Summary

The 2011 State of the James River report gives the river’s health an overall score of 53% and a grade of C. This represents a 4% drop in the overall score over the past 2 years. This reduced score demonstrates that the river remains in a vulnerable state and that progress in restoring the river to full health has stalled. While the James River is certainly in better shape than it was 35 years ago when the James River Association was founded, we risk sliding backward unless the Commonwealth strengthens its commitment and takes additional action to advance the river’s health.

Wildlife: For the James River’s key fish and wildlife species, there were some gains and losses over the past two years. Bald eagle populations continue to increase, making America’s Founding River quite fittingly the most significant river in Virginia for our national symbol. Additionally, the American shad population has shown signs of a comeback after an unexplained 3-year decline. Oysters and brook trout continue to struggle at low levels relative to their historical populations. Both rock fish and small mouth bass, which were at very healthy numbers within the past decade, declined over the past 2 years showing that even healthy populations are susceptible when the river ecosystem is out of balance.

Habitat: The river’s important habitat indicators also reflected the ongoing challenges and some successes for the river. Both stream health and tidal water quality decreased slightly from 2 years ago. Conversely, underwater grasses, which depend on clean water to get sunlight to grow, continued their increase and for the first time in decades were found in the mainstem of the tidal James above Newport News, in addition to their strong resurgence in some of the James’ tidal tributaries.

Pollution: Pollution continues to have the greatest impact on the river’s health and is a leading cause of the decreased overall score. In particular, nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution cause widespread damage to the river ecosystem. After seeing substantial improvement in pollution reductions in the 1990s, average pollution reductions over the past decade show little additional progress. Progress on sediment pollution controls actually reversed as levels spiked due to large influxes of sediment with major storm events.

Restoration and Protection Actions: To date, roughly half of the critical restoration and protection actions called for in Virginia’s cleanup plan for the James River are reported as complete. With strong permit limits and hundreds of millions of dollars of investments, wastewater treatment has met its share of the cleanup plan. However, implementation and documentation of practices to control polluted runoff from agriculture and development is much lower. Only 23% of priority agricultural practices and 28% of development pollution controls have been reported as complete. Both of these areas need much greater attention in the future, as well as a comprehensive system to review all implemented projects.

Conservation of natural areas and restoration of riparian buffers throughout the watershed continues to rise, however, so does the amount of land we need to restore and protect. Natural areas and buffers are constantly threatened by expanding development. Finding a balance between development and natural areas represents an important step in the continued progress toward improved water quality.

The stalled pollution reductions for the James River underscore the need for stronger action. Like a boat rowing against the tide, our efforts and investments over the past decade have only kept pace with the growing population and development. Additional progress in reaching a fully healthy river will require a full commitment to Virginia’s new cleanup plan for the James River.