Virginia’s water wealth needs our protection
Virginia is water rich. Like most of the East Cost, we average about 42 inches of rainfall a year, which is 12 inches more than the national average. But plenty of water doesn’t necessarily mean plenty of usable water. As with all natural resources, we much use water wisely. We need clean water for drinking, food production, jobs, transportation, recreation, beauty and habitat for some of the most unique natural environs in the world. One of those is among the world’s most productive estuaries, the Chesapeake Bay.
Preventing water pollution is difficult, however, because water is dynamic – it flows freely from property to property, from locality to locality, even from the surface to underground. How land and water are used upstream can and does affect the health of water downstream.
Nonpoint Source Pollution
If you live on land, you live in a watershed. A watershed is the area that drains into a given waterway. A watershed can be huge, like the Chesapeake’s, which comprises 60 percent of Virginia’s land base. And watersheds can be small, such as that which might drain into a small pond of creek. Regardless, activities undertaken by people living in a given watershed affect the water within that basin and its particular waterway.
There’s a type of pollution that directly results from how we treat our watershed’s land. It’s called nonpoint source (NPS) pollution because it doesn’t come from a single source, or point, such as a sewage treatment plant or an industrial discharge pipe. NPS pollution occurs mainly through storm water runoff. When it rains, runoff from the watershed’s farmland, city streets, constructions sites, and suburban lawns, roofs and driveways enters our waterways. This runoff often contains harmful substances such as toxins, excess nutrients and sediments. NPS pollution’s effects seldom show up overnight – they often go unnoticed for years. This characteristic makes it all the more difficult to control. Still, this pollution can be controlled. The solution, however, must be employed on a watershed-by-watershed basis because each area’s problems are as unique as are its lands uses.
Types of NPS pollution
There are four major forms of NPS pollution: sediments, nutrients, toxic substances and pathogens.
Sediments are soil particles carried by rainwater into streams, lakes, rivers and bays. By volume, sediment is the greatest pollutant of all it’s caused mainly by erosion resulting from bare land, poor farming practices and construction and development.
Nutrients are substances that help plants and animals live and grow. NPS officials are most concerned about excessive amount of two nutrients: nitrogen and phosphorus. Fertilizer and animal waste are the main sources of these substances.
Toxic substances are chemicals that cause human and wildlife health problems. They include organic and inorganic chemicals and metals, pesticides, formaldehyde, household chemicals, gasoline, motor oil, battery acid, roadway salt and so on.
Pathogens are disease-causing microorganisisms present in human and animal waste. Most pathogens are bacteria.
We all contribute to NPS pollution
Because we all live in a watershed and use land therein, we all contribute to nonpoint source pollution. In Virginia, most efforts concentrate on NPS pollution from farmland, urban areas, construction sites and forestland. Farms yield sediment, toxic substance and excess nutrient. Statewide, farmland loses several tons of soil per acre per year. While this soil is productive on land, in the water it cuts light needed by aquatic plants, obstructs water-ways and covers aquatic habitat with sediment. Worse, soil from farmland sometimes takes with it pesticides and nutrients.
Most of the Virginia’s NPS Pollution prevention efforts are focused on managing nutrients within watersheds because nutrients post on of the greatest threats to the health of our waterways and, in particular, the Chesapeake Bay. Experts estimate that 50 percent of the nitrogen and 29 percent of the phosphorus entering our state’s surface waters come from farmland.
But farms aren’t the only source of NPS pollution. Urban and suburban areas also yield significant levels of nutrients as well as toxic substances, pathogens and sediment. Poorly protected construction sites can erode at a rate 500 times that which would occur naturally. City streets and other impervious surfaces yield NPS pollutants such as motor oil, gasoline, antifreeze, and other toxic chemicals. Because these surfaces don’t absorb rainwater, runoff from urban areas is nine times greater than is that from forestland. Believe it or not, just one quart of poorly disposed; used motor oil can contaminate two million gallons of drinking water. That’s enough to meet ones person’s water needs for more than 75 years.
NPS pollution’s effects
Life in Virginia’s rivers, streams, lakes and bays could not exist, of course, without nutrients, but too much of a good thing often causes more harm than good. Nutrients over-enrich our waterways causing algal blooms that deplete oxygen. This makes the oxygen unavailable to fish and shellfish so they suffocate and die. The algae also cut much needed sunlight by clouding water and coating underwater vegetation. Sediment clouds water too, and it obstructs waterways, clogs sewers, interferes with navigation, and smothers fish and shellfish spawning grounds. Natural erosion and sedimentation occur at a much lower rate than that resulting from human land use activities.
Underwater plants and aquatic animals are particularly threatened by NPS pollution. Oysters, shad, herring, striped bass, and submerged aquatic vegetation – considered by many to be the foundation of a stable aquatic ecosystem – are harmed by this pollution.
No easy answers but nature responds
The problem is complicated and there are no easy answers, but recent efforts by Virginia and other bay region states show that NPS pollution can be controlled and that nature responds to restoration efforts. For example, the Chesapeake’s striped bass population has made a comeback. It’s clear that the best way to solve our NPS pollution problems is through well-informed watershed-based individual citizen involvement.
What you can do
Here are some simple ways you can help control NPS pollution in your watershed. Remember, since all of us are part of the problem it takes all of us to solve it. Know your watershed. Learn more about how land in your watershed is used and how this affects its waterways. Knowledge is power. Fertilize your lawn and garden according to soil test results. Contact your local extension office agent for instructions. Fertilize at times when nutrients are most needed and absorbed by the plant’s root system. Apply fertilizer when heavy rain isn’t likely to wash it away. Apply pesticides according to instructions on the label. Collect litter and animal waste before they wash into storm drains. Recycle grass clipping and leaves by mulching of composting. If you can’t compost, collect and dispose of yard waste according to local provisions. If you change your own oil, take the used oil to a recycling station. Check with local service station for such facilities. Never dump oil into a storm drain. Home septic tanks should be located, constructed and installed according to regulations. Maintenance and prompt correction of problems are important.
Direct roof runoff onto a grassed area. Roof drains should be connected to a sanitary or storm sewer system. Watch for soil erosion around your home. Seed, install sod or plant ground cover to protect the site. Use porous surfaces such as flagstone, gravel, stone, and interlocking pavers rather than concrete and asphalt. If you’re concerned about the effects of runoff leaving a nearby construction site, contact the local governing body responsible for erosion and sediment control in your area. Most land disturbance is regulated by local ordinance under the Virginia Erosion and Sediment Control Law.
Be active in your watershed! Join a civic or environmental group and participate in stream clean up activities. Give talks, staff booths, volunteer for river cleanup activities such as Adopt-A-Stream, Fall River Renaissance or Operation Spruce Up. Help stencil storm drains so others better understand where their water-shed’s runoff really goes… spread the world.
It’s our turn
You couldn’t live long without clean water. Nothing can. Above are just a few simple ways to give something back to your waters. For more information on watershed groups or NPS pollution prevention efforts in your area, call toll-free 1-877-42WATER.