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THE HARMFUL effects of stream channelization were explained to members of the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection at their meeting last Friday night. A film illustrating the impact downriver on the James from channelization upstream on the Tye and Rockfish Rivers was shown by Newton Ancarrow, who narrated the film and produced it at his own expense.
“We’ve gone too far in our cleanup,” he said, “We’ve imposed our sense of neatness and order on nature and it hasn’t worked.”
After the floods of Hurricane Camille, long stretches of the Rockfish, Tye and smaller tributaries to the James were channelized to remove debris and to widen and straighten the streambed so that future flood waters could pass through quickly.
Initially, this seemed to be a help to landowners along the flood plain in the areas channelized. But bulldozing of the streambed and banks creates a biological desert, Ancarrow said. Suspended sediment is released and the oxygen levels that have supported small aquatic organisms are changed. Nesting habits of larger aquatic life are disturbed. The sediment materials can’t restabilize without the woody rooted plants that the bulldozers removed.
“Perhaps the strongest effects are downstream,” Ancarrow said. “The tremendous amount of silt released by channelization of the tributaries increases the cost of purifying the water for the city of Richmond and other downstream population centers and it means that Richmond is confronted with
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