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River's effects felt here
For time untold, the Rappahannock River has remained a pristine backwater, an ever-flowing stream channeling the runoff of the Blue Ridge.
Industrialization, suburban sprawl, water degradation, these are problems that plague other counties and locales.
Rappahannock — county and river — has been spared the effects of having just too many humans on too small a land.
Virginia intends to keep it that way.
The state’s Department of Water Quality, formerly the Water Control Board, is considering designating the Rappahannock River as an exceptionally pristine waterway worthy of special protection.
In state bureaucratic lingo, this is called a “Tier III” designation.
If approved by the state, the Tier III designation would include waters of the Rappahannock from Chester Gap to Carter’s Run and from Kelly’s Ford, south of Remington, to Mott’s Run, near Fredericksburg.
Essentially it means that nobody will be permitted to dump or discharge any additional wastes into the river — or into any stream that flows into the river.
Ever.
Rappahannock will be saved from the plight of polluted . rivers and dead streams — a scene one can survey throughout urbanized America.
But it will also be denied the ability to develop.
Currently the Sperryville sewage treatment plant is the only such facility in the county. Although the plant dumps its liquid waste (politely called effluent) into the Thornton River, eventually this makes its way into the Rappahannock.
Under a Tier III designation, the plant would be forbidden from increasing the amount effluent it discharges. And, there could be no future development of new sewage treatment facilities — either in Sperryville — or anywhere jplse in the county. £ What it all boils down to, is that under Tier III, large yubdivision-type development, such as in Loudoun, Fairfax Snd Prince William counties, would be impossible. 2 Nearby Fauquier county is currently struggling with Jvhether to become more urban — like Fairfax — or whether it Should retain its rural lifestyle, whether to fight the
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