Rivanna River Basin Commission Meeting   5/6/2022

Just to let everybody know, I just started the recording for the meeting.

Let's have a couple of words from each of the others so that everybody can sort of know what's going on.

I don't know if Lonnie's coming.

Yeah, there's Lonnie right there to the right, too.

I'm an appointed director with Culpeper Soil and Water.

representing all five counties of the district.

My farm is actually in the Ravana, I mean, I'm sorry, the Ravana Basin.

It runs into the Lynch River, or Roach River, I'm sorry, Lynch River's the next one over, runs into the Roach River.

In fact, there's three springs on my property, which are the headwaters

So you're representing the North Fork as well, so that's grand.

Very good.

Yes.

Yes.

Hi, my name is Lonnie Murray.

I'm a director on the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District.

You can truly see the Mormons from your house, which is great.

All right, wonderful.

Where's Tony?

Sorry, here I am.

I'm Tony O'Brien, I represent the Rivanna District for the Fluvanna Board of Supervisors.

I live just off of the Rivanna River there, and I have a close relation in this meeting here.

Well, congratulations on that.

That's terrific.

Now, is your district where Pleasant Green is on the south side of the James?

Is Pleasant Green in your district?

Pleasant Grove.

Pleasant Grove, sorry.

Pleasant Grove is part of the Palmyra district, I believe.

Oh, OK.

Ann's Point Pleasant Grove is a 1,000 acre gold farm that was donated or purchased by the county and is now a wonderful park with historical trails and a Frisbee golf.

It's also a great pull out when you're canoeing, which is wonderful.

This is Marvin.

Go ahead, Marvin.

Mr. Moss, I believe you're not muted on the video.

Okay.

Very good.

I'm going to go ahead and mute him.

There you go.

Just to give him privacy, I muted him and we can go to other people and come back to him.

Okay.

I'm Lloyd Snook, Charlottesville Mayor.

Yes, I guess I will second what Lloyd said.

I'm a Charlottesville City Councilor, been appointed to this body.

I guess more broadly I do the Riverview Park in Rivanna is one of my favorite places in

Wonderful.

That's great.

And Mr.

Good afternoon, everybody.

My name is Dale Herring.

I'm the ant large supervisor for Greene County.

I've been part of this group, I guess, maybe for a year now.

It seems like it's been about a year.

So it's good to see everybody again.

Hopefully soon.

Maybe one day we see each other in person again.

Who knows?

That's terrific.

Now, did we get everybody?

And Christine, our queen in charge is for the director of the TJPDC as well.

And very good.

OK.

The meeting of the Rivanna River Basin Commission is being held pursuant to the Code of Virginia 2.23708.2, which allows a public body to hold electronic meetings when the locality in which it is located has declared a local state of emergency and the catastrophic nature of the emergency makes it impractical or unsafe to assemble a quorum in a single location.

And the purpose of the meeting is to provide for the discharge of its lawful purposes, duties, and responsibilities.

This meeting is held via electronic video and audio means through Microsoft Teams online meetings and is accessible to the public with closed captioning and there will be an opportunity for public comment during this portion of the agenda.

Notice has been provided to the public through notice of the TJPDC offices, to the media, through the RRBC website posting and the agenda.

The meeting minutes will reflect the nature of their emergency, the meeting which was held by electronic communication means, and the type of electronic communication means by which the meeting was held.

A recording of the meeting will be posted at the rivannariverbasin.org within 10 days of the meeting.

Excellent.

No problem.

And I think our next item is the discussion, if necessary, correction, if necessary, and adoption of the minutes from September 14.

So were there any additions or corrections in those minutes from anybody?

So moved.

And I'll take the second one as a second.

That's terrific.

And all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Or wave your hand.

Thank you.

Very good.

Thank you.

Jason, please introduce yourself to the group.

Hi, everyone.

Jason Halbert.

I'm the executive director at the Oak Hill Fund, a private foundation, and I'm the citizen representative for the city of Charlottesville.

We're glad to have you.

That's wonderful.

And it may come up on the agenda later, but I think I remember, Isabella, you telling us that there's a citizen opening in Albemarle that we need to work on filling.

Is that correct?

Yes.

There is also one in Greene County.

Okay, so we have work to do board members to find some people to go to bat with us on this topic.

Very good.

Okay, let me jump back up to my agenda here.

And next is upcoming schedule.

Alrighty, so I did wanted to make everybody aware that in congruence with the changes with COVID, the next meeting will be held in person.

Just so you all are aware, we will be able to see each other face to face coming up here shortly.

And the next meeting will likely be in September before the annual conference that's held.

And just for a little bit of background here.

The TJPDC has been working on a work plan for the Rivanna River Basin Commission.

You can check out the scope of work in the meeting packet there.

But at the upcoming meeting, we will present the final document, no longer a draft or preliminary recommendations for approval to you all, hopefully.

Great.

I can go ahead with my presentation here, if that works for everybody.

Thank you.

This is for item four, the Rivanna Corridor Plan presentation.

Isabella, I'm really sorry to interrupt you.

Are you guys hearing feedback from one of the non-video?

Mr. O'Brien, I'm going to go ahead and mute you just so you know.

I think we're getting feedback from you.

OK, I will go ahead and share my screen, but I did want to start with just the introduction.

Are you all seeing the presentation?

OK, wonderful.

So I'm Isabella O'Brien, a new member of the TJPDC.

I'm an environmental planner focusing

mostly on environmental programs so I support the watershed implementation plan, the solid waste and recycling plan, hazard mitigation plan, and the Rivanna River Basin Commission here.

As you may have heard from my father, I'm from Fluvanna County.

I am a Fluvanna County native and then went on to UVA to study environmental science.

My first internship was actually with the Rivanna Conservation Alliance so I have a lot of personal interest being involved in this program and I feel

Really honored to be able to support you all in your efforts here.

But I will go ahead and jump right into it.

So as I had mentioned, we've been working on a work plan for the Rivanna River Basin Commission to take on in upcoming years.

And the stage that we're at right now is we've completed all of our background research.

And now we're looking for feedback from you all on if there's any recommendations that

You don't see a dress that you'd like us to sort of explore further as we continue through this process or if there's anything that you'd like to add to the existing recommendations here.

So first I'm just gonna take you through a little bit of the process that we've gone through to develop these and then share the recommendations with you all.

So I thought it was important as a new member of the TJPDC to understand

in depth the purpose of the Rivanna River Basin Commission.

And as you all I'm sure are aware, we provide guidance for the stewardship and enhancement of the water and natural resources within the basin.

And we're a forum for local governments and citizens to discuss issues affecting the basin's water quality, quantity and other natural resources.

And then by promoting communication, coordination and education, and by suggesting appropriate solutions to these identified problems,

We shall promote activities that foster the resource stewardship of the environmental and economic health of the basin.

So you can see a little bit more included in the scope of work that I shared in the meeting packet, as well as the preliminary recommendations.

I made a little document right up there, but our initial research involved a review of the policy recommendations and programs pertaining to the Rivanna River.

You can see kind of the research that we compiled there as well in the meeting packets.

We also looked into other river area plans to identify the recurring themes and the best practices of other areas.

We also did an inventory and assessment of the many different organizations involved along the river, whether it's through environmental protection, historic resources, preservation,

or Recreation as well.

And then I did a deep dive into the history of the Rivanna River Basin Commission.

It was really lovely speaking with Leslie Middleton, the past executive director of the Basin Commission before the merge with the TJPDC.

I got a lot of helpful insight there into their successes in the past and maybe what we could take from the past and learn from that here.

And then we also looked into the Rappahannock River Basin Commission.

which has a similar role to us in the Rappahannock region except they are a much larger basin.

So they'll typically have senators, delegates, local government, soil and water conservation districts meeting on a quarterly basis to discuss water quality issues.

and we actually, our next step is going to be to have a meeting with Eldon James who's the coordinator there to kind of get a little bit more insight into the history of what they do as well as what makes them successful as a base in commission.

And then as we were conducting the inventory and the assessment of the organizations involved along the Rivanna, I recognized the opportunity to kind of hear a little bit more from them.

So we sent out a survey

to the organizations we identified in that inventory to kind of gain their insight into the issues and goals pertaining to the Rivanna River as well as the programs that they were involved in pertaining to the Rivanna River so that whatever we were to recommend for the Basin Commission would complement their work and not be duplicative of it as well as to just gain some insight from the people that are working on the ground there.

and then we moved forward with developing a few recommendations and then brought those to some local staff and technical experts.

I spoke with David Hirschman who served on the technical advisory committee of the Rivanna River Basin Committee in the past and, sorry was that somebody?

I know, okay, and he also is a water resources consultant in the area currently now.

We spoke with local parks and rec staff

as well as local planners to get their insight into the recommendations that we've developed and what their priorities were surrounding the Rivanna and the development of these recommendations.

And then again, this is in the meeting packet, but just to show you sort of the research that we did, we looked into the comprehensive plans of each locality within the basin and then listed there are some of the other river area plans that we were able to research and

find the common themes within.

And through looking at the comprehensive plans of each locality and the city, and through speaking with local staff, we found about seven common threads throughout all of these that I think encompass every locality, which is increasing recreational facilities, biking and walking paths, encouraging tourism, physical health and safety,

addressing economic development and job opportunities along the river, maintaining natural scenery and rural scenery as well as conservation easements along the river, maintaining and improving water quality, increasing public education surrounding the river, and then maintaining our historic and cultural resources along the river.

And we sort of use this as a jumping off point for developing those recommendations there.

And once we identified these common threads, just to show you a little bit more about the survey that we sent out, we asked specifically what initiatives they were involved in relating to the Rivanna within sort of each of these buckets of the common themes.

And then as there's already an urban corridor plan for Charlottesville and Albemarle, we wanted to get their feedback on what specifically was occurring in the rural areas.

just to focus a little bit more on that as there's already been a greater focus in the urban areas.

And then we just took that opportunity to ask them about the regional challenges and issues that they had addressed along the Rivanna opportunities for better coordination.

And then any other organizations that they collaborate with that we could speak with and contribute to this conversation.

And then I just left it open for them to share anything else that they'd like to share.

after providing background on what we were trying to accomplish here.

And these were the organizations and nonprofits that we sent the survey out to.

I kind of threw out a wide net here just to kind of gather as much feedback as possible.

But again, focusing on some of the historical and environmental organizations in the area.

and some of the feedback that we got was from the Piedmont Environmental Council, they were looking for more implementation of the drinking water supply plan, better protection of riparian buffers, better mitigation of impervious surfaces, maintaining compact growth boundaries within the rural areas to limit the slow drip of subdivision development,

Wild Virginia wanted us to sign on to legislation that impacts water quality, such as the campaign for Virginia's water future, as well as to work to stop the permitting of the Mountain Valley pipeline.

As the Old Mills Trail is being developed further, someone asked for us to ease right away on the north side of the Rivanna to facilitate the expansion.

And then

Just to explore the incentives that exist for implementation of stream buffers and better incentivizing livestock exclusions and just in general increased conservation of the watershed lands.

and then again, I mentioned this before, but I looked into the history of the Rivanna River Basin Commission through conversations with previous staff members and technical advisory committee members and got their feedback on some of the recommendations we were exploring.

And then I also got to take a look at some of the documents that were developed through the Rivanna River Basin Commission in the past and included in the resources that I sent over.

You can take a look at the Rivanna River snapshot

which was drafted in the past, which was about a 12 page report on just the current state of the basin, the water quality issues there, organizations that people can collaborate with, local or native species.

And then also I took a look at the state of the basin report, which was developed in 1998.

And it actually, it was a huge effort.

by so many stakeholders in the Rivanna River Basin Commission that developed about 75 recommendations surrounding the Rivanna.

And it was kind of interesting to take a look back at that one.

And then of course, I just reviewed our conferences and meetings here in the past to hear what issues have been impacting the Rivanna in recent years.

So now we're getting into some of the recommendations that we've developed.

So first would be an annual update to the Rivanna River snapshot.

And so currently the Rivanna Conservation Alliance provides a technical report every year on water quality in the area as well as native species.

And we don't want to step on any toes.

So I think rather than being a more technical sharing information body,

The Rivanna River Basin Commission has a unique opportunity to share region-wide information on the successes surrounding the Rivanna River, such as the successful projects, such as the Moores Creek restoration project that's occurring there in the park, as well as successful grants, environmental grants that organizations have been able to apply for to kind of

share region-wide information about successes as well as how the public can engage with the many river stakeholders that we have identified as part of our research process and this would just be informed by local meetings with staff members, local news, conversations with the Rivanna stakeholders and I think it's just a way to

Connect the public as well as localities with the Rivanna, as well as the successful implementation of best management practices, which is a big part of the watershed implementation plans goals for the state.

And then the next recommendation through conversations with local staff, this was the recommendation that was preferred by them.

It would be the Rivanna Roundtable, which would be more so a forum for stakeholders surrounding the Rivanna to collaborate.

I know we have our annual conference here, but it's more so than I think a presentation.

And there's not really coordination of the various river stakeholders and stewards to kind of collaborate on their efforts.

I know something that was mentioned

in a past board meeting through the RRBC was that localities are interested to know more about the environmental legislation that they can enforce and ordinances that they can pass to kind of improve water quality standards in the area and something I was thinking we could address through the Rivanna Roundtable by inviting speakers from potentially the DEQ or other localities to speak on the best practices there.

and this would just really open up a forum for us to collaborate on the goals that have been identified through the many planning efforts that have occurred surrounding the Rivanna through I think looking at the state of the basin report and the urban corridor plan there's a lot of recommendations that still stand and also even in the urban corridor plan I'll show you some of the guiding principles there in just a moment but

I think there's a lot of overlap into the rural localities and by taking a look at that and sort of collaborating on how we can move forward with some of these recommendations, I think that would be very beneficial to the community as well as each locality.

And here are some of the organizations that I was thinking would be helpful to be a part of this roundtable.

I spoke with

Some contacts at the DEQ about this specific recommendation and in years past there was a grant opportunity available for a roundtable surrounding watershed issues which could potentially support this if we decide to move forward and develop it and that application would likely open up in fall.

And as we sort of

Define specific topics that need to be addressed at the roundtable.

We can make sure that the stakeholders there can be a part of this group.

So it doesn't necessarily have to involve everyone each time, but specific people as needed.

And yeah, again, I wanted to show you the guiding principles of the urban corridor plan as I think that there's some overlap with the entire Rivanna River.

And I think having the Rivanna Roundtable could help to inform potentially a entire Rivanna plan, not just a specific corridor in the future.

And then next, we have this historical timeline.

of the Rivanna River Basin.

I found a really cool example from the Neuse River in North Carolina and they have a few different versions of it so I'll go ahead and just show you those examples.

So first here on the right side of the screen you can see sort of their printable version.

It was a smaller and more condensed version and the purpose of this was to

familiarize the population with their watershed and give context to the specific water quality issues that affect their river basin.

And I think that this would be very similar to what our goals would be through our historical timeline.

And by implementing this, we would likely partner with the local historical societies, Parks and Rec, historical nonprofits, the Monacan Indian Nation, and others as identified.

So here I'll show you the other versions that they've created.

So first they have this more interactive version of it where they share specific information on the watershed and the brief history.

Some of the things that I think would be interesting to include in this for the Rivanna is the

Batteau history, as well as history of the Monacan Indian Nation, the Civil War history, the history of the canals and locks that were used in the past, as well as some of the history of development and how that's impacted water quality.

So we can work with RCA as well as the DEQ to report on some of that information.

I'll go back to the presentation here.

But the purpose really of that

There's multiple purposes, actually.

So as identified in the State of the Basin Report, there's a lot of really unique history that surrounds the Rivanna River.

But boaters and travelers don't really have readily available information to this.

And so this would help to support that.

Their recommendation regarding this

I don't know.

This comment that they noticed was to ask partnership to develop a series of identification signs along the Rivanna for boaters and walkers and recreational users to acknowledge the significant historic sites along the Rivanna.

And while I don't necessarily think that that's the Rivanna River Basin Commission's purpose here, I think that it could help to inform that if that's something that we wanted to move forward with in the future.

and then I was thinking in collaboration with this we could also create a map of the current access points of the river and the historical resources as we identify them which could help to inform the development of signage but also this could be really helpful to inform grant applications in the future.

I looked into a few features

A few grant opportunities available through the Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Historic Resources and Incentives Grants, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and the Virginia Land Conservation Fund are all available to localities.

Some are available, I think, to regions where you can help to or you can get funding for the preservation of these historic sites as well and conservation easements.

And for this one, I think it serves three of the goals or three of the sort of common themes that we identified through our background research, where we'll be educating the public on their local history and what makes this area so unique.

We'll be sharing information on

the historic resources, oh, but in the education aspect as well, it'll be inclusive of how we impact the water quality of the area through development and history.

And then also I think if there's more knowledge of the cultural and historic places along the Rivanna River, this will help to promote recreation and time outside as it's become so important through COVID.

And then

The next recommendation would be a regional map of Rivanna's Blueways.

I know that this was something that you all had spoken on in the past board meeting, that there's really not a regional map of access points surrounding the Rivanna River and the trails that recreational users can explore.

I know specifically in Fluvanna County, they have an issue where there aren't

There isn't a lot of access points along the Rivanna River, which makes it difficult to use the river for recreational uses such as canoeing or kayaking, but also makes it somewhat more difficult to do water testing within that portion of the river because it takes about eight hours to go from one point to another.

So that's really a big event to plan.

And those are all of our recommendations.

So what we're really looking for from you all is what recommendations you think provide the most value to your locality as well as the larger basin.

And if there's any other recommendations that you'd like us to explore or anything that you'd like to build on from the recommendations that we have identified.

Stop sharing my screen and I see Lonnie has his hand raised.

Yeah, so one thing that I think is very important to include is also biodiversity resources of rare habitats and species.

Albemarle County has done a great job with the Natural Heritage Committee, full disclosure, which I also sit on, of capturing our areas.

There are special sites of mapping those.

We have a GIS layer of where those occur.

And so,

several times have passed those along to the planning district, but you can feel free to reach out to county staff and get that layer again.

There's also great tools like iNaturalist that can be used to enumerate biodiversity along the corridor.

The Albemarle County has a biodiversity action plan that talks specifically about the river and critical habitats that exist there.

and a lot of things that are said in that biodiversity action plan could very easily apply to the Charlottesville or Fluvanna.

A lot of those recommendations would make equal sense for those areas in my opinion.

Also one of your slides, you had something that said, what incentives are there for, what best management practice incentives are there for residential urban areas?

and I can just answer that right now.

The Virginia Conservation Assistance Program is the leading program for that.

It's administered by the Soil and Water Conservation Districts and there are local additions to that, including the Charlottesville Conservation Assistance Program and the Albemarle Conservation Assistance Program, which adds supplementary funds to that program.

Thank you, Lonnie.

All right, who else would like to weigh in with some things?

Marvin, I see your hand.

Christine, is Marvin muted from the in-house?

Looks like his video has a delay also.

It looks like there's technical difficulties.

We're not able to.

Marvin, can you step off and sign on again?

That might help you to clear up whatever that feedback is.

And while Marvin's getting squared away, who else has a comment they would like to add to the list of suggestions and what Isabel's been telling us about here?

I have a few, but I don't want to take over.

Michael Payne.

Steve, go ahead.

Steve's waving his hand.

Oh, you're also muted, Steve.

How about now?

That's better, here we go.

All right, I was just, and in fact, I was going to ask Ann if it's okay if I communicate with Isabella to get some background checks on the water quality tests that have been done on the upper Rivanna, you know, up towards Greene County in that area.

So all this stuff can be accumulated.

And I would like to use it as background information on trying to get the landowners and the farmers

along the river and the tributaries to do stream exclusions through Culpapa Soil and Water District.

So, and I mean, you know, I have been, that is my thing with the Soil and Water District is especially in the area where I live and whatnot is to get people to do this.

And it's, you know, as long as we, you know, the district and whatever was paying the 100%,

We did fairly well with it, but now it's not back.

They cut it back, but it's coming back towards that a little bit.

But especially in Greene County and this particular area, we are having a tough time getting the land owners to do that.

Even though the money is available and it's there, people just don't want to get involved.

So if we have the background data,

on the streams, the water quality they've been kind of used to prod them along a little bit.

Hopefully that'll work.

Yes, that is absolutely okay.

I think that we are here to share and convene all information from whatever the source, so I think that's great.

I would also remind, and somewhere in the PDC files, because I think David Blount was actually at the meeting, Nesha McCray from DEQ did have a two-year study on the North Fork of the Rivanna, and we had several meetings in Greene County at the library.

and quite a few, 30 or so people came, which was wonderful.

There's some data from that study that may be helpful to you even more directly.

So I would dig around for that and I'm sure Nesha can forward that to you as well.

That is terrific.

Yeah, I don't know how much this body may necessarily engage with this, but this is something we talked about when city council adopted a plan for the Rivanna corridor as part of our comprehensive plan.

But partnership with arts organizations and really exploring whether there are opportunities with groups like British Progressive Arts or others to have art be part of the experience and open it up as a public space in areas of the Rivanna.

I think it came up, you know, something like on a probably much, much smaller scale, but something like Asheville's river art districts, if there's just any opportunities to create that kind of public space for people along this corridor.

That's the only thing that jumped to mind.

And then I know it's probably already the biggest priority, but definitely second and echo the, you know, making sure that anything done is not allowing unstructured development to either reduce the water quality or just

Thank you.

That's terrific.

Marvin, I see your hand raised.

Great.

OK, several observations.

One, as some of you know, I chaired the very first meeting of the RRBC about the time of the sewer, and I've been involved with it either as a chair or vice chair or citizen member ever since.

I just have a couple of suggestions.

One of the things that were raised by Isabella when we just got started is establishing a map of the Rivanna.

We need not,

reinvent the wheel here.

The RCA did exactly that years ago.

I have mine right here on the shelf, which identifies all of the natural and historical things to see along the river and gives, I'm sure that the RCA still has that in their file someplace.

We updated and not go back to trying to

developed something that already exists.

The second thing that I am very concerned about is that the RRBC is playing almost, right now I'm chairing the Open Space Committee advising Fluvanna County on its update of its comp plan.

And I really believe that the RRBC ought to be having more outreach to those of us who are trying to put together amendments

... how that could be implemented, I'm not sure, but I think one of the things that I think we're not doing is emphasizing in our comprehensive plan the importance of the Rivanna River to all aspects of life in our county.

And I think that RRBC could provide us a lot of information that might be in developing a new comprehensive plan.

Finally, I just wanted to give you an example of a local success story, which I think is going to be on the RRBC website.

We had a developer in Fluvanna County who was about to, on 100 acres of land in the central part of the county near the village in Palmyra, a county seat, was going to develop 50 to 60 houses on very steep slopes.

above Ballinger Creek, which is a major tributary in Fluvanna County into the Rivanna.

I was very much opposed to it because I thought it was both an inappropriate site, but also local citizens to their great credit began organizing.

And essentially we defeated the effort by the developer to get permits to proceed with the development.

How did they do that?

They raised 20 some householders around Ballinger Creek raised over $250,000 to buy the land to create a nonprofit called Tadpole to have the land that they purchased in the process of being put under a conservation easement with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.

Because it was less than 100 acres, evidently VOF was persuaded to do it, only Tadpole has already committed to making that into a public access, including a park, a public park, and access to Ballinger Creek, which is just a half a mile from where Ballinger Creek enters the Rivanna River.

This is a great success story.

I have been in Fluvanna County since 1995.

And I have never seen citizen action in this county to such a level with such an enormous success.

And this group now is legally able to hold conservation easements.

Fluvanna County, years ago, with my urging and the urging of many others, put into effect their own conservation easement program and became very successful.

They hold easements on everything from parcels of 16 acres to over 600 acres.

They now have almost 2,000 acres under conservation easements where the easements are held by the county.

In the last two years, the county has refused any new applications for easements under their program, even though it's still the existing law.

My rural preservation group has just written a letter to the supervisors and planning commission and others asking them to start up that program again because it's legally still on the books and it needs to be done.

We have dozens and dozens of parcels in a county that are rated to go under easement that do not fit the hundred dollar, hundred acre minimum

with VOF, we need to be able to put that land under conservation easement.

We have had a very successful program here in this county, both with historic reservations, which my property is under and conservation easements.

So we need to get the county to restore that program, which we're in the process of trying to get done.

But I think the tadpole group

It needs to be shown to everyone in the entire Ravenna Basin because this is a story that is astounding, I mean truly astounding.

They are in the process now of trying to buy another 23 acres and they've raised the money to do that to add to the already 70-some acres that they already have.

Yeah.

This would be a really good topic or share for the Rivanna Roundtable, bringing success stories and sharing it more broadly against all of the different stakeholders, including the one that Mr. Halbert put in the chat.

And I think the same amount of work can be used in multiple ways because there will be people who can't attend the Roundtable who might come to the conference, the one day, two hour thing.

and others can see it on the website later.

So I think making sure that we have not just a single shot, but a shotgun shot to get this information out as broadly as possible is really terrific.

I had written down with the conference things a look back and it could be just a quick photographic look because some number of years ago, Marvin will help me with the year, maybe eight years ago, the commission got it, or maybe 10 years ago, the commission got a NFWF grant

and did a major stormwater project in each jurisdiction.

And so the sort of before and after pictures, the one in green is near the park.

In Albemarle, we put in a constructed wetland in Crozet to help clean the water between the old lots and where there's no room for stormwater now and the Lincoln Hole Basin.

Something in Fluvanna, I can't remember, it was at Pleasant Grove, I think.

and Charlottesville had their renovations along Moores Creek that were founded I think by TNC, I think.

So that's another way to very, in a quick snapshot, be able to show here's what we had and here's what we have now.

And you can do this too.

And so that's just another thing that could be added in there.

Let me zoom back.

I had a couple of things that I wanted to get other people's feedback on.

When you were talking, Isabella, at the very beginning about the common themes that you had pulled from all those different jurisdictions and reports, what I would ask you to think about adding what was talked about for the Rivanna Corridor Plan, which is the more urban section, there were a whole bunch of things that everybody wanted, but the number one thing that the entire group said had to come first was environmental quality and environmental protection.

And after that, then if there was excess that could happen but didn't have an environmental negative impact, then it could go forward, that kind of comparison.

So there's the first threshold, and then other things could happen along.

And I just want to reiterate that for this.

It would also be fun to, because I don't know the numbers, but someone talking about Rappahannock County

and how they're putting a lot of easements in up there and that the Rappahannock River Basin provides drinking water for several million people.

And I don't know how many people are in the drinking water basin for the Rivanna and the James, but I would sure like to try to figure that out because I bet it's a pretty big number and that's sometimes a way to get people's attention.

Talked about niches.

I feel Steve Morris' pain about getting

Farmers to sign up, because even when it was 110%, if you added on the cost of the 10-year CREP rental, they still didn't want to do it because they just don't want to do it.

But eventually, these things are going to be mandatory.

So I keep saying to people, wouldn't it be good if you did this when you could actually get paid for it instead of when you have to?

I believe, Ann?

Yeah.

I believe there's a law.

I'm not certain if it's been passed or not.

So it's coming and they got it postponed for five years because it was supposed to take effect in 2020 and the legislature booted it again.

But having booted it three times, hopefully they won't be able to boot it again.

And so that's absolutely a good point to remember when you're speaking to neighbors is that the end is coming, folks, and it's time to do right.

And it's remarkable how quickly the difference happens.

I mean, within six months, it took us 20 years to get our various fields done because of the expense.

But within six months, the banks had healed themselves when we didn't have the 1,500-pound animal stomping up and down all the time.

and when we had the enormous flood in May 29th of 2018, we had 11 and a half inches of rain on our place in six hours and it was horrendous and our entire fence out was six feet underwater so there were no posts visible of the fences or anything, all the trees lay down flat but because we had had 10 years of healing before that, there was so much less destruction than we could have had

We had a lot of destruction that came in from upstream from other properties that had not been stabilized that then had real huge impacts to our lake and spillway and bridge, et cetera.

But I was so impressed with the way the stream, the buffers had made such a difference and saved us a whole lot of pain and expense.

Marvin talked about the outreach to existing comp plans.

And I do remember that before the storm,

was a multi-jurisdictional effort that was done in the 2009-10 era.

RCA and SELC, other organizations in the UVA department all worked together.

And they looked at the things that each of the jurisdictions could do, whether it was changing the sizes of parking places or not having so much parking required to therefore reduce the impermeable surfaces.

And this was all affecting how we would deal with stormwater.

That document is live and well.

I can get the digital copy to anybody who needs it.

And it's probably posted on our website somewhere, but that's sort of another resource.

As Marvin mentioned, we want to make sure that we hang on to the things and dig up the things that were already done to bring them to life again.

And I have several copies of that two by four foot RCA map that are just spectacular.

They're so big, it's hard to

Display, unless you have a big stand-up place.

But maybe getting that whole thing put into signage would be good.

I'm going to try to make sure I didn't forget something here.

And someone mentioned about rural issues, because we've talked a lot about the more urban sections, because there was a little extra funding to do that.

But for the rural components, I know that those jurisdictions had already

put in their amounts for supporting the commission and there were studies to be done to benefit them as well.

But what I hear from people is erosion and stream banks that when we get these flash flood events, the tree falls that are being pulled down because of the bank erosion, and then those trees are slamming into bridges or getting dragged down to the reservoir,

really shows how we need to concentrate on stream bank stabilization for mitigation of future floods all the time.

And okay, we talked about that.

Zooming down the list here, Albemarle Historical Society, I think would be a tremendous asset.

Fran Lawrence has rooms full of information about the historic and cultural things along the river that I'm sure we can

Lean on him to share and digitize and get that information going.

So while I think there are three PhD dissertations in what Isabella had shared with us that was possible, I think there are a lot of partners who can give us a lot of information already.

And I think, Isabella, you were hoping that we would think of one of these projects to do first.

Is that a today?

Discussion or do you want us to think about it and get back to you in September?

Yeah, I mean, I would love to hear back from you all what you think provides the most value to the locality and sort of what we were thinking is potentially these could build on each other in a three to five year work plan as we continue forward.

But feel free to reach out to me afterwards if you want to take a deeper look into the resources that I provided or if you have any other thoughts that come up as you review this information.

And I know that Jason's had his hand up for a while, so let's go ahead.

Mr. Cotta, Mr. Cotta.

Oh, that's kind of a reference.

The old people get that, but the young people don't.

Yeah, so I know that the I think the largest grant the Basin Commission's ever gotten was a NFWF grant and that Ann talked about and there hasn't been any for a number of years.

There are a number of new funding streams, whether it's through the infrastructure fund, the Chesapeake Wild or new earmarked federal funds for NFWF.

They are flush with cash and a lot of that will be going to the Chesapeake Bay.

So let's bring home some bacon to all of our counties in the city.

in a coordinated fashion.

I don't think NFWF would look favorably on a number of disparate requests, whether city here, Fluvanna here, they would look to us, this commission to say, hey, why aren't you coordinating some of this and prioritizing what needs to happen?

So I'm happy to meet with Isabella and whomever else to try to get a handle on both the NGO side and the government side about who's thinking of, what are the deadlines,

And how does it fit with our prioritized list and see how it meshes with the funding streams?

Because that to me is the key.

Yeah, that sounds amazing.

Yeah, we could set up a meeting.

And part of what I've been doing, I did share the watershed implementation plans contract with the TJPDC for this year as there were a few changes, but

Part of what I've been working really hard to do is kind of compile a lot of information on the different grants that are available and their deadlines and the eligible projects so that we can share that with each locality and so that they're aware of when these deadlines are happening.

But I think that you're spot on on there needs to be increased coordination around these projects and what regional projects we might want to take on in later years or upcoming.

from these many funding sources.

And one other thing that I wanted to mention as part of the watershed implementation plans contract is that part of the work that I can do is support the updates of the comprehensive plans that I know is occurring in many localities to include information in the environmental sections on best management practices, the watershed implementation plan.

And I know that we just touched on sort of the importance of the Rivanna River to this region.

as well.

I'm sure that could be something that's included there.

So feel free to reach out to me if there's anything that you need support on in that way.

Yes, because TJPDC also worked on the TMDL.

I think it's one thing I've asked for for a while that I think would be useful to localities is a BNP manual.

so that all the localities know all the best management practices, both urban and rural, that could be used in their areas.

I think compiling that is something, I think TJPDC has already done a lot of that work with the TMDL.

I think combining that with an update, I've long thought that Before the Storm, as Ann mentioned, is an excellent guide.

I think combine that with an update to that guide, I think a new release before the storm guide that could be released to the public as a here's some great best management practices that people could be adopting and using the localities that could be provided to staff in the various localities so that people have an educational guide.

When that was first produced, a lot of those practices in that guide were new and revolutionary, and now a lot of them are standard.

So it really helped drive a lot of changes to the way that stormwater was managed in urban areas, particularly in Charlottesville and Albemarle.

It also included policy recommendations based upon enabled legislation.

And I think another thing that we definitely need is a manual for localities of what

What policy legislation can be adopted by localities?

I think staff spins their wheels a lot of time.

Each time, you know, something comes up, I know we had a recent effort in our county for rural stream health.

And a lot of the time that staff spent was just trying to figure out what the state allowed us to do.

I'm sure we can work with DEQ to sort of define that.

Thank you very much.

This has been great.

So are there folks who would support

I was just saying, I'm happy to participate in the round table.

I don't have, I mean, I think that'd be a really good forum under which we can delve deeper into more issues and get some more feedback.

Very good.

I think that while the staff people, I think, were very supportive of that, we had a really hard time for the last three years getting them to attend.

So I think there needs to be, if we're going to succeed, there needs to be a commitment on the part of the electeds in each jurisdiction to really share with their staff people how important it is that they do take a few hours to lend their expertise to others, because it'd be really nice to have 50 people in the room, all with something to say.

and then we certainly can have an outside presentation or something but it's really important that we help each other along and being able to have jurisdictions learning from the successes and the errors of others to save them the same fate is really important.

I know it seems Albemarle has been intent on making all the same mistakes that Fairfax made 30 years ago and probably other jurisdictions are trying to do what we're doing now and so they will end up with the same problems we have.

We all try to learn and try to do better.

But I'm really invigorated by all this information and by the comments today and look forward to seeing everybody in person.

And we may just have to get together in person beforehand if there are things that we need to help Isabella with during the summer.

I will suggest that if any, regarding this historic timeline that was the Neuse River example,

I would encourage each of you to think of partners in your areas who already have accomplished this, who we could call upon to share their information and therefore have that particular element be much less research and much more doing and get us speedily along to the next phase.

And just one thing that I think we're always struggling with

In Albemarle County we have had lots of donations of property and there are five different places along the Rivanna from Brookhill right under the 29 bridge to Buck Island, which is the Fluvanna County border, all given to the county for the express purpose of put in and take out.

And we have not managed to accumulate the $500,000 required to do all five of them.

I mean, it's not each, it's total.

So those sort of recreational access funds, if anybody has any great information about that,

I would sure love to hear about it, because I know there's money out there.

I keep hearing about other communities that are having great successes.

And the grant world is very challenging.

When you finally find one, you find out the closing date is in 10 days, which makes you crazy.

So all hands on deck, I think, would really help all of us to be able to participate better.

And I'm really glad for Jason's expertise to be able to help us with that big obstacle.

So Isabella, were there other things we needed to do?

to meet the end of your agenda.

That's the end of it for now, yeah.

Any other questions to leave for staff to solve another day or any other comments anybody wants to share with us?

Wow, I'm really grateful.

This has been fun.

I'll tell you, even though I love seeing people in person, having people not have to drive 100 miles.

I mean, Steve's a long way up the road, so it's really great to be able to do this.

And maybe we do this more often and meet

quarterly in person, and then we get to do a whole lot more.

It was old.

All right.

Anybody else have any parting shots?

All right.

Well, thank you, everyone.

And as you can tell, this is a passion of mine.

And I know it's a passion of all of yours as well.

So we will all make great progress working together.

Have a great day everybody.