Basic Monitoring
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As you may know, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, and just floating in an inner tube with your backside in the river are popular on our local stretch of the James.

Last summer, I was involved in a program to monitor the water conditions on the entire James River; useful scientific measurements in their own right and published weekly on the web to inform anglers, boaters, swimmers, tubers, etc. of the prevailing conditions between Memorial Day and Labor Day.  The measurements are simple physical ones: temperature, height, flow speed, and turbidity.  Further, we do a microbiological test for E coli, which involves incubating a culture sample for 24hrs for visual analysis.  E coli counts can be very high after a major storm, primarily due to runoff from the neighboring farmland; it is then wise to limit facial contact with the water and to wash your hands thereafter.  Don't drink the water, and I wouldn't eat any fish either.

I have volunteered to do this in 2020 if/as conditions permit.

Chemical Monitoring
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The Hardware River is 23.3mi (37.5km) long; the watershed is 138 sq.mi (357 sq.km).  I was hoping to be able to make measurements at the Hardware bridge to get a reading of the health of the whole watershed.  Bingo!  Luckily, there is an access site which is sufficiently secluded where I can legally make basic chemical (Salt/Chloride, Nitrate, Nitrite, Dissolved Oxygen, Phosphorous) measurements.  I have been doing these for a few weeks as preliminaries (I hope) and as precursors for the rest of the year.  Unfortunately, there is no appropriate access site to make benthic measurements.

Benthic Sampling
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The best way to determine the health of a stream or river is to evaluate the creatures that live there.  These have been well studied and are characterized by their tolerance to contaminants and oxygen content. The best overall result is given by a sample of benthic ("of the region at the bottom of a body of water") macroinvertebrates, which consume waste material (animal and vegetable) and provide the basis of the ecological food cycle.  These are captured in a net and counted by hand.  An analysis of a sample of 200 gives a good quality index.  I have been trained and certified to do this to the Order level.

A quick aside.  In biology, the taxonomy of life is traditionally divided into a hierarchy with three domains, after Linnaeus (1707-1778).

Mnemonic:    Did     King     Peter      Come      Over     From      German Shores
Taxonomy:    Domain  Kingdom  Phylum     Class     Order    Family    Genus  Species
Humans:      Eukarya Animalia Chordata   Mammalia  Primates Hominidae Homo   Sapiens
Insects:     Eukarya Animalia Arthropoda Insecta   (many)

There are many Orders of insects, many of them aquatic, and 10 are seen in fresh water for some part of their lifecycle.  Also seen are invertebrates from other phyla: molluscs(2), nematodes(1), worms(5); and from other arthropod Classes: crustaceans(4), spiders(2), springtails(1).

This gives 25 different Orders/Classes of creatures.  Although the process of identification requires care, it is readily possible with such a reasonable number.  Nevertheless, these creatures are small, and it is sometimes impossible to identify them in the field, so the unknowns have to be saved in alcohol and identified later under a microscope in a lab.

More precise measurements actually identify the creatures to the Family level rather than to the Order level.  This gives a much more accurate estimate of the stream health, since the individual Families have a spectrum of tolerances.  The issue here is that the count of creature types goes up to nearly 100.  Although I have taken training to this level, I am not yet certified there, and I can only be a helper.

The samples are taken twice a year in fairly remote locations, although by definition readily accessible.  So we should be able to continue, right?  In our area, the results are coordinated by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ) to the Family level and its staff, as state employees, are required to adhere to the stay-at-home order strictly.  Further, all of the people volunteering in this have the same restriction.  The labs are also closed.  So this sampling is on hold, probably for the entire spring season.

Riparian Buffers
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This is also on hold.  In order to provide clean streams, there is a requirement that cleared fields on the banks of rivers have a small region of native shrubs and trees, a riparian ("relating to river banks") buffer.  This is to allow natural filtering of run-off from the fields, to contain erosion and to filter bacteria, such as E coli, and other waste from livestock.  In Virginia, hence on the James River, the buffer size requirement is 30m/100ft in the coastal plain and 10m/35ft upstream.  The buffers are planted with protected tree seedlings and revisited annually for the next three years to replace those that didn't make it.  Last year, I helped with two such projects each of about 3 acres/1.2 hectares.  The first was revisiting last year's plantings, the second a new riparian buffer.

Gareth Hunt, 08 April 2020