WhalerBum t1_j6nnwph wrote on January 31, 2023 at 4:52 PM

Reply to comment by BikeInWhite in What infrastructure projects or development would you like to see in the area? by Lilratdog

I’m curious how you think that would transform the river south of the city.

BikeInWhite t1_j6nw0wq wrote on January 31, 2023 at 5:41 PM

The way the CSO (combined sewer overflow) system works now means that anytime it rains hard enough, raw sewage gets dumped into the James River. All of that shit being dumped into the river makes the bottom of the lower James covered in silt and fucks with the water quality for fish and plant life. When I first moved to the city I had no clue how the CSO system worked and took my paddle board out over by Shiplock Park. I was paddling along and a used tampon went floating past me and when I finally got out of the water I had to scrub down my board because it reeked.

If raw sewage stopped being dumped into the river recreation down in that area would boom. The fishing would be way better, boating would be better, and people would actually be willing to swim in the water down there. Imagine shiplock park, with its easy access to the river having clear and clean water on a sunny day in the summertime. There would be all kinds of people down there having a blast.

WhalerBum t1_j6o30iw wrote on January 31, 2023 at 6:24 PM

That’s not what’s keeping people from swimming down there. By the end of the summer in august there probably hasnt been a combined sewer event in over a month. The silt is not from the sewer. The tampon you saw probably wasn’t from the sewer either.

BikeInWhite t1_j6p0tzx wrote on January 31, 2023 at 9:52 PM

I'm an open water swimmer who will jump into the upper James in a heartbeat and have done individual swims that have gone from Watkins Landing down to Bosher's Dam and other's where I've gone from Hugenot Flatwater down to the Z Dam and back. Yet I won't touch the lower James and none of the crew of open water swimmers I know and train with will either and that avoidance is solely due to the CSO. It's bad enough that we have to monitor ecoli levels in the upper James due to runoff from farms, but at least those drop off a day or two after a rain event. The lower James the ecoli levels just fester for days and days. But apparently you know more about swimming in the James than I do so good on you for that one.

I also never said all of the silt in the lower James is from the CSO, but the silt that is dropped there via the natural flow of the river is not all just harmless dirt and debris. I helped out during the Ignite SwimRun series when they held a race here in RVA for a few years. The race had an exit point from the James at Shiplock Park and if you don't think there feces down in that mud then you haven't been knee deep in it before.