March 28 – April 3, 2024

Skyline Drive and the Shenandoah River are part of the mystique of Virginia, and less than a two-hour drive from the metropolitan area. Both locations also are part of the 64,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay watershed, so what happens in them can affect the nation’s largest estuary.

Some of the extensive wildfires in Page, Shenandoah, and Louisa counties last week still are smoldering. Aerial video showed the flame edges, but on-the-ground views revealed that much of the fuel for the fires was brush. Hopefully, trees were protected by their bark and may survive. The root systems will absorb spring rains rather than the stormwater running off with the dreaded sediment that clogs fishing streams and, eventually, the Bay. I could smell the fires before I saw the smoke. I was headed for the town of Luray (pop. 5000) in Page County (pop. 23,709) for the quarterly meeting of the Local Government Advisory Committee to the Chesapeake Executive Council (LGAC). The smoke had a different smell and hue than the Oregon forest fires of my youth; eastern deciduous trees and Virginia pines burn differently than Douglas fir, hemlock and cedar. Soon, white smoke began to drift into the mountain swales, and towering plumes of smoke on the horizon indicated active fire. One or two fire trucks sped toward the fires, their sirens sounding plaintively in the wide-open spaces. Outside of Virginia’s metropolitan areas, most fire and rescue services are provided by trained local volunteers with limited apparatus and equipment, so the wildfires taxed both personnel and gear. After hours on the fire line, appeals went out for donations to replace things as simple as fresh batteries for walkie-talkies.

Some local departments exhausted their entire year’s budget for fuel and equipment in just a few days. One thing not exhausted was the emergency siren that wailed several times during the night, probably signaling discovery of another wildfire.

LGAC members include representatives from Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, as well as Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Delaware, so it was a varied mix of urban, suburban, and rural expertise that came together in Luray’s historic Mimslyn Inn. Restoration of the Chesapeake Bay is the mandate of the federal Chesapeake Bay Program, but implementation requires action at the local level. That is why many Bay jurisdictions have enacted stormwater fees to provide additional funding to support infrastructure projects for drainage, and wastewater utility fees to upgrade sewer plants to the limits of technology. The effort is two-fold: correct the errors of the past that resulted in an impaired Bay, and create a new “blueprint” that will address the challenges of the next 50 years — an increasing population, shifting land use demands, a changing climate. It’s a tall order, but so were the original requirements of the Chesapeake Agreement in the early 1980s, many of which have yielded positive improvements. As the Bay Program looks to planning for “Beyond 2025,” LGAC and the related Science and Technical Advisory Committee and the Stakeholders Advisory Committee, along with a proposed Agricultural Advisory Committee, will work with federal, state, and nonprofit partners to update current goals and establish new ones for future generations. As I drove home from the meeting, the smoke still hovered, but failed to diminish the fluffy pink and white blossoms of Virginia’s orchards, appearing earlier in response to warmer late winter temperatures. Although the Chesapeake Bay may be best known for its seafood, its watershed produces an enormous array of fresh food products. In a few months, fruit from those orchards will appear in our local markets, contributing to the local economy and demonstrating again why a healthy watershed is so important to us all.