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Dan Kegley/A regional campaign seeks to make people aware that regardless of location, their activities affect a river – to its benefit or detriment. This is the Middle Fork of the Holston as it flows through Marion.

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Getting smart about rivers

By DAN KEGLEY/Staff

Everyone in the region from school children to radio listeners, newspaper readers and television viewers started getting the message last week that no matter where they live, study work and play, their activities, for good or ill, affect a river.
They’re learning the facts about trickle-down “ecologics,” especially how to improve the ill part.
The teaching is being done in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee by the Southwest Virginia Environmental Education Team through a program called RiverSmart.  The program reminds people that just about everything they do around their homes affects the environment in some way, whether near to or far from a river.
In this region, the Upper Tennessee River Roundtable is promoting the RiverSmart program. According to a recent release from UTRR Coordinator Carol Doss, RiverSmart developer River Network’s president Don Elder wrote in the program’s guidebook, “The premise of RiverSmart is that we all contribute to water problems, and it will take all of us to solve them.”
According to Doss, the campaign addresses both pollution prevention and water conservation by providing specific and simple ways that people can help at home, such as sweeping instead of washing off driveways, and maintaining septic tanks with regular pump outs.
RiverSmart is funded by a grant from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s Virginia Naturally program. UTRR is administering the grant, Doss said. Program partners with UTRR include Lonesome Pine Soil and Water Conservation District based in Clintwood, Holston River Soil and Water Conservation District based in Abingdon, Tazewell Soil and Water Conservation District based in Tazewell, Daniel Boone Soil and Water Conservation District based in Jonesville, as well as Tennessee partners, the Boone Watershed Partnership and the Upper Nolichucky Watershed Alliance. 
The River Network’s sponsor, Swiss Re, allows nonprofits such as the Roundtable to receive the RiverSmart program kit at no cost, Doss release said.
The “RiverSmart” kit includes print ads for newspapers and recorded public service announcements for radio and television, a scavenger hunt and tips for pollution prevention and water conservation.
The program’s roll-out comes on the heels of a DEQ public meeting last month that discussed how residents can help the Middle Fork of the Holston River meet water quality standards set by law.
The DEQ’s Shelley Williams told the small gathering that the 1972 Clean Water Act federally mandated Total Maximum Daily Loads for all bodies of water. In Virginia, the 1997 Water Quality Monitoring Information and Restoration Act required an implementation plan, and a 1999 Consent Decree with the Environmental Protection Agency required it be done by 2010, she said.
The TMDL is the total amount of pollution a river or creek can receive and still meet water quality standards. It’s the number that pollutant levels on the Holston and Wolf Creek will have to be reduced to, Williams said.
On the Middle Fork the problem extends throughout the entire length of the river. The watershed for the Holston’s Middle Fork chases Interstate 81 from the tip of Wythe County, through Smyth and into Washington, where it joins with the South Fork to form South Holston Lake.
Unlike the Middle Fork, the South Fork seems to be in good shape. Teresa Frazier, a water quality monitor in the DEQ’s Abingdon office, said last week that “the Middle Fork’s murky water can be seen flowing into the South Fork’s clear water.”
For Wolf Creek, the problem is the 17 miles Wolf Creek runs from Abingdon to the lake.
Neither the Middle Fork nor Wolf Creek meet the standards for clean water in the amount of bacteria – specifically e. coli – or the number and types of water creatures found. Williams said more than 10 percent of the samples from each body of water didn’t meet standards for recreational use, meaning there were 235 bacteria units per 100 milliliters.
Williams said that E. coli is only found in the guts of warm-blooded animals. It has to come from people, livestock or wildlife.
The study will first identify all pollution sources. Afterward a computer model will help show where reductions have to take place. From there, Williams said, the next step is to implement the plan and restore the water.
While the TMDL study considers contaminant sources throughout the watershed, RiverSmart focuses on how people can reduce their impact on rivers right at home. Its timing relates to a DEQ official’s attendance at a conference last summer where RiverSmart was discussed, Doss said. The official brought the idea back to Abingdon.
“It looked like a really good program,” Doss said.
Later, Doss had an opportunity to apply for a DEQ program grant. “I had to pick one program. I recommended RiverSmart, and everyone agreed,” she said.
Doss said she has sent the educational materials to the region’s media, but technical compatibility issues remain to be overcome at one television station before that outlet can broadcast the RiverSmart message.
Schools have received materials for distribution to children on pollution prevention and water conservation, she said.
“A river is the report card for its watershed,” Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection’s Alan Levere once said.
“Home”work literally will be a large part of the Holston Middle Fork’s earning a higher grade.

Mark Sage, Media General News Service, contributed.