By Ryan Raicht
Virginia has made significant progress in cleaning up local streams and rivers that are part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, a representative of the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation told the Rockbridge Conservation group.
Credit goes largely to what’s called a buffer program in which vegetation is planted near waterways to block harmful runoff from farms, said Sarah Coffey, Virginia agricultural field technician for the foundation.
“Our goal, ultimately, is to have a healthy and productive bay with clean water and healthy oxygen levels that are free from the impact of toxic contaminants,” Coffey said.
Coffey, who spoke to the conservation group via Zoom on Wednesday, focused on the riparian buffers, which help protect the waterways from being polluted by chemicals and contaminants from nearby farmland.
As of fall 2022, the James River Buffer Program has established 124 acres of buffers in Rockbridge, Highland and Bath counties. Coffey said the goal is to reach 200 acres by the end of this year.
The Virginia Environmental Endowment, a nonprofit foundation, has funded 100% of the James River Buffer Project costs to date with grants.
The budget proposals pending in the Virginia General Assembly include provisions that would provide funding for clean water programs. The bipartisan proposals include cost-share grants to farmers to keep soils and fertilizers from getting into nearby waterways. Farmers would utilize stream fencing, nutrient management plans, as well as forested buffers.
Coffey said the Chesapeake Bay Foundation has found that planting trees near a stream or river provides the most effective solution to block harmful contaminants from waterways.
“Streams bordered by forest are actually two to eight times more effective than grass buffers,” she said.
Tom Stanley, a farm business management extension agent at Virginia Tech, said he believes in the efforts of the buffer program.
“The mid-Atlantic, by virtue of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort, is really leaps and bounds ahead of a lot of other places, certainly in the United States,” he said.
Volunteers are at the core of the buffer program, Coffey said. Volunteers go out and plant vegetation along streams and rivers. In the past two years, the buffer program has relied on volunteers for six planting events. The regular volunteers include fly-fishing enthusiasts and local college students, she said.
“It’s a way to get the community involved and seeing the benefits of buffers right in their backyard or in the neighborhood,” Coffey said.