let the air out of the inner tube and secured all to the platform with rope. This resolved the worry of puncturing and tilting. It still remained to be seen however, if the parents would accept the new arrangement.
The morning brought good news. Not only were the chicks still on their new nest (and dried out), but mom and dad were there also, providing fresh fish, and adding new sticks! We shall continue to keep an eye on them. Judging from their size and the time of year, the oldest chick should fledge within a couple of weeks. The youngest chick, if it survives, should fledge within a week of the first.
The osprey population is doing very well in this area due to abundant food resources (mainly catfish). For ospreys, the number of young fledged increases with increased abundance of food resources. The average clutch size (number of eggs laid) is 3. The first chick hatches out up to five days before the last one. Raptors will often attempt to raise a third chick, called the ÒinsuranceÓ chick to guarantee nest success. If food is abundant, little aggression is seen amongst the chicks, but if food is limited, the younger chicks often starve. The oldest chick dominates its younger siblings, and can monopolize the food brought by the parents. Fledging takes place about 44-59 days from hatching.
We wish to thank Gary Keckley, who called the office and readily jumped in the water to lend assistance, June Parker Marina, who donated the styrofoam floats, and Ernie Sadler of Assured Comfort, who took time from his job on a minuteÕs notice to construct the new platform. Thanks also to Refuge interns Ricky Coston and Megan Davis, Biological Technician Mike MacKinnon, and Refuge Officer Dustin Martin who assisted in this rescue effort.
All in a day's work. You never know when you go to work in the morning just how your day will turn out.
Spencer is a Refuge Biologist at
Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Warsaw.
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| by Sandy Spencer |
July 14, 2008
480 million dollars is in the 2008 farm bill to go to cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay over 5 years.
The following is from AP:
ANNAPOLIS, Md. -
Farmers want to take better care of their land - but they need more help from government to learn how to reduce pollution while still turning a profit, according to farmers and environmentalists weighing in Monday on how to spend some $188 million in new federal money to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
The money, coming from the 2008 Farm Bill, will go to farmers across the Chesapeake's six-state watershed to reduce pollution running into the bay from fertilizer and animal waste. The five-year spending plan is aimed at helping states meet goals toward improving water quality in the nation's largest estuary.
At a one-day "listening session" in Annapolis, federal Department of Agriculture officials heard a similar refrain from farmers and environmental groups about how the money should be spent. The officials were told not to let the additional cleanup funding replace money already being spent on conservation. They also were asked to stop studying the pollution problem and start spending money to fix it. And over and over, officials were urged to use the money to hire more government agents to sell farmers on why they should implement pollution-reducing measures and how to do it without losing money.
"We're looking at thousands of farm visits," said Ricky Rash, president of the Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts. "We must have the bodies."
Farmers complained that federal and state governments say they want to clean up farms, a major source of soil and nutrient pollution, but then officials turn around and cut staff that could tell farmers how to be better stewards of the land.
"Technical assistance is really the key," said Jim Michael, a cattle and grain farmer from Berkeley Springs, W.Va. "It's just as important as dollars."
Farmers and environmental activists also agreed that the money won't do any good if it simply replaces what's already being spent toward conservation goals in the watershed. And they said the money should go not to research but to broaden current cleanup efforts such as paying farmers to plant wintertime cover crops to prevent fertilizer pollution, or paying farmers to plant grasses and trees near streams as buffers.
"Our programs are basically sound," said Jennifer Harry, natural resource director for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. "It's not a lack of planning, but rather a lack of funding."
There is some disagreement over where the money should go. Some farmers called for equitable distribution of the money across the Chesapeake states, while environmental groups such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation urged spending it where pollution is the worst.
The Farm Bill calls for the Department of Agriculture to give preference to the river watersheds where most pollution enters the Chesapeake - the Potomac, Patuxent, Susquehanna and Shenandoah rivers.
Federal officials, who have not announced when they'll decide how the money will be spent, warned that just because the Farm Bill has passed doesn't mean that every dollar designated for Chesapeake restoration will be spent. Arlen Lancaster, chief of the Department of Agriculture Natural Resource Conservation Service, said that only about 80 percent of the 2002 Farm Bill money was later authorized and spent by Congress.
But Lancaster assured farmers that helping them clean up the Chesapeake is a top priority for federal authorities.
"None of us are new to working for conservation here," Lancaster said
July 13, 2008
Copied from Richmond Times Dispatch
By WESLEY P. HESTER
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Joanne Whitney Walters of Kilmarnock was enjoying a peaceful afternoon of boating and bird-watching at Dameron Marsh in the Northern Neck when a helicopter went down.
The crash occurred Friday about 1:30 p.m. in a secluded area of the Balls Neck portion of Northumberland County along the Chesapeake Bay. Walters saw — and heard — the whole thing happen. Coast Guard and Virginia Marine Police responders say her quick reaction may have saved the two men aboard.
"I was out on my boat and had stopped to relax on a small beach. I had just pulled out my beach chair and book when it happened," said Walters, 55. "It was very surreal — like one of those pregnant pauses. I wasn't really sure I heard what I heard or saw what I saw."
Jack Gilbert Cornelius Jr. of Norfolk was piloting the small chopper owned by Chesapeake Bay Helicopters of South Hampton Roads. It had been chartered by the passenger, Kevin Edward Heffernan of Richmond, with the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation.
Heffernan was conducting an environmental survey, said a spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard.
Walters had been curiously watching the low-flying helicopter hover over the marsh's shoreline for about a half hour when she realized something was amiss.
"He was flying very close to me and abnormally low. I could tell something was wrong. Then he just disappeared over the tree line, and I heard 'flap, flap, flap' and a huge splash."
The aircraft had gone down in a salt pond in a remote part of the marsh.
Walters quickly used her cell phone to report what she had witnessed to the Northumberland Sheriff's Office. Afraid the response might be too slow, Walters then called Virginia State Police. Within 10 minutes, she saw a Virginia Marine Police boat heading up Mill Creek nearby.
"I determined that they were possibly en route to the crash scene, except they were going the wrong way," Walters said, "so I got back in my boat and took off after them and caught up with them. I advised them of what I saw and heard, and they took off toward the shoreline."
Together with another boater, Walters continued to scour the portion of the marsh where she suspected the helicopter had gone down. As a bird-watcher and a nature lover, she's familiar with the area.
Meanwhile, fish-spotter planes from Omega Protein in nearby Reedville circled overhead assisting in the search effort.
"Because the helicopter went down in the marsh, and was surrounded by tall marsh grasses, it was impossible to spot them from the water," Walters said.
Once she reached impassable shallow waters, Walters swam to shore and spotted the helicopter, tipped on its side.
"I could see the aircraft but couldn't reach it on foot because of the mud and marsh grass," she said.
The fish-spotter planes located the helicopter shortly after 2 p.m. and alerted the U.S. Coast Guard, which dispatched its own rescue helicopter, one out of Elizabeth City, N.C., that happened to be in the area on another mission.
John Massingill, a search-and-rescue specialist with the Coast Guard, said the downed helicopter's two occupants were stuck in the marsh next to the partly submerged aircraft. The Coast Guard dropped a rescue swimmer to assess the situation.
"They couldn't swim out and they couldn't walk. The only way to get them was to hoist them out by rescue basket," he said. "It was a dire situation. If they had been left out there they would not have survived. They were very fortunate that someone saw them."
Walters downplayed her role, saying she did what anyone would have done by reporting the crash and trying to help.
"I just happened to be in the right place at the right time," she said.
The two men were taken to an airfield in Middlesex County where they refused treatment for minor cuts and scratches, Massingill said. Neither was available for comment yesterday.
The cause of the crash is under investigation, said Sgt. Tom Cunningham, spokesman for the Virginia State Police. He said the Federal Aviation Agency has chosen not to investigate the matter.
Contact Wesley P. Hester at (804) 649-6976 or whester@timesdispatch.com.
July 10, 2008
The article below was taken from the Washington Post. Although the article is centered around residents in Maryland oyster gardening is a big in Virginia. If you might have an interest in pursuing a hobby that is beneficial to the Bay then contact info follows the article.
Homeowners in the Lusby waterfront community of Hellen Creek off the Patuxent River are growing more than 27,000 oysters under their piers in a grass-roots effort to improve the Chesapeake Bay's water quality. They hope that within a year, the oysters will be able to flush about 1 million gallons of water each day.
The residents bough nickel-size baby oysters and 3-by-6 foot floats, after receiving training from the Patuxent River chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association Maryland. The neighborhood oyster ranchers will flip their floats once a month for three years. At the end of that period, the oysters can be harvested for consumption or will be laid on a sanctuary.
The baby oysters are expected to grow to three inches in about a year. A mature oyster can filter up to 55 gallons of water a day.
The Calvert County community has been leasing six acres on the bottom of Hellen Creek and plans to build a reef sanctuary there to minimize illegal poaching, said Scott McGuire, chapter president.
The chapter also has more than 30,000 oysters floating in St. Thomas Creek. As the two projects continue, the group plans to write a guide for others interested in growing oysters. Experts say the bay's oyster population is roughly 1 percent of historic highs recorded in the 1880s.
The Patuxent River chapter meets on the fourth Wednesday of every month at the Elks Lodge in California. For information, e-mail jcotugno@verizon.net.
Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS)
Sea Grant Advisory Services
Michael Oesterling, (804) 684-7165
mike@vims.edu
Oyster Gardening Organizations:
Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Virginia
(804) 780-1392
Virginia CBF Oyster Gardening Program
Chris Moore (757) 622-1964
cmoore@cbf.org
Tidewater Oyster Gardeners Association
Jackie Partin (804) 694-4407
hellneck@earthlink.net
Northern Neck Oyster Gardeners
Don Beard (804) 438-4820
Lynnhaven 2007
Cliff Love (757) 481-6449
oystercom@hotmail.com
School Oyster Gardening:
Oyster Reef Keepers
Laurie Carroll Sorabella, (757) 460-1200,
oysterreefkeeper@yahoo.com
July 9, 2008
When I saw Danville in the following article I thought Virginia which kind of surprised me.
Why? Because Virginia's sewage treatment plants have marked improvement in eliminating pollution from entering the Bay. Not perfect but better.
This article was about Danville, Pa.
Pennsylvania is the largest polluter of the Chesapeake Bay and something needs to be done about.
What I don't understand is 480 million dollars has gone into the farm bill to help stop non-source pollution (nutrients and other chemicals) from getting into the Bay.
Here we are paying the farmers big money to do the job they should have done and now municipalities can purchase clean up credits because of what the farmers have in order that they, the municipalities, can continue to pollute. Is it any wonder why the Bay is not getting cleaned up.
Danville may get $13M for sewer work
By Karen Blackledge
The Daily Item
DANVILLE — The state could provide $13 million or more of the $26.8 million needed to improve Danville's sewage treatment plant.
"It's wonderful we will be able to get some help," Borough Secretary Tom Graham said Tuesday. "Any help is better than none. One hundred percent funding would be best."
Because the state budget was not signed until Friday, the borough has yet to receive information about how much money it will get to offset the cost of the improvements, some of which are required to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.
Danville is required to invest $16 million to $18 million in upgrades to comply with the bay regulations. In addition, the plant needs $10 million worth of rehabilitation, according to Graham.
In turn, Chesapeake Bay Foundation scientist Harry Campbell said the bay requirements will account for $11 million of the total project cost. The remaining $15.8 million may reflect other changes needed to facilities, he said.
"Once the mandates are put into place, it makes sense to do it all at once," he said.
Rate increases
Since the bay requirements were announced, Danville officials have said sewer rates could increase by 200 to 400 percent.
Danville rates could go from $23.70 per quarter to $47.40 or $95. Rates in Riverside could jump from $55 to $90 a quarter to $220 or more and fees in Mahoning Township could increase from $48 to $96 per quarter.
Riverside and Mahoning Township already use the Danville system. With a moratorium on new sewer connections in Valley Township, the township supervisors may decide to connect to the Danville system. There has been talk of Cooper Township also connecting to Danville's system.
PennVEST will review proposals for the funding under a program that makes $500 million available to wastewater plants across the state for upgrades and to meet bay requirements, Campbell said.
This is a 50-50 matching program with the municipality paying 50 percent of the total cost, he said.
An additional $400 million could be made available through bonds. That funding would be subject to voter approval in the form of a referendum on the November ballot.
The $500 million comes from the state's gaming fund while the $400 million would come from the general fund, he said.
"Local municipalities would have to put their requests in to acquire funds," said Campbell, who works in the foundation office in Harrisburg.
Danville can also offset by cost of the project by purchasing credits from farmers who have reduced runoff, which would offset the amount of upgrades needed.
"We plan to purchase credits at considerably less price than construction," Graham said.
Among the first
Danville's plant is among the first 63 in the state required to meet regulations to reduce nutrients and phosphates. This process will be done in phases with plants ranked by discharge volume.
The borough is required to meet those regulations by 2011.
The state Department of Environmental Protection has directed the first wastewater plants in Pennsylvania to meet new federal Clean Water Act nutrient reduction requirements in the Susquehanna River Watershed. The cost of meeting those requirements for 184 plants in that watershed is estimated at more than $1 billion.
n E-mail comments to kblackledge@dailyitem.com.
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