FRONT ROYAL, Va. — Few American waterways evoke as much passion, poetry and song, and memories of days gone by as the Shenandoah River, which flows north for 150 miles from Virginia into West Virginia to join the Potomac at Harpers Ferry.
But these days, not much is right with the historic waterway.
In the past several years, dreadful things have happened to this priceless beauty Virginians claim as their own. Fish have been found dead or dying, some suffering horrendous body sores, others simply floating dead with no outward signs of illness.
Despite the small army of investigating scientists, government officials and concerned conservation and sport fishing groups, no one yet has come up with answers regarding the causes of the fish kills.
Perhaps there is no single answer to the river’s plight, but whatever ails the Shenandoah almost certainly was — and still is — caused by man.
A kaleidoscope of answers about what is happening to the river is easy to come by: Opinions are as plentiful as the people who live along the Shenandoah from New Market and Front Royal to its eventual confluence with the Potomac at Harpers Ferry.
Robert Brent of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) knows of the many pollution complaints, and he agreed that pinning down the causes isn’t easy.
“There are a number of different problems on the river,” he said. “There’s a bacterial impairment on both the north and south forks that concerns fecal bacteria, which exceed state standards. In addition, the south fork has aquatic-life impairment concerning the biological health of the stream. The south fork is not fully supporting aquatic life.”
Around the public Riverton boat launch along the Shenandoah’s north fork, within shouting distance of Front Royal, small tufts of a foamy substance float toward the West Virginia border, accompanied by malodorous strands of darkly colored, dead grass.
Front Royal angler Dick Fox said, “Ten years ago, it wasn’t unusual to catch 100 smallmouth bass in a day. Now you’re lucky if you hook a dozen. I think this river is sick. There definitely is something wrong here.”
All the same, on a sunny weekday Mr. Fox managed to coax well over 20 smallmouth bass to the hook — all of them appearing healthy, but none measuring over 15 inches. In the past several years, many of the bass that contained deep sores had been the larger specimens of smallmouth.
The state’s scientists haven’t isolated a single culprit as the cause of the river’s illness. As happens with many rural rivers, shoreline over-development, out-of-date sewage-treatment plants, occasional waste discharges, runoffs of sewage, fertilizers and animal waste that end up in the river contribute mightily to undesirable nutrients and the potential of contaminating ground and surface waters.
With all this being fairly common knowledge and the state’s DEQ having been aware that the river was ailing as far back as 1996 — when it listed it as “impaired” — some people question why it has taken the DEQ so long to investigate the Shenandoah River forks’ apparent illness.
Mr. Brent knows the river’s condition is a human health concern. “There are 650 impaired waters on the DEQ’s original list. We plan to address all 650 by 2010,” he said. The Shenandoah is only one of those ailing 650.
Among the private citizens and groups that are greatly alarmed — including the Friends of the Shenandoah River, the Shenandoah Riverkeeper and others — there is a fear that anyone who gets the river’s water into the mouth, eyes or nose runs the risk of contracting gastrointestinal illness.
Still, knowing all this doesn’t stop the sport fishermen who are constantly on the hunt for the smallmouth bass that once thrived here but are not indigenous to the Shenandoah. The brown-hued bass have become the stars of all the Mid-Atlantic states’ mountain rivers, thanks to their willingness to attack artificial lures and give a vigorous tussle when hooked.
Just a half-mile below Riverton’s boat ramp where the river’s north fork meets the south fork, Winchester resident Jim Rhodes sat in a narrow johnboat, casting lures toward a rocky shoreline. When asked about the recent fish kills, he said, “It worries me, yes, but I think they’ll come back.”
Front Royal businessman and frequent bass angler Bruce Monismith adds to the fish-kill theories: “I think some undesirable characters along the river are netting fish and then throwing back the dead ones they do not want,” he said.
Mr. Monismith said he hasn’t seen any fish marred by sores and lesions. In fact, he thinks the smallmouth bass population, after several years of decline, is making a comeback.
A frequent explanation given by anglers and local residents regarding occasional fish kills and other ills that have visited the Shenandoah is the fact that the river has suffered from droughts and very low water levels, which would increase the potential for killing fish when weak river flows mix with chemicals and farm runoff.
A sure sign of poor water quality are the pH levels in the river, which differ sharply from a desirable 7.0 content. In the Shenandoah, the pH in the water swings from an acidic 4.5 to 9.0, which shows a very high alkaline content. Neither extreme is helpful when it comes to supporting fish populations.
The Shenandoah Riverkeeper, Jeff Kelble, a sport angler, conservationist and river custodian who has patrolled these waters since June 2006, said the problems won’t be solved quickly.
“This year, we had a dry spring, and I only see small pockets of problems, but I can find sick fish,” Mr. Kelble said. “We have at least 20 years of work to do.”
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