Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 19, 1993 TAG: 9305190113
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LEIGH ALLEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"The St. Marys has always been one of my favorites," said Tucker, now chairwoman of the Virginia Council of Trout Unlimited. "But there are fewer fish there now than there were then."
Anglers like Tucker who are disappointed with the number of trout in the St. Marys now should brace themselves for what's to come, biologists say: zero trout in the St. Marys before long.
"The St. Marys is unrecoverable," says Larry Mohn, a fish manager for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. "It will continue to decline until there are no fish left alive."
The problem plaguing the St. Marys, a wild trout stream high in the mountains of the St. Marys Wilderness Area of the George Washington National Forest, is acid rain. It may be Virginia's largest environmental problem.
For decades, biologists say, sulfur from coal-burning power plants in areas upwind of Virginia has been condensing in rain clouds and falling to the ground as sulfuric acid. Commonly called acid rain, the rainwater poisons the St. Marys and many streams like it in the mountains of Virginia.
A Washington, D.C., environmental group believes the situation in the St. Marys may be worse than anywhere else in the country.
The American Rivers group recently published its annual list of the 25 most threatened rivers in America. Although hundreds of trout streams on the East Coast are vulnerable to acid rain, an American Rivers spokesman said, the St. Marys made the list as the one the group believes is in most danger.
Biologists studying the river say it is particularly vulnerable to acid rain. The St. Marys does not flow across many alkaline-based rocks that help rivers naturally reduce acid levels in their water, Mohn says. As a result, the St. Marys is dying faster than other rivers in the area that have better built-in defenses.
The most recent tests of the St. Marys show pH levels in some parts of the river have dropped to around 4.8. That's 14 times more acidic than a healthy pH level of 6.0, says Rick Webb, a researcher with the University of Virginia who has been studying the river for five years. Webb says 4.8 is the lowest pH level brook trout can be expected to endure. Tests show they are usually unable to reproduce at levels of 4.7 and below, he said.
"We typically find those types of formations in small pockets throughout the mountains," Mohn says. "It's very rare to find it along the entire length of a river the size of the St. Marys."
Biologists say acid rain is a deceptive killer because it poisons rivers slowly and with no easily recognizable changes to the water's appearance. Casual visitors to a river plagued by acid rain might never know it is in trouble.
Even for people like Harry Murray, it remains difficult to believe the St. Marys' days are numbered. An outdoor writer and fly-fishing-shop owner from Edinburg, Murray says he passes over miles of good trout streams near his home to fish the St. Marys.
"It's a wonderful trout stream," he says with authority that comes from uncounted hours searching for brook trout in the river's pools and rapids. "I have a friend who went up there the other day and had great luck. It still has plenty of fish in it."
But not for long, he acknowledges.
"If what they say is true, it's going down the tubes."
Mohn says rainbow and brown trout, which are more vulnerable to high acid levels than the native brookies, began disappearing when many of the streams' aquatic insects and minnows died out in the early 1980s. But brook trout have survived longer because they are more creative foragers and can tolerate higher levels of acid than their imported cousins. It may take longer, Mohn said, but the brook trout eventually will die out also.
The relative size and popularity of the St. Marys fishery, plus the river's exceptionally rapid decline, have brought calls from anglers and environmentalists interested in saving the river. But they have little chance of helping the St. Marys anytime soon, says Webb.
Unless levels of industrial pollution in the air are drastically reduced within the next few years, Webb says, acid levels in the river will continue to rise.
The 1990 Clean Air Act, which calls for a reduction in industrial emissions by 50 percent over the next several years, will not go far enough to help the St. Marys, Webb says.
"It will take sulfur reductions in the area of 70 percent to reverse this trend," Webb says.
But Tucker's group, Trout Unlimited, has not given up hope.
Tucker says the group has asked Webb to recommend solutions to the river's problem. Some Trout Unlimited members say helping the St. Marys by adding limestone to the river's bed is one solution they hope Webb will recommend.
But Webb says adding lime would be like putting the St. Marys on an "artificial life support system." Liming is an experimental remedy to the St. Marys problem that might create side effects more detrimental to the river than the sulfur, he says.
"It's like building up a stack of cards higher and higher. If you don't address the real problem, you could just be creating more."
Forestry officials also point out that liming the St. Marys could face technical obstacles as well. Because the river is inside the St. Marys Wilderness Area, it would be against forest regulations for a gasoline-powered truck to drive limestone to the river.
That leaves little that can be done for the St. Marys other than a reduction in pollution.
"There is nothing else we can do to the river that would mitigate acid rain," Tucker says. "We will just continue to lobby for better enforcement of the Clean Air Act. Industrial pollution is the St. Marys' real problem."
And neutralizing the real problem is a tough prospect for those concerned with St. Marys' survival, Webb says.
States in the Tennessee and Ohio River valleys produce much of the pollution that falls on Virginia. But those states are not affected as seriously by acid rain because of weather patterns that blow sulfur away from their area before it has time to condense, scientists say.
But Virginia officials are sometimes hesitant to push for stricter pollution laws because fossil-fuel power plants are big business here also. And more of them are on the way. Virginia has applications for 14 more power plants waiting for state approval, officials say.
Pollution laws strict enough to reduce the flow of acid rain into the St. Marys still are years away. Even then, it would take the river 30 or 40 years to purge itself of all the acid that has accumulated in its watershed, Webb estimates.
"There is no real hope for the St. Marys other than cleaner air," Webb says. "But that's not going to happen anytime soon."
by CNB