Rivanna River Basin Commission Meeting   4/10/2025

Yes, go ahead.

We have David Blount, our legislative liaison, and our VC SPOIL officer on to help us with the approval of the remote electronic participation policy.

So if we could just move that maybe to second.

So we will call the meeting to order.

And if we can just go around the table and introduce yourself so that we have a better idea of who is here

Representing Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District.

I've actually left the district effective January and Aaron Mills is taking over my spot on that.

The new guy, the new guy.

Yeah, Aaron Mills, I'm representing the

Commissar for Soil and Water Conservation District starting half of today's meeting.

I recognize the large shoes I have to fill.

I was going to say, you will too.

Reese Peck, new representative from Bannock County, retired.

I have a lot of background in environmental programs.

I was the deputy secretary of the environmental department in South Dakota.

I ran the DCR program when we were doing Chesapeake Bay swim.

County administrator, town administrator.

Get involved.

So was your DCR work in Virginia?

Oh, wonderful.

Back when?

It was county administrator.

OK, good.

And county administrator.

Oh my goodness.

Tim Hodge, Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors, Whitehall District, Ann Mallek, Wayne Hall District is the western banana from Greene County to Nelson County in Albemarle.

Hi, everyone.

Jason Halbert.

I'm the city citizen representative on the board.

I work for a foundation here in town.

David, do you want to chime in and introduce yourself?

Sure, be a good test to make sure everybody can hear me okay.

Yeah, good afternoon.

David Blount, I'm the deputy director and director of legislative services for TJPDC.

He goes out of jail, I love it.

Thank you.

Isn't that my line?

No, I had that line in 2008, sorry.

Very good.

So let's have David do that now.

All right, Madam Chair.

Yeah, and this won't take but a few minutes, I think, and it looks like Bella's scrolling to the policy with revisions, and there's also a clean version in your packet.

You all adopted this remote participation, all virtual meeting policy a couple of years ago, and that was on the heels of some changes that were made by the General Assembly to require these types of policies.

They came back in the 2024 General Assembly and made some additional changes that are then necessitating that there be some amendments to the policy that you have in place.

The changes that are included in this draft and that are before you, I will also say there's some technical and clarifying changes that our attorney recommended that they be incorporated.

But there's really three main substantive changes that really are applicable to the all virtual meeting situations.

The first change being that, you know,

Previously, you were allowed as a body such as yourselves to have two of your meetings per year or 25% be all virtual meetings.

That 25% in a couple of different places in this draft has been changed to 50% of meetings.

But I understand you all meet twice a year, so you could have one of your meetings be an all virtual meeting.

The other would need to be in person.

The second change is a little quirky, but I think it's on the third page of the draft.

There's some language having to do with the establishment of a quorum in an all virtual meeting and that for purposes of a quorum, basically you got to have your camera on.

If you have access to that type of technology, you have to have it on for purposes of establishing a quorum and

So I would say that that extends also to, you know, if you've got some folks have turned their camera off during discussion, but you come to having to vote, you need a quorum to vote to take action.

So you need to have your camera on.

I think just as a matter of practice, it's a good idea to have the camera on.

And I think I've found in meetings that we've been conducting, folks are leaving their cameras on for the most part.

And then the third change,

and Bella has already alluded to this is at the end of the document there is a requirement now that this policy be readopted on an annual basis so you know when you all come back together again next spring you know anticipating that there perhaps will not be any additional changes you could simply readopt the policy and have it be effective for another year.

So that's basically the changes.

Some of you all, maybe by virtue of some other boards or commissions that you sit on, you may be familiar with these changes, because I said they did take effect July 1 of 2024.

And this is, I guess, your first opportunity to be able to update your policy accordingly.

These are consistent with all the various boards that the PDC

Manages.

So you have lots of experience with.

I'll just add, Madam Chair, you know, the TJPDC adopted the policy.

They made language inclusive, you know, of all the committees that are under TJPDC.

who are so small, I'm not sure we can manage a committee.

Other questions for David Corbellan on this issue?

If no questions, then we need a motion and a second to adopt.

Also changes as presented.

Very good.

Thank you all in favor.

Any opposed?

Not opposed.

We are adopted.

Thank you, David.

Thank you all.

Get back inside.

That's the last thing.

And you're going to help us with the bylaws when we get back.

So now they were just for.

So that's our recipe.

OK.

Very good.

Then we will drop to number two on the agenda, which is, well, we're well into our agenda without voting to approve it.

So too bad.

Let's move on and approve the March 19th, or discuss and approve, potentially, the March 19, 2021 minutes.

Yeah, we didn't have a quorum at the August meeting of last year, so this is a year ago.

I can't remember yet.

So that was the last time the Greene folks were seen.

Very good.

Thank you.

Any other changes before we, did we just vote on the minutes?

No, we don't.

I'll move approval.

OK. Do we have a second on the minutes?

Very good.

Thank you.

All in favor of adoption of the March 19th, 2024 minutes, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Sorry.

Yes, the change.

Are there any changes to the minutes?

Thank you, Tim.

A second for that?

Second.

Thank you everyone.

We'll try to follow our order better next time.

I tend to get badly behaved.

All right, next we are comments from the public.

Is there anyone from the public who would like to address us today?

No comments from the public or receivers.

And we will jump on from there.

Approval of promotion, we did that.

Election of officers, we did that.

Oh, we did that?

Okay, great.

Oh, for some reason I misunderstood you.

I thought you said you had already.

Sorry.

We vote annually for the bylaws on the executive committee, which consists of the chair, vice chair, which

Those roles, I think, used to be a lot more expensive.

This was an entire nonprofit with the staff.

So now, really what it involves is the chair runs the meetings, the chair is absent, the vice chair would then stand in her place and carry out those roles.

And the treasurer is a part of our executive committee, which all of those members can meet

to two more times per year, but sometimes not as many as that.

I mean, it used to be that it was actually, you know, like,

Looking at finances and like signing checks and stuff, but I don't actually do that.

Is it an organization of the PDC?

Yeah.

I suppose if there were a time when there was a grant that came to the agency, perhaps we should keep the role on the books separate from the person.

With Angus now off the board, do we have

Do we have to send the nominating committee back in the closet again or can we just ask for a volunteer?

We can ask for volunteers.

Would anyone like to be vice chair since Angus has retired from his representation of the planning district?

and Jason and Lonnie were appointed to the nominating committee at the executive committee.

No, we didn't.

I mean, I was just off the board until I was reappointed.

So the slate was over a year ago.

This is why I thought there was no committees.

I thought we didn't.

Yeah.

So I don't have the minutes in front of me.

The nominating committee did not meet, so they have no report.

So we're just going to have to do it from the forum.

And I'm also happy to have, if someone else would like to be chair, I will be happy to relinquish the imaginary gavel.

She said that last year too.

I feel very strongly about the success of this agency.

I'm happy to do my part.

Lonnie, are you willing to continue on this pressure in the non-treasurer?

All right.

Second.

Very good.

Moved and seconded to the slate.

All in favor of the slate, please say aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

All right.

This is great.

So moving on to our staff updates, I'd like to highlight a few initiatives of the Regional Watershed Implementation Plan, which is a grant that I manage on behalf of the TJPDC from DEQ to all of the statewide PVCs to support the goals of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act and the Chesapeake Bay Program throughout our region.

And I'll also share some updates related to statewide progress that we heard from DEQ at our meeting last month.

So first, we have the new septic assistance program, which is launching this calendar year.

We applied for and were awarded funding through DEQ's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act program from DEQ directly to PDCs.

And this funding is intended to support low income homeowners at or below 80% AMI with septic system repairs, replacements, and maintenance.

And we are allowed pre-award costs as of January 1, but because of the federal funding freeze, the final contract is being reviewed at DEQ's Office of Financial Management.

And they said it will likely just be a few more weeks, but we do anticipate once the program begins that we will be able to support the completion of 35 septic projects.

with the resulting pollution reduction submitted to DEQ's best management practice warehouse, which models pollution reduction to the Chesapeake Bay.

We also are partnering with the soil and water conservation districts.

We met with them and DEQ and they have funding in certain eligible watersheds.

for cost share for these types of septic projects.

So may I ask a question?

Do we communicate all this?

Because I know we're doing similar types of things.

Yeah, so we haven't done outreach yet because the funding is on pause, but we're working with our housing foundations who are already connected really well with this community and manage these types of projects to be kind of the point of contact for the public.

I just want to make sure that, for example, we donate money also so that it gets checked off at home

This is septic to sewer, Proco, and yours is pump outs and repairs of existing septics and replacements.

So what I was going to say, and I think that's maybe what you're referring to Bea, is that the Soil and Water Conservation District also does pump outs and repairs, and the county does help fund the Soil and Water Conservation District for some of that work.

And a lot of that, which is specifically for areas with the TMDL, like the hardware, we don't have district-wide septic at this time.

So there's overlap.

And my understanding is from talking to our district manager that there's coordination between the Saltwater Conservation District and the Planning District.

So that communication is correct.

I mean, ideally, I mean, it does feel a little bit weird to me that you have two agencies.

We're coordinating for the next strategic plan.

And when this idea was kind of brought to us, because this is something that a lot of other PDCs across the state are doing.

It started with septic pump outs, but then I met with the Soil and Water and they had said, well, if you're doing a pump out program, you really want to have the repairs and placements because when you go out to do the pump outs, a lot of times issues are found and they're very expensive for the homeowner to do so.

They had recommended that.

We had spoken with them as the potential for we could provide pass-through to your organization as a part of this fund, because that was allowable under DEQ's terms.

But they said, go ahead.

And so we're coordinating closely.

Is the Virginia Department of Health also in your coordination loop?

several years ago, they were the ones who had the grant and provided those replacements and deboxed things, which is where often the failures happen.

I know in my neighborhood, there were people who got the pump out for the first time in many years.

And the pump out was no issue at all.

There was very little in there, but the debox was correct.

There was AARP funding, which ended last year for VDH.

We are coordinating with them because some of these projects have to be permitted.

by VDH, but the DEQ funding source that we accessed, IIJA, is not available to us next year.

So this will likely just be a one-year program.

So the rest of Albemarle then will not qualify for the Soil and Water

Does the rest of Albemarle qualify for the jurisdictions as far as your program?

Yes.

OK.

So that's an announcement we can make at the board meeting.

Wait for me.

So you will send us the text of the announcement as soon as it's ready, and then we can all go to the board meeting.

It has time to sign up.

Well, is it possible?

I mean, our role as a board might be to help target this.

Is it possible to target the grant to the highest need areas in terms of TMDL?

Yeah, well, and part of the tact, I guess, of working with the housing foundations is they can recommend pump outs.

to homeowners, like have you had your septic tank pumped out in the last three to five years?

If not, it's recommended.

We have this grant program.

What I'm saying is I'd like to, if we have any power as a body, I'd like to influence how it's rolled out so that people are understanding we're targeting this watershed because its pollution levels are high.

And so we want people in this watershed to get this program, pump out, repair, blah, blah, blah, so that we can meet our goals of reducing pollution in the hardware or whatever it is, in Greene, in Fluvanna.

That's what I would like to see.

Well, we do have maps from current waterways.

I mean, it could... Yeah, it should compare to the 303D list.

If we're trying to get things off the 303D list, then that's what this body should be doing, is targeting the money.

Christopher Thorpe has a huge, the Rivanna has another huge area that goes from northwest Elmore 11 to Greene.

So that whole area is also at risk.

And yeah, I think with one targeted thing, I'm a little reluctant to put the whole of our eggs into one watershed, but we'll have to, I guess, see also where the applications come from, because it may be self-selecting onto them.

It would be a good idea to look and see where the Solar Conservation District has its targets.

Yeah, it's Albemarle, Nelson, Louisa, and then Greene has one with the cold pepper soil and water.

But yeah, it's dependent on those DEQ implementation plans and areas.

They have targeted funding through the soil and water.

It's not necessarily a part of our scope this year to do targeted.

Save it with the conservation district.

We've had, we do have targeted funds for the hardware under a TMDL.

And I think on the tie and Nelson,

And it probably had, last I checked anywhere, there were a lot, there was more money than there had been applicants for the hardware work, but we got a lot of requests from LUISA from areas that weren't, LUISA's not in the planning district, is that right?

Yeah.

Nelson is not, is that right?

Okay.

But if the money's there,

from the Conservation District.

And there's not another funding source.

There's loans that are available for homeowners, low interest loans, but there's no other grant opportunity.

So if they can't access the soil and water, there was no other place to turn.

Yeah, for local context, 66% of our region's impaired waterways have E. coli impairments and other sources like wildlife, pets, farm animals, or other sources that contribute to E. coli, but septic systems are a major contributor.

Even properly installed and maintained systems can pollute groundwater and as systems age, their risk of failure increases.

Yeah, so we're really looking forward to working with our partners on this as well as you all.

Our other new program,

also from the same funding source is our rain barrel workshop program.

So it's significantly expanded since last year we had three pilot workshops in Fluvanna, Golisa, and Nelson.

Last year there's already been ones happening in Albemarle and Charlottesville through their partners.

But these workshops provide valuable community benefits by rebuilding water conservation and reducing stormwater runoff at the home level.

Residents learn about sustainable practices and get everything they need, which is a barrel and a kit to implement the rain barrel at home.

We also include partners at these, like the Soil and Water Conservation Districts and the James River Association, which is helping to host and meet these.

And so we're able to share resources about the River Hero Home Program through JRA as well as the many soil and water conservation district programs.

Master Gardeners have also attended to share their expertise.

So it's really just been a great collaborative effort with strong community support.

We just had one last night actually at King Family Vineyards.

with JRA and everybody was so happy like people just get so excited about their barrels and it's just been a really fun part of my job honestly the last year.

So the rain barrel connects to your downspout and it'll fill in pretty much like a one hour storm event and

by collecting and holding that rainwater so that it can then be released later after the storm event.

You're preventing the stormwater runoff that would have left from that roof.

Just keep it in the garden, use it for your flowers.

Use it for your garden, use it for your flowers.

So we've started that one just because we are allowed the pre-award costs, but we didn't want to make any promises to homeowners with the septic program yet without having the contract finalized and in place.

And then the last update related to our WIP on the internal side is

the beginning of regional environmental coordination meetings.

This is a quarterly meeting meant to foster collaboration and shared knowledge on environmental initiatives across the region.

These meetings are designed for our local planning staff, environmental managers to discuss, share and gather information about local state and federal environmental topics, regulations and programs.

We bring in the subject matter experts from state, nonprofit and other organizations to share relevant information.

Our first meeting included a presentation from the statewide nonprofit Wetlands Watch on general assembly updates and the Community Flood Preparedness Fund, which is supporting resiliency planning at the local level.

And once you have those in place, you can access additional funding for green infrastructure practices.

And the PDC also provided updates on our environmental programs and the meeting ended with round table updates from across the region.

It's almost like the tech committee is back.

I like it.

And then these are moving into our updates that we got from DEQ at the March statewide meeting.

So this is some of the data that DEQ shares with the Chesapeake Bay model and is submitted to EPA.

which highlights our progress towards the pollution reduction goals for our local streams and the overall Chesapeake Bay.

There is a 2025 December deadline for the 2014 watershed agreement which is what kind of directs the grant that we're managing as well as a lot of the work the soil and water conservation districts do.

And so the Chesapeake Bay program is working to revise that agreement for a more efficient future and kind of develop the roadmap for beyond 2025.

And DEQ anticipates continued PDC program funding in 2026, but there are further details still pending.

For nitrogen, progress in nitrogen reduction has increased with 8.3 million pounds a year.

decreased from 22 to 23 compared to the 2009 to 22 average of 3.2 million pounds a year.

So that's a pretty big jump.

Overall, there's been a 16.9% reduction that's been achieved since 2009.

And this green line here represents the goal.

This is the WIP3 goal here, and that's where we are.

For phosphorus, we've also showed progress.

And there's been a 17.3% reduction since 2009, and we've reached 62% of the target for the total daily maximum load, which is basically the pollution diet to our local streams and the overall Chesapeake Bay.

And then

Overall, what they really were emphasizing was that we've made really great progress in Virginia, especially with the agricultural best management practices that the Soil and Water Conservation District supports.

But there's still a lot of issues with rising stormwater pollution due to development and climate change in our urban and suburban areas.

And EPA's 2024 report indicated we're 80% to nitrogen reduction goal, 62% to phosphorus,

Because that's something that's been there for years and oftentimes in public meetings and you probably heard it too Ann and people say well ag is the reason that you know these streams are polluted.

Look at who's really been doing conservation practices.

Agriculture has been doing a lot to clean up waterways and streams.

or if you look at the impact from urban areas, that's actually been going up in many cases.

So I think we really need to do a lot more in terms of our urban areas.

And so I'm glad we have programs like the VCAT program to really work on some of these urban issues because that's where some of the big problems are.

That's in my soapbox is when you have the green trucks going around hosing everything down with 10, 10, 10 all the time, all of those levels are going right up.

And I remember 15 years ago, Arlington County, tiny little Arlington County had the highest pollution state and there's no farming going on there.

So it was just a really, I think it's been a great story to tell as different special interest groups always try to point the finger at each other, but we've just kind of figured out all of these different things.

I was very surprised at what you just said, which was that we're meeting our sediment goals.

According to EPA, for the overall bay, you know?

Yeah, or no, sorry, that's just for Virginia, not for the overall bay.

Just from what I see in the streams, when you go over a bridge and you look down and you see a giant new delta that's formed after some big rain.

I mean, after that 2018 rain where we had 11 inches in six hours in our part of Albemarle,

Every single stream was impacted with scoring and just migration of that legacy sediment.

Yeah, part of the conversation has been with this model, the Chesapeake Bay model that DEQ is inputting data to.

It's based on historical data on rainfall, climate, and a lot of the rainfall and climate is

the issues are being exacerbated and so instead we're meeting the goals based off of the old model but they're discussing maybe updating the model to be more on track with the projections for the future instead of historical data so that might be where there's some gaps as well but I think that's something that will come

from the BEYOND 2025, which is a process they're working through right now.

OK, so can you share a link to that public comment stuff with everybody?

And you'll share these images as well.

Is it possible for intermittent flooding that will happen no matter what?

That's nature.

I mean, if you build a more resilient environment, you know, there's more opportunity for us to correct and adapt with that.

But I mean, I've heard

Like, on the project level, you do a tree planting project and there's a flood, it's all wiped away.

You know, certain things like that can happen.

Plus, a lot of that flooding is caused specifically, I mean, it's made worse because of climate change and other factors.

But the major reason for flash flooding is because it can create impregnated circuits.

And so there's been some great studies done by that.

I think the People and Environmental Council did some studies at one point about looking at water quality and impervious surface.

And what happens to water quality is the amount of impervious surface increases.

And so I think as we look at our developed areas, I know that one of the suggestions we often make in planning commission when applications come before us, we say,

How are you managing stormwater in this project?

And so I'll be hit on the site plan.

Well, we know it's handled at the site plan level, but this is your opportunity if you want, you know, we would suggest that maybe you consider, you know, doing this in a low impact way.

We're not going to require it, but you know, there's better ways to do this.

Something that sticks out to me is the data point of

Impervious surfaces, the stormwater runoff is a factor of 0.9, like 90% or more is running off into the next site, into the stream.

With forest land, I think it's 15% runs off.

So you can imagine as impervious surface grows, it's 90%, not the 15.

The 15 keeps our streams where we want them to be healthy, you know, but 90%, that's a bit hard to capture.

And that's when you have the

With the buffers, it's surprising how quickly it's stabilized though.

I mean, within, I mean, our second section was done in 2017.

And when the 2018 flood came, there was the 11 inches of rain, it was nine feet deep down there and over at the road and everything else.

And the trees went like this and all but six of them of a thousand came right back up, which is amazing.

Fences were not torn down.

But the most important thing was the stream banks, which had been continually uproarred for 25 years, did not get disturbed.

I mean, all of the grasses that had come in all by themselves were still there.

So without that work, even with that short interval of time, the damage was so much less.

And I was really thrilled to make it, to see that it was worth the work.

And in addition to the 19-15, the velocity is so much greater.

that even that 90% volume is what is velocity is exponentially greater when it's going off of a service and that makes everything work.

The city, I'm assuming you have an MS board permit.

So that, you know, we are doing something in the base

I think one of the things I think that we're trying to do as part of the KC44 that's being discussed is there has been some more discussion about these underutilized large parking lots.

that we have in Albemarle County.

You know, you got to Albemarle Square, Riot Hill, Fashion Square Mall, Acres and Acres, a parking lot used for nothing.

No one's parked there.

It's just it's just a pretty surface for no good whatsoever.

And in the city of Charlottesville, you have you have Seminole Square, I believe, similar situation, but it's gotten better.

And so, I think that that's a great area for opportunity to maybe offer some incentives to encourage redevelopment of those spaces, maybe slip some housing in there, maybe slip some green space in there.

I think there's some great opportunities for win-win solutions and probably in other localities too.

I don't know if they do it here, but back in 2010,

That wonderful sandy soil makes that a lot easier.

That's great.

I'm glad they did that, though.

I mean, one of the big things, one pet peeves of mine is that if someone installs a parking lot and then they install what we call health strips, these areas like these curbs,

And so, you know, like you may have like, look, look.

We were looking at our big areas with the parking.

I know I keep bringing it up, but that coffee, Charlottesville, which I think you're going into a 10-story building, something like that, for housing, residential.

Yes, somewhere.

Yeah.

And I mean, I'd love to see something like that where you have a 10-story building and portable housing in zoned areas and have some green space.

Absolutely.

OK, that says it all right there.

But there are some great things like tax increment financing that doesn't cost us anything up front that could be employed to say, like,

I'd love to see policies where, you know, we talked to anyone who wants to know more about that program, but it doesn't cost us anything upfront.

It's paid for by improvements.

So we wouldn't have that development anyway.

Like if you're going to put a new apartment complex there, it wouldn't have been there without the incentive.

So it's not like we're losing revenue, which we've got that way.

Yeah, the Home Depot.

Two more slides, and then we'll be over to the roundtable.

All right.

Just pick up on me.

But strategic planning was on the agenda.

It relates to staff updates.

Thank you to those that supported the development of our last strategic plan for the RRBC, which spans from 2022 to 2027.

Today, I want to start the conversation with you about updating the plan for the following five years.

Some of our accomplishments of the current work plan include updating and modernizing the RRBC website, which was built in the early 90s or so.

So that's completed.

And then we had each year some great successful RRBC conferences.

Did I put that in here?

I think it's on the next slide.

And then a part of

The work plan is my job to staff these meetings as well as our executive committee meetings.

And then we do a lot of information sharing in partnership with the Rivanna Stormwater Education Partnership on the RRBC Facebook.

If you don't follow it, give it a follow.

And then the last thing that we'll be doing aside from our continued RRBC conference and staffing meetings will be to work with an intern this summer and into next.

to develop a historical timeline of the Rivanna River as it relates to water quality and environmental justice to help inform preservation along the Rivanna.

Planning to work with local historical societies and our local staff and water quality experts to obtain relevant data and work with the Monacan Indian Nation, other populations within the basin,

We'll have an online version maybe as a story map was one of the concepts and then a print version to share at the Rivanna River Company and with our local jurisdictions at other locations along the Rivanna.

And our plan for developing the plan includes this timeline.

So

After today's meeting, I will share our previous work plan for you all to review alongside a short survey to just kind of get some of your thoughts to help inform the plan.

We're probably just going to suggest like we did in this last plan because we're pretty limited our annual fundings $10,500 to support my staff time for this work as well as the conference.

There's an update on that side from the TJPDC where it's been approved with our local jurisdictions and the board where now instead of being at the flat rate, which we've been at for the last

There will be a per capita percentage increase based off population of your localities, inflation.

It averages at about 7.5% a year, speaking with our executive director, Christine, about this earlier.

So between now and 2030, we will have an additional $5,000 to kind of get us up to speed.

That will increase slowly over the next few years.

That is good news for the commission.

But yeah, still with that in mind, we'll probably just do one to two concrete actions, like updating the website, doing a historical timeline.

And then based off of our next meeting and your initial survey responses, we'll draft some deliverables for you all to refine at our March 2026 meeting.

And then based off feedback there, we'll continue to draft and refine the work plan

share it for your input in 2026 and approve in the March 2027 in time for fiscal year 28.

I did have just a few questions here.

We don't have to go through each of these, but I just wanted to start the conversation surrounding this as to

Are there specific issues that you want the RRBC to be attacking in the next five years following fiscal year 27?

Are there other key stakeholders that should be involved as we move forward with conferences or other aspects?

Or do you have any comments on the current structure of our board meetings?

Are there any other ways you envision commissioners working towards the vision or other aspects?

No, I haven't had a chance to look at everything on the website, but it would be nice if there was something told all together, like you were talking about.

Where are the hot spots?

Where are our repaired subbasins, waterways, which ones have DEQ targeted?

You know, some sense of

What the Soil and Water Districts are doing in different areas with particular programs they have that are targeting some of the WIC.

You know, I know they have programs for fencing and they have programs for no-till planning and cover crops and things like that.

But if you had information out there on where all those activities are, as a nation member, when we have a discussion on

It's pretty an opportunity to spend.

I agree to that point, it would be nice if we could target it.

So that's my one recommendation is that we pull all that information.

And like you look at the annual plan from the Planning Commission down there, I made them put a map together on where the development hotspots were.

And so people

Usually you can see that, because a lot of people instead of reading down all the programs, they can see everything on face-to-face.

A couple.

Obvious, OK. Tim and Aaron, they work here.

Agricultural went down and the natural one you can't do anything about.

But when you look at what comes in from development, so that's a planning piece.

On a per pound reduction cost, we've already achieved most of what we can from the wastewater reduction.

If you want to achieve the last 5 to 10%, you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars.

So on a per pound basis of reducing nitrogen and phosphorus, your best bet are BMPs, best management practices, and low-income, low-impact development.

This has all been studied in ad infinitum, so we have all the data.

We don't need to study it anymore.

We know what to do.

We just need to do it.

So targeting what we do is the most critical thing.

Is there a direct correlation?

So if you've got a certain load going into the waterway from your wastewater treatment, if your population doubles, does that

It depends on how you're treating the water.

Or how people are living in the landscape.

Yeah, which is what I was going to refer to as I looked at that graph, at over 20 years, population certainly increased pretty substantially.

So in the whole Bay watershed, we've increased our population by between 17 and 20 million.

I looked at the numbers lately, and a lot of our numbers have gone down.

Some have gone up.

So we did what you're suggesting in a big way in certain areas.

What they do at Blue Plains in DC on the Potomac really, really matters.

And what they do in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which they're not, they're under court order to do better.

Sewage really matters.

Yeah, their sewage treatment in Harrisburg is pathetic.

So they're just polluting, polluting, polluting.

And 50% of the bay water comes from the Susquehanna.

So again, this has been studied for decades and we know what to do.

Lloyd shared the money targeting the Alfredian policy group.

Yeah, so Pennsylvania, unlike Virginia and Maryland, has not put any money into BMP cost share at the state level.

And they were finally forced to.

Maryland was threatening to sue Pennsylvania, saying, look, we're doing a great job and you're ruining it.

And so finally, Pennsylvanians now have state programs.

They're under attack every year, but they have state programs to try to

get at that problem.

And I would I consistently disagree with Lonnie.

Well, it's only agriculture by the.

So it depends on how you look at it, right?

In the sense that the most land area in Virginia is taken up by agriculture, right?

So if you look at geographically, there's more agriculture on land than there is urban area.

And so

That's one of the reasons people have targeted agriculture.

Like, well, if we reduce, if we make the reductions in agriculture, it has a bigger impact because there is more agriculture.

But if you look, if you compare the impact per acre, an acre of urban area has much bigger impact than an acre of agricultural area.

And the improvements per acre of agriculture area have been much greater than per acre for urban area.

So, yes, you're not wrong.

Agriculture is one of the areas where there's the most opportunity for improvement.

But it's not because that improvement hasn't been occurring.

That's a good point, too, but I don't know the history.

It's just a guess, but I suspect that

The urban side being relatively small overall would be my guess.

Because if we doubled the size, more or less put in 17 million people, you would have expected much more substantial increase.

And I suspect the retaining bonds are really doing part of the work.

Obviously not in a happy place as a retaining bond, but probably could give you a cut.

I mean, it's helped, but I think some of the things that were put in there, like the fiduciary trade and other things,

I think that that has sort of diluted because here you see all the, and I think too one of the things that happened was they, some of the metrics were changed between the WIPs that sort of deprioritized a lot of the issues like sediment I think.

Was it sediment that was completely dropped?

I think it was.

And so, yeah, because if you included sediment, then urban, then we just can't

The goals of that with the big contributors was urban areas.

They're like, well, we'll just remove sediment out of the metrics altogether because there's no way urban areas are going to, they just gave up.

So, but I think, you know, I see it all the time with applications that come forward that say, you know, that that meet the quantity, but not the quality.

So I think in terms of meeting the quality, sorry, the quantity goals of stormwater, we're probably doing okay and meeting the quality goals we're not.

So that, you know, I don't use it as agricultural versus urban versus point source versus not point source.

It's just urban minus.

It's the same agricultural area.

It's hard to regulate the source of huge pieces of land, whether it's a shopping mall, how you design your tree or how you farm.

It shouldn't be a blame thing.

It should be a how can we improve it?

They each have unique problems.

and septic systems and specifically are in rural areas, not suburban areas.

So that would be more, that's where you're going to be doing them.

I agree.

I'm not blaming agriculture for all the problems.

There's certainly, everybody's got to do their part.

But if you look at the history and you look at the studies, look at the laws, agriculture has consistently

on the bank program.

So for example, when there's mandatory MS4 permitting, there's no mandatory BMPs.

That's one example.

So in the last three years, the General Assembly in Virginia has said, all right, we're not reaching our goals.

There's reports on this.

There's studies from tech on this.

We're not reaching our culture goals because it's all voluntary.

The voluntary farmers have all raised their hands.

The ones who aren't going to do it are not going to raise their hands, so we need to make this mandatory, fence your cattle out of the streams.

And so the farmers have fought this, but they're slowly coming around.

Now, if we don't meet our goals on the whips, these laws are going to kick in where we have to have mandatory EMPs in the areas where we fail.

So if we want to stay ahead of that, if you don't want to tell the farmers what they have to do,

We gotta have people participate.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that either.

I mean, I think that there is a limit to voluntary, you know, and I think there's been discussion.

I mean, there's been discussion of the Board of Supervisors about adopting the Pay Act in our area.

So it's true.

I mean, there's a certain point which, you know,

Yeah.

There's a good resource I'll send afterwards.

That's the Virginia Tree Ordinance Database.

You can have tree preservation ordinances in place that have been implemented in multiple jurisdictions across Virginia.

That's another way to encourage some of those landowners.

Something else.

It'll come to me all the while.

On our roundtable side of the agenda, I wanted to hear from Albemarle and Fluvanna if there's been any progress on the Hardware River scenic designation.

I think the process was started in 2019 for some background in Fluvanna County after Friends of the

came to them recommending that the application was started, but then it was dropped with COVID and DCR staffing issues.

And from what I've heard, Albemarle and Rivanna are both interested.

There might be interest in their joint application.

We can have David Blount, who spoke with us earlier.

He's supported the Rivanna River Scenic Designation and the James River Scenic Designation.

who could come and speak to you all just about the process and what that's looked like in those other areas, if you think that'd be helpful.

Coordination.

I know it was raised at the Elmore Board, and this information that's in the packet now

We'll share that with the other board members, because I think that helps to assuage some of the red herrings that got thrown out there that, oh, it's going to restrict people.

And so having this information will be helpful.

And perhaps David's presentation could come straight to the board, because I think Fluvanna board is already ready to go.

The supervisors did pass a resolution in favor of it.

Great job.

Yeah, thank you.

My understanding is that they needed Albemarle.

Well, you could do segments from what's in the packet and what we read online from DCR.

I think there are legitimate arguments as to whether you, how much of it is actually canoeable and giving the impression that more of it is than

Sure.

And there are a lot, yes, it is.

And there are lots of places you have to portage up there, for sure.

So when Senator Kane did his Allegheny Highlands canoe trip during his 60th birthday trip,

He had to carry that thing around to a whole lot of places throughout the James River to get to Deepwater for sure.

No, I think this, I'm very much in support of this.

Albemarle has benefited tremendously from the other two destinations done.

And so I will make it my assignment to share this part of the packet with the board.

And if you could get to David to coordinate with Ellen to get a presentation, he can decide if he wants to do a short presentation,

any day during matters of the public.

And if he needs a little more time, then we'll figure out a way to get him.

But starting with the short might be sufficient, especially with the homework background.

And then we can keep rolling faster.

That's exciting.

And then

The last thing was any updates that you all have and any suggestions for items for our next meeting or the conference topics.

The last topics that we've had over the years, we did one on solar implementation, utility scale solar, and the best management practices that can be put in place to mitigate sediment and other forms of runoff on PFAS, forever chemicals, and

DEQ, VDH, EPA, our local water authority, and another that dealt with the PFAS issue came to present on updates to regulation and the latest science.

And then last, we had an update on the planning initiatives that are happening around the urban Rivanna corridor after days one and two.

So any, yeah, any ideas, any feedback on the locations there?

How everybody felt about the last one?

The content of the last one was amazing.

It was a great presentation, great panel.

It was pretty good.

got in the conference room.

Being in the auditorium, we didn't have as much opportunity for tabling and the networking and people just talking, which I think was one of the benefits of being at the Rec Center.

If we can figure out dates early enough, we have a better chance of getting into the big, maybe moment of history, county office building, which is like nine times the size of this.

is not quite as capacity big as Lane, but it certainly would provide an ability from big round table.

That's an extra.

We could do that now.

We know that's a possibility actually at the center.

Okay, thank you.

That really hasn't,

And too much of an issue.

We've had between 40 to 70.

Or 40.

Yeah, 70.

But I can check.

I don't know.

It's usually the last Friday until September.

Maybe send a survey out on topics.

That might be a good idea.

Based on this part of the conversation, I know it sounds maybe redundant, but maybe a program on understanding the impacts of rural and agricultural runoff into the rivers.

Everybody knows about it, but do they really understand the depth of it?

And the impact of what are the steps that could be done to mitigate it?

I know that there's staff at DEQ that monitors the impaired waterways, and she gives presentations regularly about the status of your region, so how far are you to reaching the goals for those impaired waterways, which could be interesting to hear about.

Yeah, maybe staff from one of the more urban jurisdictions could share about the MS4.

I don't know.

Which is good.

That's going to be a generic term, nonpoint pollution.

Nonpoint pollution because it's both the agriculture and urban and you could have different segments on whether it's development of shopping malls or what have you in urban areas, controlling that runoff in agricultural programs, like you said, the fencing, cover crops.

The thing I struggled with though is that it seems like your eyes have the same look over and over.

It's like the people that the people that are sort of engaged in these issues, are already engaged in these issues, tend to them.

How do you cast a subway that engages people so that they understand how this affects their ability to use water for recreation?

for how it affects their drinking water, how it affects... Can they eat the fish that they catch?

Can they eat the fish that they catch?

What happens when their dog plays in water that's infected with cyanobacteria?

Because we've had...

I mean, it's sad that someone's dog died, but I'm glad it wasn't someone's child.

So how do we...

passed it in such a way that the public understands the impact to them and then say, well, let's take that back.

Here are the things that are, they're a threat to these things you care about.

Something, just at the Rainbow Workshop last night, a few years ago, I made this document that's like a homeowner's guide to stormwater management at home.

And it's about all the BMPs with pictures and the grant opportunities.

And she's talking to JRA.

When you use stormwater management, it's like the homeowner disconnects with that.

They're like, you know, so I've seen like with BCAP, it's more so now, are you experiencing erosion at home?

Do you love native plants?

And like just connecting with their actual goals or their issues that they have.

But yeah, I've seen like home green home roundtables at different parts of Virginia where it's,

where homeowners come to learn about what opportunities they have to implement green infrastructure at home.

And I think our conferences historically have more so been geared towards elected officials and like staff, but I get your point.

Thank you.

You're talking about dogs and children being poisoned in the water and everything?

A lot of people don't have children or their children are grown and everything.

They may not even have grandkids and they usually keep an eye on them.

But if you have dogs, especially, you know, dogs go running around and people in Albemarle, I think all the areas, they are passionate about their dogs.

So, I mean,

If you told me that, my gosh, I would do anything I would have to do to keep my dog safe.

Kid, not so much, but I don't have much to say.

Just kidding.

I think the other thing, too, that I struggle with is, I see you have different audiences.

You have homeowners.

But you also have the development community, too.

And I don't know.

And for some of them, it's not that they don't know better.

Some of them, no names mentioned, do know better.

That's the problem.

We have to be made to do it.

But I mean, there are cases like some things, like it doesn't necessarily cost you more to do it the right way.

And how do we, you know, is there an easy guide we can make for them to be like, listen, here's the here's the

Cookiecutter, like the right way to do it guy, just like you're talking about, like the guy for homeowners, like here's matching stormwater in your landscape.

Maybe there's the matching stormwater in your development project guy that like, I mean, we know your plan on meeting legal requirements.

Well, we certainly hope you do.

Yeah.

I was talking with someone just yesterday, it's a shame we can't like put letter grades on some of these development applications, be like, you know, for sustainability and just say like, this

This one gets a grade A for sustainability.

This one gets a C. And just make it public.

You can do that at the Planning Commission.

You don't have approval to do that.

Yeah, we'd like to blow us down all the trees in the buffer and cut away with it.

Totally different perspective.

Ecosystem services is sort of what Mother Nature can do.

Back when StreamWatch was before the merger, one of the later reports that they did talked about 30 acres per house was sort of the balance for being able to have the ecosystem handle the impacts.

Of course, we are waiting on that.

in our urban area and so have to have a whole lot of other mitigation strategies to do better.

So that's one item.

Legacy, I wrote this down when you were talking about mapping both the hotspots for pollution and the development sites.

I love this idea because visual things are very quick and easy to hover over something and have it tell you where it is.

But also the legacy sentiment when we're talking about the history of

for your intern project is Carlton Ray, who was a biologist, all sorts of other things that we've been doing now that we're tired, told me years ago that in the 1800s, Sugar Hollow was all denuded and of agriculture.

And all the legacy, the sediment that I'm fussing about, not all of it, but the grand majority of the sediment I'm fussing about is more of it solutions.

And when it gets to our area, the off-grid rivers.

has been in the stream beds for a hundred years.

And it's just continually, until we stabilize it, it's going to continue to be moving.

So that was a new concept for me back then.

I thought that was pretty wild.

Preparation for self-sufficiency.

I think this is a really terrible year for the Chesapeake Bay program to be reevaluating its rule because it has a pretty high possibility for that.

All of us, I think, are very anxious about where the gaps are going to be.

And so the most that we can do to help our citizens weather the storm and try not to go backwards in all the environmental things that we care about for the river will be something that we need lots of help doing.

I love the idea of the easy button for developers because they don't have to.

I can't say they don't.

Other ideas for Taylor for her plan, either for the conference or the

What's important to do for the strategic plan?

Thinking about the conferences, I mean, are we going to cast a line done for the general public or are we trying to bring in the resource people and the building departments and the activists and planners and make sure they're all

from various localities and make sure they're all talking to each other at least once a year.

This has a primary function at this time too.

They may be future activists and that would be good.

The resources for a while that we're not... What you said there, I think one topic could be not for the overhaul conference, but maybe the piece of it is just running down all the changes that are happening in terms of regulations and funding at the federal level and how that could impact us regionally.

Because obviously, I think there's probably going to be some, from my perspective, catastrophic changes coming.

Exactly.

We're all looking, going, oh, what's going to happen?

We're looking at our budgets and everything.

I think whatever we do, it would be nice to do something that is, frankly, doable, not pie in the sky.

Maybe we want to get to the pie in the sky, but, you know, do step one, step two, and get, you know, get the word out

public, but I mean, let's get things down that we could probably actually accomplish and whoever we need to bring in to help us for that.

And you said, I'm sorry, you said end of September, last Saturday in September, 40 to 70 people.

Yeah.

Pardon?

Last Friday.

Thank you.

We always correct

We talked about marketing for the public versus do we have all our local actors, particularly in some changes that might help assist the professionals in helping with that things and development.

actually has been very better key players.

But if you see harder players talking together, those strategies are working.

But Jason is going to be doing a good job.

But also bringing in great developers to help them.

And shared strategies would be developed by the staff.

And some of the staff, some of the buildings staff, some of the other groups, there's some ways to settle them.

How frequently will your new tech committee meet?

Is that a quarterly thing?

Because that opportunity already brings together the various staff departments from all the jurisdictions.

Yeah, it was just the first meeting and we had over 25 people join.

Yeah, so it was good.

It's a regional environmental coordination meeting with local staff.

So she's just saying we kind of have a group now that's bringing together our local staff to talk about and create shared knowledge.

So, you know, any type of organization can come and speak to them about that.

But

I think, too, when it comes from the commission, it encourages local staff to want to be there because there's buy-in from your boards here.

So it could still be a bigger event that's targeted for local staff through the conference.

But I'll create some questions as part of the strategic planning survey around the conference so I can get some more detailed feedback from you all on your concepts for that.

Thank you all.

Thank you, this has been wonderful to see such a large group and hear all these different ideas and different perspectives.

Maybe this year we'll have the weather be right and we could have it the day after because one or two of the eight or nine years in the province we didn't have suitable weather where we could

Get in boats on Saturday, like you're watching the Southward Dam down to Milton.

That was a nine hour exhausting.

Nine hour orders.

My shoulders skip hardly.

Oh, my gosh.

Drag my kayak out of the river.

Somebody had to push it from behind to drag me myself up the bank there.

We had a lovely picnic lunch in downtown.

It was a life changer.

It does, we have to bring lunch.

Well, no, I mean, the RCA provided lunch.

And then some years we've had torrential rains the day before, and the boat ride from Darton Town would be part of 30 seconds.

Absolutely, like two people went, and the rest of us said, oh, come on.

And other years it was dry.

So we just have to be loose and do something.

And Gabe can help us if the weather's going to be right.

Otherwise, we're not going to reach 100 seconds.

Thank you very much for that.

We have a second.

Thank you all.