Tributary Strategy for the Rappahannock River and Northern Neck Coastal Basins

Voluntary public participation and citizen input are essential to cost-effective, feasible, equitable strategies.

Virginia's Bay Watersheds

The Rappahannock River - A few facts
Length: 184 miles
Size of watershed: 2,715 square miles
Total miles of rivers and streams in the Rappahannock watershed: 2,616 miles
Physiographic provinces: Appalachian, Piedmont, Coastal Plain
Land use in basin: 55 percent forested, 38 percent agriculture, 7 percent urban
Basin population: 228,000 (1996 estimates)
Major tributaries of the Rappahannock: Rapidan River, Robinson River, Hazel River, Thornton River, Mountain Run, Cat Point Creek, Piscataway Creek, Corrotoman River
Scenic: An 86-mile stretch from the headwaters at Chester Gap to the Mayfield Bridge in Fredericksburg has been officially recognized as scenic by the Virginia General Assembly.

The river's basin stretches from Rappahannock County to Chesapeake Bay in Lancaster County. The Rappahannock is 184 miles long, and its drainage basin varies in width from 50 to 10 miles. The watershed drains 2,715 square miles, roughly 13 percent of Virginia's bay basin. The basin's largest city is Fredericksburg in Spotsylvania County.

The Rappahannock Watershed

Tributary Strategy overview - The Tributary Restoration Strategy for the Rappahannock River and Northern Neck Coastal Basins was completed and signed by the Virginia's natural resources secretary August 2000. The strategy identifies water quality deficiencies and outlines a plan to reduce nutrient and sediment loadings into the Rappahannock and its tributaries.

The strategy addresses a number of continued processes and reevaluations along the way to achieving its goals. A program reevaluation to be conducted in 2002 will focus on assessing whether or not all needed program enhancements or modifications are in place. A technical evaluation will take place in 2005; it will focus on progress and additional opportunities toward meeting the nutrient and sediment reduction goals. Both of these processes will be supported by annual progress reports on reaching milestones, and both will address ways to improve targeting nitrogen reductions. Other objectives for these reevaluations include:

The Rappahannock strategy is dynamic and will continue to evolve as new information and technologies become available as well as when results of reevaluations provide guidance. Strategy updates will be made each year as needed through the Secretary of Natural Resource's Annual Report to the General Assembly on the Development and Implementation of Nutrient Reduction Strategies for Virginia's Tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay, produced in November each year.

The Tributary Strategy for the Rappahannock River and Northern Neck Coastal Basins (click here to download from DEQ's website) addresses water quality and living resources. The document sets forth nutrient and sediment reduction goals for these waters, identifies management practices to partly meet these goals and offers recommendations for continued water quality improvements. Although the strategy covers a comprehensive program to reduce nutrient and sediment loads and improve water quality, numerous follow-up actions are planned to help ensure success. One such action is the production of a Rappahannock Strategy Technical Appendix. It will detail regional loadings, water quality information, and development of any implementation publications needed to promote the effort. It was developed in a cooperative manner that accounted for local needs and viewpoints. Members of Rappahannock River Basin Commission, Rappahannock Conservation Council and Rappahannock Technical Committee worked diligently to represent their constituents and achieve consensus on effective, balanced solutions. This cooperation led to strong support for establishing water quality restoration goals and identifying needed implementation practices.

Water quality problems in the Rappahannock River - Though long considered one of the cleanest rivers on the East Coast, recent studies indicate that the Rappahannock River suffers from significant degradations in water quality. From a biological standpoint, the Rappahannock is, in fact, now considered the most degraded of Virginia's three lower Chesapeake Bay tributaries. These problems were identified through water quality monitoring conducted by state agencies, universities and citizen groups.

Steep slopes in the upper basin make soil and nutrients susceptible to erosion and transport from storm events. USGS monitoring data show that the Rappahannock basin above the fall line has the highest yield (load/unit area) of total nitrogen, total phosphorus and total suspended solids of all the Chesapeake Bay tributary basins in the state. A sill and trench at the Rappahannock's mouth restricts the flow of bottom water from Chesapeake Bay into the river. This unique situation causes poor "flushing" and creates a higher residence time for nutrients, BOD (biological oxygen demand) and oxygen-poor water. In turn, this has led to local algal blooms, low oxygen levels (hypoxia) and waters with no oxygen (anoxia) in the bottom waters of the middle and lower estuary during summer months. These problems have harmed the river's diversity and abundance of fisheries and aquatic life.

A nonpoint source pollution potential assessment performed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation in 1998 ranked as follows 33 water bodies of the basin:

The following summarizes the Rappahannock's water quality status and trends:

Water quality and habitat restoration goals - Restoration goals were established for improving water quality and habitat conditions by the year 2010. These goals were based on modeling results from a bay water quality computer model that simulates how different levels of nutrient and sediment reductions could improve water quality, particularly the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water column and the health of submerged grasses.

There are two principal restoration goals. The first is to reduce by approximately 50 percent the annual volume of anoxic water and the second is to increase by approximately 50 percent the density of submerged grasses. The computer model projects that reaching these goals will require load reductions, using 1985 as the base year, of 33 percent for nitrogen, 29 percent for phosphorus and 20 percent for sediment. It's important to note that goals are likely to be changed in the coming years as we revisit the strategies and learn more about how to improve water quality in the Rappahannock basin.

The resulting point and nonpoint source nutrient and sediment reductions were combined with projections of increased point source nutrient loads, from population growth, to estimate total loads at year 2010. The practices currently identified in the strategy would meet the sediment and phosphorus goals by 2010, but they would not meet the nitrogen reduction goal so more work is needed.

Additional tributary strategy goals include addressing chronic erosion and stream bank instability in the western Rappahannock basin and implementing basin-wide the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Implementation of CREP would reestablish 4,604 acres of riparian buffers - equal to 491 stream miles - reestablishing 456 acres of wetlands, and working to remove from the impaired waters list all basin stream segments that arise from localized pollutant loads.

Estimated loads, point and nonpoint source, and implementation options - Point source nutrient loads in the Rappahannock River and Northern Neck coastal basins account for less than 10 percent of the total delivered nitrogen loads, and around 10 percent of total delivered phosphorus loads (point sources do not contribute to sediment loads). Biological nutrient removal (BNR) is key to reducing this load. BNR is accepted as the most effective technology available for nutrient reduction at municipal wastewater treatment plants. BNR can be operated to remove both nitrogen and phosphorus concurrently, or optimized for nitrogen removal and paired with chemical phosphorus removal. In some plants with BNR, nitrogen concentration in discharge can be reduced to 6 mg/liter. Four of the major municipal wastewater treatment plants in the basin - Remington, FMC, Fredericksburg and Little Falls Run - have already implemented nutrient removal technology voluntarily. As part of the strategy process, remaining facilities with permitted flows greater than one million gallons per day (except at Warrenton) in the basin have included BNR in their planning process and have taken steps toward implementation. These plants, including Culpeper and Massaponax, have not completed plans and schedules for implementing BNR, but these upgrades are expected prior to the stategy's deadline of 2010

Nonpoint source nutrient loads in the Rappahannock River basin account for more than 90 percent of total delivered nitrogen load, about 90 percent of the phosphorus load and all of the delivered sediment loads. Most originates from agricultural sources, hence achieving the strategy's reduction goals depends on increasing the use of agricultural best management practices that reduce pollution. Reducing urban and suburban components of the nonpoint source nutrient and sediment loads, however, will also be very important in the coming years.

Projected costs - Costs for nutrient and sediment reduction practices will be borne by the state, localities and individuals. The state cost-share portions of these actions is estimated to be about $8.8 million for point sources, assuming a 50 percent cost-share level, and $39.4 million for nonpoint sources, assuming 75 percent cost-share. These cost estimates are assumed for the period 2000-2010.

The estimated annual average state cost for implementing the identified nonpoint source management practices is $3.6 million. This figure may increase after 2005 as it becomes necessary to implement more costly management practices in order to maintain, or increase, the annual rates of nitrogen reduction. The costs for implementing Virginia's CREP in the Rappahannock basin are not included in the strategy because they are funded separately. For point sources, it is expected that the four treatment facilities in the basin that have already installed nutrient removal systems will make reimbursement requests immediately for just over $4 million of state cost share. One major facility expected to upgrade to nutrient removal technology in the next year or two will make a state cost-share request of about $2.6 million.

Conclusion - Implementation of a nutrient reduction strategy for the Rappahannock River depends on the informed, active participation of local governments, interested and affected parties and the general public. We continue to forge partnerships that lead to the identification of balanced solutions for the restoration and enhancement of water quality and living resource habitat conditions in the Rappahannock River basin. These solutions will be based on sound science and a thorough understanding of the economic implications of alternative courses of action. Through consensus-building at the local level among diverse interests, Virginia can find ways to achieve greater reductions in nutrients. To that end, you are encouraged to consider the issues and options presented as we implement this strategy, and raise others that may help improve nutrient reduction efforts. Voluntary public participation and citizen input are essential to cost-effective, feasible, equitable strategies.

Become involved by calling Rappahannock Watershed Manager Matthew Criblez at (540) 899-4463.