Tag: James River
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The Trophy in the Middle of the River
by Jon Baliles Some great news this week about the one thing most everyone can agree on: the James River is awesome, and the heart of the City just got a LOT more awesome. Or at least it is pointing in that direction. Mike Platania at Richmond BizSense reported that The Capital Region Land Conservancy…
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Goodbye and Good Riddance to Goodlatte
Carpetbagger. Bob Goodlatte is the 13-term congressman from Virginia’s 6th Congressional District who has blessedly chosen to retire this year. In my opinion he represents just about everything that is wrong with the GOP. Born in Holyoke, Massachusetts and educated at Bates College in Maine, Goodlatte somehow avoids the “carpetbagger” moniker so quickly put on Terry…
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Snakeheads vs Blue Catfish: Fear the Cats
by D.J. Rippert Undocumented swimmers. The Chesapeake Bay Watershed has more than its fair share of non-native species. Mute swans escaped from an estate on the Eastern Shore where they had been imported from Eurasia. Today they are the largest birds in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Nutria were introduced to a nature preserve in 1943 in the…
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Drinkable Water for Humans — or Fish?
by James A. Bacon State regulators have taken heat recently for permits they issued Dominion Virginia Power to release treated wastewater from coal-ash ponds into the James River and Quantico Creek. The controversy has played out in the news as the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) filed an appeal to contest the permit and as protesters organized by No…
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Stakes Alive!
Back in March volunteers with the Countryside Homeowners Association in Henrico County planted some 500 live stakes along severely eroded sections of Westham Creek. We were rubes. We didn’t know what we were doing. Our hope was to establish thickets of Red Osier Dogwood and Black Willow along the waterline that would produce a dense…
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Botanical Barges
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has a new idea for saving the bay: Install floating, fertilizer-sipping wetlands in Virginia’s small lakes and storm water ponds. by James A. Bacon The Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden is well known in the Richmond region for its Fountain Garden, its Rose Garden, its East Asia Garden and its Wetlands Garden.…
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Repairing Waterways One Subdivision at a Time
Virginia’s suburbs are hard on water quality and wildlife habitat. You can do something about it. Create a neighborhood preserve and get to work! by James A. Bacon If everyone swept their front stoop, the old saying goes, the whole world would be clean. With that philosophy in mind, two or three dozen volunteers with…
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Creek by Creek, Fish by Fish, the Bay Is Slowly Recovering
Despite a growing population in its watershed, the Chesapeake Bay continued its long, slow recovery in 2012, reports the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CFB). It may be another four decades before we can say that we “saved” the Bay, but we’re moving in the right direction. Five of 12 key indicators improved last year while only…
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New Life for Broken Streams
Rather than make developers install stormwater-control projects of marginal value, Henrico County pools resources to fund high-impact stream reclamations.
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Taming the Asphalt Jungle
Rain gardens and pervious pavers are encroaching on hard surfaces as Richmond’s three-year-old stormwater utility rolls out programs to control flooding and reduce runoff into the James.
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Racing on the River
The five-mile To The Bridge And Back race is the latest and greatest attraction of the James River, and a sure sign that Richmonders are increasing their commitment to outdoor fitness.
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Thinking Big: a “Park in the Sky” over the James River
Two weeks ago Ella Kelley and Mike Hughes ran a brief op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch highlighting their idea for building a “park in the sky” across the James River. Inspired by the success of New York City’s High Line bridge project (pictured above), which converted a 1.45-mile stretch of railroad line slated for demolition…
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Cool Richmond: Two Hours from the Beach… and One Minute from Itself
by James A. Bacon The denizens of River City are ecstatic about Outside magazine’s designation of Richmond as the “Best River Town in America.” The recognition is very cool, considering the competition. Better than Ashville, N.C., and Durango, Colo., cities known for their connection to the great outdoors? Yessss! (Fist pump!) Cynics might observe that…