If you love the James River — and, really, if you’ve lived here for more than a few minutes, how can you not? — I’ve got a couple of events this week to put on your calendar.

Tomorrow from 6-8 p.m., The Valentine will host the next installment in its free Controversy/History series, which explores “present-day issues facing the Richmond community by pairing historic debates with modern data, encouraging important discussions that inspire action and promote progress.”

Tomorrow’s discussion will focus on the history of the James River. Valentine Director Bill Martin and Coffee With Strangers RVA’s Kelli S. Lemon will present a back-and-forth focused on the different uses of the James River throughout Richmond’s history. Then, Jamie Brunkow from the James River Association, Dustin Rinehart from the Richmond Marine Terminal (The Port of Virginia) and Nathan Burrell with Richmond VA Parks and Recreation will discuss the different uses of the James today, and the potentially competing roles of commerce and recreation. Finally, attendees will receive a list of concrete steps they can take to make a difference in their community. Dialectix Founder Matthew Freeman will facilitate group discussion.

James River floods have been a part of Richmond’s history since its founding. Credit: Wikimedia

Then on Wednesday from 6-8 p.m. at the Chesterfield Central Library (7051 Lucy Corr Blvd., Chesterfield, Va. 23832), the James River Association is hosting a town hall meeting with State Senator Rosalyn Dance about Dominion’s plans for the coal ash ponds at their Chesterfield Power Station.

From the JRA: If, like us, you have concerns about Dominion’s plan to handle the millions of tons of coal ash piling up at Chesterfield Power Station, we encourage you to join us in attending a town hall with Dominion this Wednesday.

Dominion’s preferred plan would cap the coal ash in place, burying it in an unlined basin on the banks of the James River. But groundwater flowing through the base of the pond toward nearby Dutch Gap Conservation Area is being polluted by harmful contaminants. Testing by James River Association, Southern Environmental Law Center, and Dominion show elevated levels of toxic pollutants like arsenic, cobalt, radium and molybdenum.

We need clean closure — an effective, long-term solution that stops the pollution from escaping and takes into consideration all of the people who live, work, and play near Chesterfield Power Station.

Clean closure

– Safely removes coal ash to be recycled or permanently locked away in lined landfills.
– Eliminates the risk of pollution for Dutch Gap and nearby communities.
– Protects local drinking water from potential spills caused by flooding.

According to Dominion’s most recent report, clean closure is possible for Virginia. Let’s keep the pressure up to make sure this plan becomes a reality.

The 2019 RVA Environmental Film Festival will be back in 2019 starting February 4th. This year the annual event will showcase over twenty local and national films for children of all ages that raise awareness of environmental issues relevant to Richmond, the United States, and the planet. Festival planners have re-doubled their efforts this year to present a balanced program with expert speakers that both educates and helps neighbors discover small, but important, ways they can be more environmentally conscious.

Moviegoers will see the premiere of The Swamp at WCVE Studios, a stunning story of both the destruction and possible resurrection of the Everglades. The Festival will also feature films like Hometown Habitat, Stories of Bringing Nature Home which will help audiences understand how and why native plants are critical to the survival and vitality of local ecosystems. Other films include Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things, A Man Named Pearl, and The Devil We Know.

The festival is free (though attendees may need to download  tickets for some films to ensure seating) thanks to the sponsorship of these groups: the Community Idea Stations, Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, Sierra Club – Falls of the James Group, and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

More film titles, dates, and venues will be available in January.

Governor Ralph Northam today officially opened Widewater State Park in Stafford County, the Commonwealth’s 38th state park. Widewater State Park covers 1,100 acres, including two miles of water frontage along the Potomac River and Aquia Creek.

Widewater State Park in Stafford County is just 1 hour and 30 minutes from Richmond. Credit: Va. State Parks

“Virginia’s state parks attract millions of visitors each year, serving as affordable vacation destinations and adding to the economic vitality of the communities where they are located,” said Governor Northam. “With the dedication of this new state park we build upon Virginia’s legacy of conservation and environmental stewardship and expand opportunities for the public to experience our Commonwealth’s natural beauty and renowned system of state parks.”

The property was originally purchased by Dominion Energy as a site for a proposed power plant. The property was later approved for development of 700 residential units, a resort conference center and extensive infrastructure. Dominion sold the property for $1 million less than the assessed value in 2013. The Trust for Public Land and Stafford County assisted in the transaction.

“The development of a low-impact state park on waterfront property significantly reduces the possibility of increased water quality degradation,” said Secretary of Natural Resources Matthew Strickler. “More than 73,000 acres of Virginia are protected as state parks, and only a small fraction of the property is ever improved or developed. We are pleased that this land will be protected for generations to come.”

The visitor center at Widewater State Park. Credit: Va. State Parks

Funding for the $6.1 million property was from Virginia Public Building Authority bonds and a federal appropriation of $225,000 secured by Virginia’s congressional delegation through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program.

“State parks host 10 million visitors each year,” said Virginia State Parks Director Craig Seaver. “Widewater State Park allows us to provide water access in one of the most heavily populated areas of Virginia while maintaining the serenity people expect when they visit one of our 38 state parks.”

James Riverkeeper Jamie Brunkow told us the news last week when we were taping his appearance on our podcast — Views from the Treehouse — but he said we had to keep it under wraps for a bit. Well, now it’s official: “Last week, James River Association education staff discovered five young Atlantic sturgeon during an education program on the James River.”

That’s according to an article posted to the conservation organization’s website.

Why is this a big deal?

A sturgeon, possibly 1-2 weeks old, caught by the James River Association last week. Credit: JRA

“Juvenile sturgeon have been very scarce in the James River, but new and encouraging discoveries are continuing to happen,” according to the same article. “Last fall VCU researchers documented the first two juvenile sturgeon discovered in the James River in more than a decade. Finding young sturgeon that are too small to have migrated from a different river is incredibly important proof of successful spawning… a sign of positive momentum for the species.”

Click here to read the entire piece, including the story of how the infant sturgeon were caught. And look for our podcast episode with Brunkow next week.

The RVA Environmental Film Festival, to be held February 4-10, 2019, is announcing the sixth annual Virginia Environmental Film Award for environmental subjects within Virginia by Virginia residents.

“We continue to be enthusiastic and delighted with the entries we receive for this contest. People have embraced it and It has become a really powerful feature for our festival which also underlines our commitment to local filmmakers”, said the RVA EFF’s Festival Co-founder Scott Burger.

Last year’s $1,000 grand prize winner was An Oyster’s-Eye View of the Virginia Oyster Shell Recycling Program produced by filmmaker Ronaldo Lopez, a Virginia Commonwealth University Center for Environmental Studies graduate. Kenny Fletcher’s Menhaden: The Chesapeake’s Unsung Hero and Jess Jacklin’s Waterman received $100 runner-up awards. Prize money was generously supplied by the Falls of the James Group – Sierra Club.

All Virginia filmmakers are encouraged to submit entries. In the past, the contest has been open to only documentaries, but the criteria has widened to allow fiction and nonfiction entries that include environmental themes.

For submission information for the sixth annual RVA EFF Virginia Environmental Film Award please visit our Withoutabox website.

For general information about the festival visit rvaeff.org.   Films, guests and speakers, and specific schedules for each day of the festival will be made available as the event becomes closer.

(Editor’s Note: The following is excerpted from a September, 2010 column I wrote for the Times-Dispatch. If anything, the paw paw harvest I’m seeing so far this year is even better.)

My search for the forgotten fruit begins just after dawn, but I see immediately that I’m late. Pieces of pulp and half-eaten remains litter the trail: squirrels, again. Say what you will about them: Curse them. Call them names when they ravage the garden. They’re nothing if not industrious.

Paw paws taste like a cross between a banana and a mango.

I scouted this place the day before, and a few examples of North America’s largest edible, indigenous fruit hung just overhead, green and perfect for the picking. I’ll pick them tomorrow morning, I thought, and let them ripen at home, knowing how quickly it happens. Then I’ll be treated to a feast easily accessible to every Richmonder, but one very few partake in.

The squirrels had other ideas. They weren’t about to let an easy meal go to waste. No matter, though. The banks of the James River where I’m walking now are lousy with the fruit, borne on trees with low-hanging branches, just begging to be plucked.

If you haven’t guessed by now, my quarry is the paw paw, or technically, the fruit of the paw paw tree, an understory stalwart from Virginia to Oklahoma to Canada.

Over the years I’ve found that more people in these parts know the song about paw paws than can recognize the tree or have eaten the fruit. That’s a shame for two reasons: 1) The song is really quite terrible and 2) the paw paw is absolutely delicious.

“Where, oh where, is dear little Danny…? Way down yonder in the paw paw patch. Come on girls, let’s go find him, way down yonder in the paw paw patch…Pickin’ up paw paws, put ‘em in your pocket, way down yonder in the paw paw patch.”

And on and on it goes with a different kid’s name each time. We get it: Jimmy, Nellie, Danny, Mitsy, Muffy, Jojo – they’re all down in the paw paw patch gorging themselves. It’s a dreadful, but instructive, little tune. There are no songs about finding kids in the broccoli or asparagus patch. They’re in the paw paw patch because they realize how darn tasty the fruit is.

You’ll hear paw paws called prairie bananas, West Virginia bananas, Virginia bananas, Hoosier bananas, Ozark bananas, Michigan bananas and poor man’s bananas but the most apt name is “banangos.” Paw paws taste like a cross between a mango and a banana.

Paw paws still clinging to the tree.

Sounds good, right? Yet I’ve never seen another person out picking paw paws. Why spend your hard-earned scratch at the grocery store when Mother Nature is giving this fruit away for free? Heck, paw paws can be substituted on a 1:1 equivalency for bananas in most recipes. Doesn’t “paw paw bread” have a nice ring to it?

And they’re thick right now. They must have loved this rainy summer. But they won’t be in for long. Paw paw season is short and sweet.

So I press on up the bank looking for paw paws the squirrels haven’t yet plundered. It doesn’t take long to find them. The paw paw tree isn’t very picky about habitat. It’s found anywhere from well-drained, fertile bottomland to hilly uplands. I haven’t scouted all of Richmond’s parks, but the banks of the James are a good place to start looking for them.

I spy one just out of my reach, but the paw paw tree isn’t very thick – it’s more of a sapling – so I bend it down and pick the mostly-green fruit. It’s just starting to ripen. By tomorrow or the next day, it’ll be perfect.

I wonder, turning the fruit over in my hand, about George Washington. His Excellency was known to savor the chilled flesh of a paw paw. Thomas Jefferson planted the trees at Monticello. Diary entries suggest the Lewis and Clark expedition might not have made it very far without the sustenance the paw paw provided.

As I said, it’s a magical fruit: large and succulent, appearing only briefly every year, lauded by famous men, yet barely appreciated in our time. It hangs there beneath the shade of giant oaks and sycamores waiting for someone to come along, pick it from its stalk, slice it open and have a taste.

Only the squirrels oblige.

(Email me at andy@richmondoutside.com with any questions about paw paws and where to find them.)

If you’ve never been to Presquile National Wildlife Refuge (or perhaps never even heard of it), this is a great opportunity to explore an island in the tidal James River that is rarely open to the public.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service just announced the twice-annual Presquile “field day,” scheduled for Saturday, September 22nd. The event offers visitors an opportunity to explore the 1,329-acre island refuge and the native plants and animals it supports, as well as the sustainably designed education facilities of the James River Ecology School. But here’s the key: pre-registration is required for all participants. Spots are limited, and they always fill up.

Part of the James River Ecology School at Presquile National Wildlife Refuge.

For those registered in advance, access will be provided to the island and its 3.5 miles of wildlife observation trail, boardwalks, interior creeks and select facilities. Visitors can meet FWS employees and environmental partners, view interpretive materials and displays within the Menenak Discovery Center, and learn about the energy-efficient components of the James River Ecology School facilities. A bird walk, guided by a Richmond Audubon naturalist will begin at 7 a.m. Other guided and self-guided tours will be available throughout the day. Limited family-friendly programs and activities also will be offered, including canoeing. James River Association educators will offer programs for kids and highlight environmental education programming opportunities with the ecology school.

All prospective participants must call or e-mail between August 27th and September 19th to secure a seat on the boat for a specific time. Space is limited. People can register for slots within 30 minute windows (as early as 7 a.m-for the bird walk and as late as 2 p.m). Participants will gather at 4101 Bermuda Hundred Road in Chester (AdvanSix’s east parking lot). The event, parking, shuttle and boat transportation are free. In preparation for the adventure, participants are asked to dress appropriately for the weather and bring their own snacks and drinking water.

To reserve your seat, e-mail fw5rw_evrnwr@fws.gov; and provide the following information: preferred reservation time (e.g., 9:30 a.m. or 11 a.m.), total number of people in your party (e.g., 4 — myself and three guests), and the best e-mail address to reach you for confirmation of reservation. List “Field Day” in the subject line of your e-mail. Click here for additional details about the refuge.

Life on earth is driven by change. Our planet’s biology is in a constant state of flux, which makes it all the more remarkable that for the past 150 million years, sturgeon have remained so unchanged by evolution. They are living fossils, looking much the same as when they first appeared on earth. As a family of creatures, sturgeon have even outlived some of Earth’s continents. They were here before T. rex, Triceratops, and Brontosaurus. They’re older than mammals, birds, and flowering plants. Sturgeon have proven so resilient that they’ve managed to survive and flourish through meteor strikes, mass extinctions, volcanic eruptions, ice ages, and drastic shifts in tectonic plates.

An Atlantic sturgeon breaches on the tidal James River. Credit: Don West

Yet despite these tremendous obstacles, at no point in this fish’s 150-million-year evolutionary history have they faced challenges as imposing as those of the modern era. Consider the last 150 years – 1/1,000,000 of the sturgeon’s time on Earth: In 1850 the Atlantic sturgeon was still abundant, by 1900 it was nearly extinct, and today, in a remarkable (yet tentative) environmental success story, the species has managed to swim its way back from the brink of extinction to a population that seems stable, even slowly growing. A miraculous comeback. A Great Return.

There are many reasons for this budding recovery. Virginia banned the commercial fishing of sturgeon in 1974, but at the time many thought this formality was too little too late. They were too few to fish. Sturgeon were feared to be extirpated from the James for much of the 1900s. Although they survived in local rumors and tall tales, scientists had little-to-no hard evidence to confirm their presence. But ecological recovery takes time. It wasn’t until the 2000s when verified sightings started appearing – at first in a slow trickle, growing more promising each passing year. In 2002 and 2004, two juvenile sturgeon were captured in the James – proof of their presence, and circumstantial evidence that they were breeding. Five sturgeon were struck by commercial vessels in 2005 – a sad fact, but one with hopeful implications.

In 2007, the first thorough analysis of sturgeon populations blew previous expectations out of the water. By documenting watermen’s bycatch, researchers were able to identify 175 sturgeon in the James. Scientists at VCU, VIMS, and other institutions have since developed strategies for tracking these fish, giving us valuable insights into their real-time location, movements, and behavior. Ongoing restoration efforts and federal protections have been enacted to secure these population gains. Ecotourism is on the rise, and the sturgeon’s rebound has been embraced by local businesses. Today, at last, we are confident that decades of hard work and activism are finally paying off.

VCU researcher Matt Balazik grapples with a large Atlantic sturgeon caught near Hopewell in 2009.

But threats remain. Each year, sturgeon migrate hundreds of miles upstream to spawn in the James, and each year’s version of their Great Return pits these fish against new obstacles. Questions remain regarding the scarcity of juvenile sturgeon, the impacts of the Surry-Skiffes transmission line, and the
effects of massive industrial water intakes, especially at Dominion’s Chesterfield Power Station. Collisions with commercial vessels continue, and regular dredging of the James River’s shipping channel wreaks havoc on potential spawning habitat, already threatened by sediment and development across the watershed.

For years, the James River Association and partners have worked to minimize these risks. Our Action Network connects conservation-minded Virginians with their representatives statewide. Our volunteers stabilize streambanks, reduce sediment pollution, and multiply our efforts. Our partners monitor populations, conduct cutting-edge research, and even construct artificial spawning reefs. Across the watershed, locals are standing up and speaking out in support of these steadfast creatures, whose 150- million-year narrative will continue… for at least another chapter.

Their saga has been a story of resiliency and success, but the last few pages remain unwritten. Does the Atlantic Sturgeon’s Great Return have a happy ending? There are many reasons for hope, but the answer is up to all of us.

James River Association employees sort trash after a recent James River cleanup.

The biggest James River cleanup of the year is almost upon us, and there’s still time to lend a hand. The James River Regional Cleanup, sponsored by the James River Advisory Council, is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 8 from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. Volunteers can select from 18 different cleanup sites throughout the James River watershed. Visit www.jrac-va.org to sign up.

Now in its 19th year, the cleanup is a tremendous regional effort. Each year, volunteers remove hundreds of bags of trash and recyclable materials from the James and its tributaries. The cleanup also serves as the kickoff for James River Week, which features more than a dozen activities celebrating the river.

The cleanup is open to individuals, families, groups, boaters and paddlers. Bring water and gloves, and wear closed-toe shoes. For more information, call 804-748-1567 or email info@jrac-va.org.