Taking the First Steps Toward Creating a Walkable Watershed

 The Bellemeade neighborhood on Richmond’s southside has become the focus of a great effort called the Bellemeade Walkable Watershed. Green Infrastructure Center and Skeo Solutions, with the help from the City of Richmond, community members, and other local groups including the James River Association, are developing ideas that will create a healthy community that also helps create a cleaner James River. The goals of this effort are to connect the neighborhood to the creek and the James River; create safe pedestrian routes; infiltrate and clean rain water; develop a sense of community; and create outdoor education opportunities. 

There are lots of exciting projects in the community, including the new Oak Grove-Bellemeade Elementary School, which is already under construction and when completed will be LEED certified. A concept plan for the neighborhood park is being developed at no charge by Landscape Architects, Reuben Rainey with the University of Virginia and David Kamp with Dirtworks, NYC. JRA will be helping with the environmental projects and leading workshops to educate residents about the new River Hero Homes program and what they can do in their own backyard to help the health of their watershed. Many of the projects are in the planning stages, but there are several things that can already be done. 

On Saturday, May 19^th, JRA led a group of volunteers to start cleaning up the stream. A few of the volunteers cleaned up along the streets, while others waded in the stream and collected trash along the way. In addition to finding over 10 bags of trash, they also found a young crawfish! That’s a positive sign.

 One volunteer wanted to show us an outfall along the creek as a prime example of how trash ends up in the stream after being washed down from the streets above. During a rain storm the water picks up the oils and trash from the streets before it rushes into the inlets, where it flows through the stormdrain system and eventually is released directly to our streams.

Join us for our next project in Bellemeade on June 15^th, 9am-Noon. We will be installing ‘No Dumping’ markers onto storm drains throughout the neighborhood and cleaning up trash along the way. To register please contact Amber Ellis at volunteer@jrava.org.

For more information about the Bellemeade Walkable Watershed project visit http://www.gicinc.org/projectbellemeade.htm.