Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Virginia’s Rivers and Streams — Drawing Down our Natural Capital?

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James A. Bacon
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Most people are familiar with the concept of “financial” capital and “human” capital. Theorists have found useful the concept of “social” capital as well. And then there’s “natural” capital, the assets bequeathed by nature. We’ve been drawing down our stock of natural capital pretty rapidly. Now, in Virginia at least, we’re getting a handle on just how fast we’re doing so.

Every two years, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality surveys the quality of Virginia waters, which include 50,357 miles of rivers and streams, 116,058 acres of lakes and reservoirs, and 2,248 square miles of estuaries. DEQ establishes whether the waters are capable of supporting six categories of use: aquatic life, fishing, shell fishing, swimming, public-water supplies and wildlife.

The bad news, emphasized in the MSM headlines was this, as reported by the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star: 8,984 miles of rivers and streams in Virginia are unable to support any or all of six categories of use–aquatic life, fishing, shell fishing, swimming, public-water supplies and wildlife. That’s up 29.6 percent from 6,931 miles in 2004.

Of course, there is a proviso: The state is finding more impaired areas this year because the survey has added new waters, and some water-quality standards have been tightened.

Bottom line: The headlines are meaningless. As much as the survey has improved, it’s still hard to tell if water quality if improving or not. But the exercise is critically important. We need to know whether we’re drawing down our natural capital or replenishing it. That means expanding the survey from 90 percent of state waters to all 100 percent. It also requires making apples-to-apples comparisons, on the basis of comparable standards, of water quality.

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8 responses to “Virginia’s Rivers and Streams — Drawing Down our Natural Capital?”

  1. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    I’d like to see a map. Also, which miles failed which categories for which reasons.

    If a Republican governor was in office 2004 to 2006, he would have been blamed. Oddly enough, but more appropriately, the Dem Gov wasn’t – and shouldn’t be blamed.

    We’ve posted about this before, I’m interesting in the technologies to remove nitrogen and phosphates from the water – as well as the prevention techniques.

    I’d like to see the cause and effect studies that say for example, “x concentration of nitrogen in y cubic feet of dirt coming into water at location z cause a,b,c,..n concentration of nitrogen in y2 cubic feet at water location z2,3,…n”

  2. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    These are real areas of concern. One thing we need to understand is that there are limits: the closer we get to perfectly clean water the faster the cost goes up, and it is asmptotic to infinity. At some level, trying to prevent nitrogen from entering the water is near futile.

    Likewise with CO2 in the atmosphere. Living results in Nitrogen, and combustion of any kind, including respiration and decay, results in CO2.

    Excess and unneccesary emissions should be stopped, but we can’t just go crazy about it either.

    These are just two items in a long list of things that we are busy maing policy about, without knowing what the end result will be.

  3. Jim Patrick Avatar
    Jim Patrick

    Professor Adler of Case Western’s Law School has a provocative post over on the Volokh Conspiracy. It’s a review of the book, Saving Our Environment from Washington, by Professor Schoenbrod of NY Law School.

    David Schoenbrod is a former environmentalist (the removal of lead in gasoline is due to him) who’s become disenchanted with centralized enviromentalism. He’s especially critical of legislative delegation. Adler’s review (the full review is here) is significant; I anticipate legal action within a few years.

    In Virginia’s case, the deck’s stacked. There is no ‘natural’ or wild water that can ever support all six categories.

    Human swimming water cannot contain pathogenic bacteria (e. coli etc) that naturally occurs. What septic system do beavers, ducks, and muskrats use? Duh! Eliminating these pathogens (with chlorine for instance) makes the water unfit for aquatic life. Duh again!

    One of Adler and Schoenbrod’s main points is that to Constitutionally regulate, those making the decisions must take responsibility —stand for election— after directly imposing the laws on their constituents.

    JAB – Beyond the sewage standpipe dumping into a river, there is no science to it. Even ‘logical’ speculation doesn’t take consideration of soil mechanics, water transport, plant and microbiologic activity. The result is regulation to some fantasy standard constrained only by [government’s] economics.

  4. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Human swimming water cannot contain pathogenic bacteria (e. coli etc) that naturally occurs. What septic system do beavers, ducks, and muskrats use? Duh! Eliminating these pathogens (with chlorine for instance) makes the water unfit for aquatic life. Duh again!

    I hadn’t thought about it exactly that way, but the thought is both amusing and correct. I think it is more or less what I meant when I said we can’t go crazy about it.

    I too started off as an environmental scientist. I eventually figured out that the various environmental action committees were mostly fronts protecting one sort of business or another, and the end result of all this environmental activity was killing thousands of trees to produce all the legal documents that eventually turn out to be one of our great contributions to solid waste.

    I particularly liked Schoenbrods posit that If federal environmental regulations suppress economic growth, discourage technological innovation, and constrain individual liberty, then available alternatives deserve consideration.

    That pretty much describes the basis for much of my ongoing argument with EMR on this blog. I believe conservation and environmental issues are important, even very important. But we cannot afford to spend every last dollar on EP, we still have to eat.

    One of the problems with fantasy standards is that we keep inventing better and more precise ways of measuring minute quantities of bad things. Eventually just because the ability to measure at that level exists, it becomes a standard. And as you point out there is almost no constraint with respect to the economics of what this means.

    And, like the roads and Metro, the more of this we build, the more we have to maintain. A sewer standard of X milligrams per liter is one thing when the population in the river basin is a million, but it might be something quite different when the population is 5 million.

    We cannot expect the government to take on more and more of these incremental responsibilities that have become entitlements in their own right and which expand exponentially, and at the same time expect to hold the line on taxes indefinitely. That is why TABOR is fundamentally flawed.

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Where is the standard that does not allow any amount of e. coli in swimmable water?

    Also, I don’t think you can attribute e. coli from cattle or Canada geese as “natural.”

  6. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    e coli is natural, regardless of the source. What is not alowable is sufficient quantity to cause illness.

    Cattle should not be allowed free access to streams for any number of reasons, but, they like to swim and cool off, too. Fencing them off does not eliminate e coli, but makes it less likely that it will freely enter the streams.

    In any case, there is a limit to what our streams can handle without mechanical cleaning, and then, what do we do with the (now concentrated) toxic waste?

  7. Jim Patrick Avatar
    Jim Patrick

    Anonymous – the standard is DEQ’s; claiming waters are impaired, but that it’s OK for recreation as long as users are “… careful about swallowing water.” Read the cited article.

    While DEQ states the increased impairment (a legal term) are due to more exams and tighter standards, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation —an entity whose very existence depends on scare mongering— claims that “… Virginia is facing a water-pollution crisis.”

    It’s good the DEQ report came when it did. Just two weeks ago Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s disaster du’jour was rain!

    To be truly snarky, Anonymous, cattle contaminant is far more natural (no “cutesy-quotes”) than the desire for Aquafina® gurgling between pristine green Scotts-Turf banks in the Enchanted Forest.

    Canada geese are sparse replacements for the [fouling] waterfowl that were there. Cattle produce far less human-pathogenic organisms than bear, beaver, wolves, and other displaced original mammals.

    We can make the water better and use it better. But the debate must be public and the policies reasonable, responsible and realistic. Bureaucratic regulatory policy doesn’t accomplish that.

    Ray – you’re making unwarranted assumptions and ignoring what nature does so well.

  8. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Nope, I’m with you on this one, Jim. All of your remarks are on target. Nature will clean the streams, up to a point, but it is also pretty clear that some of our streams are not clear, and will need our help.

    We do need policies that are reasonable, responsible, and realistic. I would only add that they also need to be environmentally and economically fair. If Fairfax county or CBF wants to protect their water supply by reducing the grazing land for farmers up stream, then let them rent the land. Otherwise, what they are doing is annexing more land at no cost, in order to reduce their real density to what it should have been limited to in the first place.

    Let government buy the land and create a streambed regional park. Then, the costs involved will help insure that the standards are reasonable and realistic.

    EMR and CBF would have us believe that septic systems are slow death to us all and that multibillion dollar treatment plants save us money by allowing more compact infrastructure.

    I’m still sceptical.

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