Today is World Water Day

by Judith Warrington, JRA Communications Coordinator

Photo by Gabe Silver

In 2001, the World Health Organization and the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre established March 22 as World Water Day, a day to raise awareness of the link between clean water and health. Approximately 3.3 million people die from water-related health problems each year. Here in the U.S. we tend to take safe drinking water for granted. We’re fortunate in that regard.


While today we worry about the price of gasoline and the future of fossil fuels, the world’s future is really all about water. Water means life itself and the demand for water, especially clean water, by the world’s 83 million people will only continue to grow. Unlike energy sources, there is no substitute for water. As our moist precious resource, the world’s water supply demands protection and conservation.

We in Central Virginia are fortunate to have such an abundant and relatively clean water resource as the James River. Communities up and down its length get their drinking water from the James, rely on it for food, employment and recreation. It’s relatively easy to take such things for granted. But we shouldn’t …not on World Water day or any other day.

As spring showers feed the James and its many tributaries, we all need to be more aware of the heath of our local waters. If you think about it (and JRA hopes you do), the James River really starts in our backyards. We can help maintain a healthier river in the future by controlling runoff from new development, agricultural land and residential yards. For example, this spring, if you install a rain barrel at your home, you can capture and recycle enough water to meet approximately 65 percent of the water needs of your moderately landscaped yard. By making this one effort to control the amount of runoff from your property – by treating water as the precious resource it is – you’ll be helping to protect the James and its tributaries for at least 3 million of the world’s 83 million people. Starting today, make every drop count.

The James River Steward’s Almanac

The James and Fido

By Gabe Silver, JRA Education and Outreach Manager

Be a Friend of the River…scoop that pet poop.

While it’s easy to assume that our pet’s waste is “perfectly natural,” there’snothing natural about the concentration of large carnivores (like dogs and cats) in our suburban and urban neighborhoods. The truth is they produce a whole lot of poop that wouldn’t be there in a natural setting. Pet waste can contain bacteria, protozoa and roundworms that infect humans and cause serious disease. Left where dropped, pet waste can wash into our rivers where we obtain drinking water and where we enjoy swimming and fishing. Whether we flush it down the toilet, put it in the trash, or compost it at home (see precautions below), we’re doing much better by the river and our neighbors than by not picking it up at all.

Learn More:

Water Quality and Pet Waste Information

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Be a Guardian of the River…and compost it!

Picking up after our pets, while on a walk or just around the backyard, is a great start towards reducing our harmful effects on the river. However, flushing the pet waste down the toilet or throwing it in the trash means that more energy will go into its ultimate disposal, either being treated as sewage or being hauled to a landfill. The very best thing we can do is to let it decompose into soil-enriching nutrients in our own backyards with a pet waste composter or digester system. It’s important not to mix dog and cat waste with ordinary compost that may go onto a vegetable garden. Instead, we must choose whether to build a carefully-monitored composter (where you can ensure that the pile reaches 140 F to kill pathogens) or build a pet waste digester. The digester method is more feasible for most of us without much time or know-how to devote to large-scale composting.

You can buy pre-made products or build your own digester. It’s essentially a mini-septic tank that allows bacteria to break down the waste into harmless nutrients that then leach into the soil. A plastic tank buried most of the way in the ground with holes drilled into it and some septic starter are pretty much all you need.

Learn More:


Video of Home Made Pet Waste Digester

Example of a Digester You Can Buy

Detailed Description of Composting System

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Wildlife of the James - Spring Peepers

Spring Peepers

Pseudacris crucifer

By Gabe Silver, JRA Environmental Educator

Who is happy about all the rain we’ve been having? Our amphibian friends, of course. Step outside on a rainy March day and you can hear the spring peeper frogs singing. Widely recognized as one of the first signs of spring, the spring peepers’ insistent call brings a sense of hope for warmer, longer days to come. The tiny frog (adults are ¾ ”- 1 ½ ” long) hibernates under logs and loose bark before becoming active as one of the first of its kind to breed in the spring.

Tan or brown in color, the spring peeper bears a dark cross that forms an X across its back, the characteristic leading to its Latin species name crucifer. While you’ve probably heard many of these amphibians, you may not have seen them. They are known to be difficult to locate, ceasing their song when approached. After breeding in wetlands or temporary ponds (called vernal pools), adults will spend the season as nocturnal carnivores, hunting beetles, ants, flies and spiders. The 900 or so eggs laid by each female will hatch into tadpoles and transform into frogs within 5-7 weeks.

The spring peeper is one of the more common frogs in the James watershed and the eastern half of the United States. However, in local areas populations have declined due to the loss of wetland habitat to other land uses. As a whole, amphibians are considered a “canary in the coal mine” for environmental health because they easily absorb toxins in the air and water through their skin. Globally, amphibians are taking the hit of pollution and climate change hard, and biodiversity in this important class of the animal kingdom is in steep decline.

You can get involved monitoring the abundance and diversity of amphibians in a citizen-science project called the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program. You learn to distinguish frog calls and then monitor a site through the season. Over the years, patterns emerge in local areas that help scientists understand what is happening to our “peeping friends. “

Watch and Listen to a Spring Peeper “Peep”

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Top 5 Ways to Celebrate the Arrival of Spring on the James

by Gabe Silver, JRA Education and Outreach Manager

A season of change blows in with the windy month of March. As the water and air temperature rise and the days get longer, animals stir with the ancient desire to migrate or find mates. It’s a great time to be a river-lover. Here are five ways to notice and celebrate spring on the James River this year:

1. Mark the arrival of the first osprey back on the James. They are expected to arrive here in mid-March.

2. Monitor the water temperature and go shad fishing when it reaches 50-550 F. You can also check out the Shad Cam at Bosher’s Dam just upriver of Richmond.

3. Pick a place in a nearby natural area you can walk to and visit it each week for the next two months. Keep a journal of the changes you see each week.

4. Follow the young-rearing efforts of a pair of bald eagles in Norfolk on this amazing web cam.

5. Get involved with the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program and help track the health of these important critters, like frogs, by learning to identify their calls and listening for them at night.

Photos courtesy of John Bragg.