FEBRUARY IS A HARD MONTH TO LOVE

February is a hard month to love. The most ardent endure her harsh temperament--her changing moods--with some success, rarely without sacrificing self, in the form of numb fingers or wind-chapped cheeks.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    February is a time of change, one without which the climactic arrival of spring would be of muted contrast. Snowmelt, under the typically warmer-than-winter closing days of the month, floods rivers and streams with cold, dirty water, while small game seasons peter out. But if February offers any consolation, it’s that taking it by the horns and experiencing the true end of the outdoor year makes spring all the more grandiose.

High, Cold, and Dirty

    Six inches of snow fell over the weekend, and promptly melted, unleashing inches of 36-degree, muddy water on the landscape. If there’s a type of water that warrants hanging your hat up for, it’s this—but when the going gets tough, I find it unacceptable to accept defeat.

    When I arrived at the roadside pull-off, I could hardly recognize the creek that brushes the road. Under normal circumstances, a well-defined run-pool complex passes tranquilly under the shadow of a hemlock-lined bank. With the right angle of sunlight to facilitate, a half dozen or so dark, elongated forms can be seen waving in place like submerged grass in the lucid blue belly of water, fins grazing cobble below.

    This time, however, the scene looked and sounded of chaos. Green-brown water capped with foam rolled and chopped like ocean waves, ignoring the serpentine borders of the creek, and challenging the quiet forest highway adjacent to a contest in violent white noise it was sure to win.

    I learned a lesson in high-water trout fishing in western Maryland three years prior. That river was running roughly four times its typical flow. Wild brown trout filled the river, and I had considerable success fishing soft water behind big boulders along the flooded bank with a large, dark fly. That was mid-June.

    A third odd was stacked against me on that February day—cold water. I knew I’d have to fish slowly, and very thoroughly.

    When a creek jumps its banks, holding and feeding lies are tossed in the air. The food chain scrambles to reestablish footing in the changing system. Small fish are tossed around, and large, predatory fish cruise harsh current breaks, looking for a feeding opportunity.

    A few hundred yards upstream, I found the setting for the scene I prophesized in my mind. A long, hard run ran over chunk rock, tossing water in crests and pits. An abutting slab of bedrock calmed the churning, and pooled a few feet of calm water.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    Several casts with a heavy crayfish-imitating fly into the seam ended with a hard stop and the turn of a massive female brown trout that ran downstream, broke me off, and became my latest heartbreak.

Two Triples

    A crisp, sunny afternoon in February beckoned me to the squirrel woods, amped with adrenaline, 20-guage pump shotgun in tote.

    Late season bushytail hunting, in my mind, speaks of delicate walking, skittish squirrels, and quick shots—a game tailored to the indiscriminate, somewhat forgiving reach of a boom-stick.

    Just barely inside the treeline, as I stood mid-way up a hardwood ridge, sun to my back, three squirrels busted from cover, nervous from my prolonged pause, and darted for independent cover. Swinging, and operating the pump-loading mechanism instinctively, I dropped all three on consecutive shots—a triple, for half a limit.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Another 45 minutes of still hunting landed me in position to take another bushytail. From a creekbottom, I closed the distance between me and the rustling I could hear near the top of the ridge, hopping and skipping in bursts, imitating the sound of a pouncing gray squirrel.

    The first shot was presented when an alarmed gray pounced from the trunk of an oak tree into the branches of another. As it was scrambling to establish footing, I dropped it with a swinging report from the 20-guage.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    A second bushytail peeked out from behind the trunk of a neighboring oak, curious, presenting a headshot that didn’t go unclaimed. Down went another batch of meat for the pot.

    A third held tight to the forest floor for 30 seconds before making a mad dash for a nearby hickory tree. I ran forward ten feet as the squirrel began its ascent of the trunk, and interrupted it, taking a quick knee, and firing a rising snap-shot—a second double, for a limit of late season bushytails.□

 *Originally published in the Rural Virginian

SCIENCE AND WONDER IN NATURE

If ever I were to sojourn in nature and not wonder, not revel in the mysteries hidden by daylight, overridden by my intrusive presence, I fear I would no longer value my experience there. For it is the integral fondness for such intoxicating musings that I have come to realize to forebode and upkeep a fervent outdoor passion and adventurous spirit.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    However, naturally, the inquisitive, scientific minds of humans, and the wonder that pours from the heart of nature into our own, raises a great contradiction. Science, both as published field work, popular concepts, and the citizen science today so easily conducted, slowly chips away at the unknown, replacing raw wonder, then, with known, factual truths. Scientific tools, like trail cameras, scuba gear, and fishfinders, enable us to explore the natural world beyond our human limitations, comfortably. Mystery dissolves.

    Before the advent of popular science, natural mystery ran deep in local lore and culture. “Monsters” were regular literary characters. Indeed, many place names are colorful results.

    Virginia folk lore recounts the naming of Dragon Run, one of the Chesapeake Bay Area’s more ecologically significant ecosystems, as occurring more than two centuries ago. A man was spending the afternoon fishing from his canoe among the cypress knees of the peaceful coastal swamp, when a winged beast, spewing a devilish, raucous warning, tore through the understory on a chariot, erupting thunder and lightning. Knowing he had seen a dragon—a manifestation of the devil—the man was so startled, it’s recorded, that he paddled furiously to shore and was found dead in his bed the following morning.

    This literary account of an airborne, thunderous chariot brings to mind the emotions associated with an unforeseen flushing of a grouse or bobwhite. My experience with coastal swamp dragons, however, suggests the identity of one of the many heron species native to Virginia’s Coastal Plains, and the rasps they shout through the swamps.

    Nevertheless, the legend persisted, and still does in the toponym. For in that day, the existence of dragons had not yet been discounted.

    One of my own experiences brought about a similar emotion. I arrived to an empty home one late night in mid-February, after dark. Before I could open the front door, a blood-curdling scream erupted from just inside the treeline at the edge of the back yard—the likes of which I would have assigned a vengeful spirit or a witch, had I been born in the 17^th century. After banishing the image of a frightened little girl from my mind, I recognized its source as a bobcat in heat.

    For the same reason that outdoorspeople today relish in the mystery of nature, it was once feared by those who faced its overwhelming uncertainty every day. Thankfully, we have, in this day and age, come into understanding of the natural world, and overcome the fearfulness that led to violent reactions against several apex predators, and the irresponsible utilization of available resources.

    So what has been lost? Largely, personal discovery and the novelty of unanticipated encounters, I might offer.

    To celebrate discovery and ponder this idea, I sacrificed the comfort of indoors for the foreign moods of a nocturnal forest one fall night. A large moon shed light on my experiment. I brought a light, albeit just a backup, in case of an emergency. Nothing else burdened me, as I took a seat against an ancient oak tree in a creekbottom as the last slivers of daylight burned out.

    Watching darkness fall is a dramatic experience. Light recedes from optical interpretation, until a certain level of darkness is achieved, at which point there is no more light to be lost, and the eyes have adjusted to brave the situation. The world is quiet, and then, by imperceptible degrees, it’s not.

    On this particular night, the moon rose early. A few moments passed after base darkness was achieved, and then moonlight began to wax the woods, enlivening a neighborhood of slender shadows.

    Soon almost inaudible clues gave away bulges emerging in the tops of several trees. Moments passed, and they began to descend, as shadows. Many more moments passed, and there was a community of bulges riffling through the leaves adjacent to the creek, occasionally bumping into one another and hissing. Raccoons, I gathered.

    A form I can only attribute to a fox amble by, keeping out of the commotion, tight to the foot of a ridge, apparently unaware of my presence.

    In my eyes, Eden danced in the moonlight.

    And in this, I was romanced. I came to realize that, in nature, the more you come to know, the less, you realize, you really know. Mystery and wonder persist, and only in chasing the desire to know, do we come to appreciate what we have.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian

BROWN TOWN

Under normal circumstances, creeks, rivers—bodies of water—usually give sufficient warning before they reveal themselves to a wandering angler. An analytical eye on the terrain while driving slowly towards a perceived destination, chest leaning slightly up on the steering wheel, is all it takes—unless you’re in the downtown district of a major city.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Looking down at the water from the overgrown and crumbling parking lot of an abandoned building, I wasn’t surprised I had almost missed it. A small freestone creek, no wider than 10 feet across, gushed over river rock 10 feet down in a gully that navigates a hodgepodge of residential lots, industrial facilities, and businesses. Even the short bridge that I drove over failed to harness enough of my attention to signal the proximity of the stream.

    My mind questioned by what device there could be a viable population of wild trout occupying the water below. Machine shops, abandoned car washes, and other impenetrable surfaces bordered the stream’s course for miles, surely keeping it stocked with a hefty supply of automotive chemicals and other pollutants. Lawns and roads took up the remainder of the immediate bank, contributing still more chemical pollutants, as well as novel trash items like pizza boxes, onion sacks, and wire fencing.

    “There’s no way,” I thought.

    Still, the creek had a reputation for fish, and so I returned to my car, and suited up.

    Fishing a favorite double nymph rig, my first cast landed in the head of a small run that spanned the width of the creek. Within a few seconds of hitting the water, the fly line stopped suddenly, and a quick hook set pulled a bottle rocket from the white water and sent it careening downstream. I let slack line slide from my line hand, and started my downstream chase.

    My opponent’s energy was running out, and I had him folding under the influence of my long rod in the tail of a long run. Guiding his head towards me on a short line, I plunged my net underneath its form and scooped.

    What superficially appeared to be a roadside ditch creek, accented by the occasional oxygenating riffle, had rewarded my preliminary effort with a sizeable wild rainbow, taping at about 15 inches—one I’d be proud to have pulled from even some of the larger streams and creeks in the vicinity.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” passed through my mind, prompting me to take a more critical look at the water. Small patches of water cress colored the bank in a few spots. Tree cover was marginal at best. If the cress did indeed indicate the presence of springs throughout the creek’s course, they play an important role in keeping the stream cool year-round. Still, though, I couldn’t rationalize the success of the wild trout population in front of me when considering the chemical and domestic pollution I can all but guarantee plague the water quality.

    “Maybe it’s a fluke,” I thought.

    An hour and a half later, after catching 12 small to average wild rainbows in a single run under the confused gaze of two brothers playing catch with a football in their backyard, the thought that my first fish was a “fluke” had fled my mind and dissipated into the background traffic noise.

    The brothers’ own house caught my eye as I glanced upstream, planning my next attack. From the back door of the house, concrete steps descended to ground level where they met a large concrete slab, presumably the foundation of the house itself. The tip of the structure extended into the water along the bank, catching a short pocket of water in its tail and creating a dynamic eddy.

    My formal training on the Shenandoah Mountains’ brook trout streams has made it near impossible for me to pass up such a lie, even for its small size. From head to tail, the pocket was no more than two feet long.

    My nymph found its head and stopped abruptly. My rod doubled on the hookset, the captured yielding no ground. A long, brown back breached, facing upstream, and kicked itself out of the pocket to roll downstream with two labored fans of its tail.

    Positioned for the cast sharply downstream, I kept my rod tip high, handled my net, and waded to midstream to collect the trout on its run downstream. The battle expired shortly, as I had current and tool working for me, and the weight of a brown trout of about 18 inches sagged in the silicone basket of my landing net.

    As I ungloved my hands to handle the fish, I glanced nervously upward at the house towering over me. I can be a nervous guy in the city, but for fish, I can make an exception.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginia

SNOWFLAKES IN SHENANDOAH

Snowflakes stippled the barren-gray scene, tossed by a corkscrewing breeze tumbling down the gauntlet of a mountain hollow, following the track of a frigid mountain stream. I opposed its course, head into the wind, eyes watering, mind set on a deep pool upstream.

The author with a large Shenandoah brook trout taken in the snow. Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Clouds set the tone for the landscape, casting a cold, flat light on rock and trunk, granting a frozen appearance to even what was not. Brown leaves, long since fallen and captured by a stiff layer of frost, were static features, even in the wind, and finalized the atmosphere of harsh rigidity about the place. The bone-chilling threat of nearly-frozen mountain water resounded.

    The natural world stays inside on days like these, or so it seems. Gray squirrels may not show themselves in the absence of a mid-morning sun to loosen their limbs. Save for perhaps a solemn march for carbs, the majority of their day is spent dreaming of sunlit explorations of the treetops, curled up, veiled by a thick, bushy tail.

    Deer find thermal refuge in thick lowland pine groves, legs curled under their tawny brown coats, metabolism slowed, fighting tooth and nail for spring. Hunting pressure from the expired season has trained them to sit tight in daylight, and venture forth at the moon’s height (if there is a big moon) or in the respite of dusk for safety.

    Even the parking lot on the fringe of the Shenandoah backcountry, typically jammed with automobiles for its proximity to Charlottesville, is devoid of all but three vehicles, owned, of course, by humans who have engineered their own nutritions outside of the seasons’ environmental demand, and think nothing dangerous or wasteful of a two-mile hike in sub-freezing weather.

    One of those cars is my own, and I passed the owners of the other two on my way up the mountain trail, stride rustling in a pair of weathered waders, my fly rod gripped through a thin glove on my right hand.

    The first was a college-aged girl, presumably from UVA, or otherwise on Christmas break, like myself. As she approached, her covered head bobbed up to see me, as it was previously fixed on the ground, keeping pace with her swift stride. She drew attention to the cold--the weather, as is a cliche among brief trail encounters--and then passed, returning her gaze to the path, hands jammed into her pockets, without breaking stride.

    Surely her business in the mountains was of fitness, as her visit was quick (I saw her depart from the parking lot as I geared up), and seemingly devoid of observation or enjoyment, which might have been hinted at through a slower stride and exploring gaze.

    The second driver followed shortly behind, accompanied by his female of unknown relation, and canine, who, more than any of the humans I had yet encountered, seemed to be enjoying himself. The owners, both clad (as was I) in winter coats, hats, gloves, and sunglasses, whisked by at a hurried pace, hardly breaking their gaze from the course ahead to acknowledge my passing.

    It occurred to me that their being there must have been tied to the needs and desires of their furry companion, though I should think it not entirely fair to consider their motives totally polarized from a respect for nature. Why else, then, would they choose to walk their dog in the mountains and not down their own street?

    That is not to say that there is a right or wrong reason to be in the mountains on an exceptionally cold, and snowy and windy, afternoon. Just that I seldom encounter an angler so taken by the spirituality of the chase as to cross paths with one in the dead of winter, and that I naturally find my mind coming to rest on the question of why that is, and how that makes me different when the creeks turn cold. Am I crazy? Perhaps.

     My own motive comes clear when I reach the trail’s third ford in the creek and moves on, up the mountain, affording a view of the water tumbling through the woods. I leave the trail and make a short trek to the creek to find a large hole with current bordered by a large volume of slack water.

    I ply the water with a large fly, and entice a handful of lethargic, delicate brook trout, and hoist them only momentarily from the icy water, conscious of the air temperature and its effect on them.

    It’s in that cold mountain scene, harsh and rugged in winter, that I feel content, classically pleased. To me, the action is as important and as relaxing as reading a book by the fire or tying flies to music and hot chocolate.

    But everyone lives for different things. I just happen to live for this.□

*Originally published in The Rural Virginian

FRIENDS BEARING (DEAD) GIFTS

I have this problem.

    As a “monetarily-challenged” undergraduate who sees no option but to lead a lifestyle tempted by fly rods, flies, fish, and travel; whose desk has seen more flies come to life than words written; and whose mind chronically comes to rest on a trout stream (if ever it can be truly captured and imposed on an academic task), I have, like so many before me, come to travel the “resourceful” road. For fuel for tying the flies that keep me in business, I have excitedly scavenged in chicken coops and turkey dust bowls, perused the trash cans of bird-cleaning sheds, spent way too much time examining the subtleties of nail polish, claimed parts of long-expired furred and feathered animals for my own, and gazed at grizzly hackles woven into my female classmates’ hair with jealousy and contempt. Though there are no official testaments to my sanity, similarly outlying actions observed within a member of another species might easily be interpreted as rabies-induced confusion.

Photo by Matt Reilly.

    Likewise, anyone who cruises the drug store’s cosmetic aisle in mud- and fish slime-stiffened garb seeking inspiration on a late-summer night, who derives addictive, blissful, supremely-fulfilling wonder through the process of engineering combinations of animal parts, fixating them on a hook, and feeding them to fish, is both someone generally too far gone by societal standards, and someone of the type I call friend.

    The consequences of my own affliction I’ve long come to terms with. However, it still hurts me to see the characters of those who care for me compromised by my addiction.

    Fellow anglers commonly come to rest their eyes on my dorm room’s thread collection, prompting the inquiry, “You sew?” After scaring them by countering that I “sew dreams of fish,” should they remain interested in my obsessive art, I lay before them the reality of it. Sparing them the empty promise of saving money, I detail fly tying as the other half of fly fishing, more fun and versatile than fishing store-bought flies, an inventive haunting of my favored streambeds in my absence. If they remain unfazed, I welcome them to a new world, and they come to terms by doing.

    Then, seeing my preoccupation with this activity, there are those friends and family members who do not tie flies, but wish to come to terms by giving. Faced with a massively diversified lexicon of materials lists, they arrive at the (altogether not untrue) conclusion that anything can be used to tie flies. This conclusion has led to their generous deliverance of clumps of human hair, synthetic stuffing from various household items, mounds of cat and dog fur, vacuum cleaner lint, plastic wrappings, packing foams, drink mix containers, and dead birds—and my subsequent reflection upon what this says about me as an individual.

    One particular afternoon, I received a call from a friend from home, as I was away at school. She had just found a dead (for quite a while) woodpecker—a northern flicker—with beautiful feathers. Did I want it for fly tying?

    I knew from similar past offerings from others that the fine breast feathers from a male flicker make wonderful wet fly hackles. I further reflected on the apparent gullibility of the species, as I had been offered more flickers than any other federally-protected bird. Nevertheless, conforming to societal norms, I respectfully declined.

    A few days later, I returned the call. Screw “societal norms,” free hackle in bulk is hard to come by and I bet a day’s worth of meal swipes at the café that a “Flicker and Yellow” would make for a damn fine fly on the South Holston. I’ll take it. I apologized for dragging her into this pursuit, and said goodbye, assuming I’d collect the goods upon returning home.

    To avoid unnecessary incrimination, I’ll avoid mentioning the means of transference. For, much to my surprise, the end of the week found me suspiciously weighing a Christmas-wrapped shirt box, markedly light as a feather.

    A wake of World Wildlife Fund wrapping paper and festively colored tissue paper is all there is to account for the creation of a handful of Flicker and Yellows waiting to be swung in “Browntown,” thanks to friends bearing (dead) gifts.□

*Originally published in The Rural Virginian, rewritten from Hatch Magazine

EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY

As morning light threatened, we abandoned the house in practiced silence, save for a shrill whistle and the rhythmic clinking of a field collar. Its owner, Tucker, a sprightly, peppery English setter, rode the truck’s back bench-seat well. Curled in a ball of muscular fur and tradition, his position was suggestive of the grit that often characterizes upland hunting and its participants. I diverted my gaze.

    The winter sun was veiled by clouds and fog, presenting the day in a melancholy haze. A half-hour drive landed us on the brushy banks of the James River, at a boat landing in the Hardware River Wildlife Management Area. The lot was empty, and with reason. Migratory woodcock had long since abandoned the tangled successional growth of the riverbottom for the swampy groves of the Old South, squirrel and deer season had withered, and February’s biting personality had fishermen frightened from the banks of the meandering river. For the season, the secrets of the almighty James seemed secure under a thick haze.

An early bird hunt.

    Tucker glided out of the back door tenderly. Dad corralled him to adjust his collar and behold his soft, wispy ears. Few words were uttered before the morning commenced with a locating beep from Tucker’s collar and our shotgun-toting footsteps crunching upon frost-bitten cut corn.

    The weather on such days is enough to draw my thoughts inward and leaden my tongue in meditation, but there was something more spiritual at play in the bottomland. We followed our four-legged guide closely, observing him peruse cover, rather than observing the cover he perused. A cottontail dashed from cover. Tucker ignored it from good training. We took little note, our reflexes jaded by thought.

    The communal element to bird hunting was as clouded as the sun, as Dad looked forward to Tucker for conversation. I understood. More than a decade’s share of memories tied the companions. From cool Minnesotan nights, to fast-paced grouse shooting in the snow-blanketed forests of the upper-Midwest and Virginia highlands, their relationship was one of mutual dependency. Second only to a common love for grouse and woodcock, Tuck’s affinity for crisp northern nights and his habit of filching laps of scotch from his Master’s unattended glass mortared a friendship only strengthened over years working for each other.

Training time, with a harnesses bobwhite quail.

    Of course, the memories I perceived pouring from my father’s pensive eyes were imparted to me only as nostalgia. My relationship with Tucker was different. He was introduced to our household just months before I. It was he who provided much of my transportation in my pre-walking years, dragging me about the wood floors of our Fluvanna County home by the stocking feet of my pajamas, and hauling my saucer-sled over fresh powder by a leash fashioned as a harness. I hunted over him—rather, pointed over him, with my training cap shotgun—as a young boy. Still, most memorable was his good-natured spirit that established him as a childhood friend and shot-gunning companion.

    We entered the fourth in a chain of linked, riparian corn fields when we made the decision to turn back. Our halt lit the flame under the hooves of a 12-point buck bedded on the field’s edge. The morning’s first audible words were spit in reflexive excitement.

    The shadow that loomed over us soon returned, our hunt half over.

    Tucker’s senses roped him from the intricacies of the field to the cover of the tangled riverbank, where, after nosing methodically, he uncovered the magnificently large shell of a river cooter. I dusted it off and found it a place in my pack.

    It was New Year’s Day the last time Tucker yielded me a prize of his own industry—a chukar taken on the wing from a game preserve in Southside Virginia. That was a different hunt—one lively and filled with comradery. He zig-zagged cover unrestrained, ears bouncing loosely in the frosted sun, feet treading deftly, on track to a bedded bird. At dusk, we collected our party and turned back. 

    Tucker plodded exhaustedly in the lead, but caught our immediate attention when he froze mid-step, convulsing briefly.

    As we approached the truck, the oppressive haze seemed to lift. Conversation emerged and colored our unloading and packing as a statement of burdensome acceptance. With the fading light in the riverbottom, yet another Virginia grouse season would be retired to the pages of sporting memories in the mountains—but we were not hunting for grouse. There is no grouse season this far east. We were hunting for a memory. All three hunters recognized that the brain tumor that was steadily revealing itself in our beloved setter with every soulful step would make this season a concluding one, and this hunt, a final chapter—an epilogue worth writing and cherishing, forever.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian

PROPOSED WASTEWATER DISCHARGE AT BREMO THREATENS JAMES

On Tuesday, December 1, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ) hosted a public hearing at Central Elementary School in Fluvanna County to permit the “dewatering” of coal ash ponds at the Bremo Bluff Power Plant on the banks of the James River, not far from Fork Union. The proposed permit would allow Dominion to discharge arsenic, hexavalent chromium, selenium, and several other metals into the river with little or no prior treatment.

    Previously Virginia’s oldest coal-fueled power plant, the Bremo Bluff operation was converted to a natural gas-powered facility in June of 2014, which brought an improvement to the Commonwealth’s overall air quality.

    Now, just over a year later, the proposed wastewater treatment practice promises to harm the water quality of our nation’s river.

    The process of “dewatering,” simply, is the process of removing liquid from solid substances in wastewater mixtures. As it stands, Dominion’s draft permit is a reissuance of a previously-existing permit that now proposes to release cooling water and treated industrial wastewater associated with the fallow coal ash ponds from the plant’s coal-burning years into the James River at Bremo Bluff.

    In a press release by the James River Association (JRA) advertising the results of the hearing, a few concerns were voiced.

    First, the draft permit is in violation of the Clean Water Act. JRA brings further attention to the fact that the permitting limits established by the VDEQ are significantly higher than those set in other states, and are inefficient in preserving the aquatic ecosystem and public health. The James River supports nearly a third of Virginia residents living in 39 counties and 19 towns and cities, who depend upon its water for drinking.

    Second, there is no mention of endangered species considerations in the draft plan. The Endangered Species Act, as it has the power to influence regulations for land- and water-use practices that even slightly impact the vitality of a struggling species, is a major player in many environmental protections cases, and will likely be a popular arguing point for commenters on this issue.

    It is worthy of note that the James River, in the most recent State of theJames report, was given a B- rating for overall ecosystem health, pooling several contributing factors. Furthermore, wastewater pollution control, specifically, was given a rating of over 100 percent, citing facility upgrades and the resulting improvements in nitrogen and phosphorus pollution reductions, which places the James well ahead of schedule for goals set as part of the Chesapeake Bay Cleanup.

    Still, in its most recent State of theBay assessment, the Chesapeake was rated a D+ for overall health, with a slow pattern of improvement.

    Though, according to these popularized reports, the James is a relatively healthy environment from a water quality perspective, as always, it is important that we think progressively. The James River scores higher than the Bay, but far from perfect. There is still work to be done, and setting beneficial, responsible precedents in environmental policy is an important first step.

    The public comment period on this draft permit will remain open until December 14, 2015. Written comments may be submitted to Beverley Carver at Beverley.carver@deq.virginia.gov. Letters may be mailed to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, company of Beverley Caver.

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian