Virginia General Assembly members adopted a bill last Monday that would create a commission to protect the Rivanna river basin for Charlottesville and surrounding counties.
The Assembly sent the bill, which passed without any objections, to the office of Gov. Mark R. Warner, who will probably review it within the next 30 days, according to Ridge Schyler, a member of the local Nature Conservancy office.
Schyler spearheaded the effort to pass the bill and is also director of the Piedmont program, which is dedicated to protecting the five watersheds in Central Virginia.
Representatives from Greene, Albemarle and Fluvanna counties, and the City of Charlottesville will comprise the commission. If signed into law, the commission will help guide the decisions that these areas make concerning the Rivanna River watershed.
Elected officials and citizens will comprise the commission itself, and they will be supported by a staff of scientists, enabling them to make educated decisions, Schyler said. The commission is expected to meet approximately four times a year, he added.
The idea for an advisory commission is not a new one. In 1998, concerned citizens and politicians met to discuss the importance of the watershed, Schyler said.
"The community understood that they had an important asset in the river," he said.
The 1998 discussions, which took place in and around Charlottesville, lasted for over a year. Among the recommendations made was a proposal for joint management planning between localities and initiatives to environmentally protect the watershed. Members also proposed creating an accessible database of all known scientific information concerning the watershed. The Nature Conservancy adopted many of these ideas, which were shelved at the time, into the new legislation.
"We've taken them off the shelf and said, 'Let's actually get this done,'" Schyler said in reference to the present situation. "We basically did the legwork for the community for the idea that they already generated."
Harrison Rue, executive director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, reflected on the relevance of the recent droughts that have hit Charlottesville in recent years in relation to the new commission.
"There is a need for heightened focus and an interrelationship between development and water protection," Rue said.
Schyler agreed, citing the drought in 2002 as helping the bill progress.
"The drought of 2002 really brought a renewed focus on watershed planning," Schyler commented. "It was really a wakeup call."
Rue also explained what he thought the bill would accomplish from a fiscal perspective.
He said he viewed it as "a vehicle for private financial support for environmental activities involving the watershed."
Charlottesville Mayor Maurice Cox was more skeptical of the bill's effectiveness. While acknowledging that Charlottesville has something to gain from the bill, he also said he viewed the lack of funding as being a detriment to the bill's progress.
"There are still some major hurdles that sponsors are going to have to overcome," Cox said.
Schyler said he will be working to generate an endowment that will allow the Commission to carry out its duties for the short and long term.
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