Learn from others – community solution

Citizens are working together in their communities to help improve and protect the James River Watershed. Recently, the Friends of Chesterfield’s Riverfront were key players in the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation’s donation of 262 acres of prime river habitat to Chesterfield County.

The donated property will provide a permanent conservation area along almost one mile of James River shoreline in Chesterfield County, and contains 175-year-old oak stands and bald eagle habitat. The Friends of Chesterfield’s Riverfront worked with Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., Chesterfield County, and DCR to make this important conservation gift to the health and quality of the James River.

The active community organization, the James River Association has been at the forefront of habitat restoration, monitoring, and watershed management on the James River. After 10 years of fund-raising and public awareness efforts to restore the migratory habitat of striped bass, shad, and herring in the James River, the group can be justly proud of the fact that in 1999, the spring spawning run marked the first time in nearly 200 years that shad and river herring were able to reach over 11,000 acres of historic spawning grounds. More than 300 miles of the James and its tributaries were opened due to the construction of fish passages and dam breaches — the result of a monumental cooperative effort between state and local agencies and the James River Association. Over 19 million shad fry and fingerlings have since been restocked in the James River by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, and many of those fish will return as adults and swim through the fish passages to spawn upstream — with an estimated commercial and recreational value of $5-7 million per year. This is a model program of a public-private partnership to restore resources critical to the James River and the Chesapeake Bay.

The James River Association also helped the James City County Board of Supervisors develop its Powhatan Creek Watershed Management Plan with the technical support of the Center for Watershed Protection. In a remarkable act of foresight and planning for the future of this pristine watershed, the James City County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the plan with its recommendations for conservation easements, the purchase of development rights, stormwater retrofits, and stakeholder education. A second watershed management plan is currently being developed for the Yarmouth Creek watershed, also in James City County. Both watershed management plans will serve as inspiring models for other tributaries in the James River watershed.

For more information on these community issues and solutions, contact:

DCR James River Watershed Office
3800 Stillman Parkway, Suite 102
Richmond, VA 23233

Phone (804) 527-4484
Fax: (804) 527-4483