ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 24, 1996 TAG: 9606240001
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MIDDLESEX
SOURCE: Newport News Daily Press
Sunlight filtered through the leafy canopy, bathing the 10 canoeists in shimmering emerald.
Mercifully, the verdant branches that towered above also fended off some of the sun's heat as temperatures in the high 90s melted a weather record more than a century old.
The protective cover offered more than fleeting beauty and comfort to visitors, said the leader of the afternoon excursion. It has a lot to do with why Dragon Run is a unique waterway.
``Without the cover to protect it from the sun, certain species couldn't live here,'' said Jim Uzell, environmental programs coordinator for the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission.
Uzell explained that the water's oxygen content decreases as its temperature rises, affecting the kind of fish, plants and other life forms that can thrive there. Dragon Run supports a diverse ecosystem.
The Smithsonian Institution in 1974 ranked Dragon Run second in ecological significance among more than 230 areas in the Chesapeake Bay region.
Snaking through nearly 9,500 acres of swamp that stretch 30-some miles down the Middle Peninsula, Dragon Run is home to a multitude of creatures, including eagles, green-backed herons, great blue herons, otters, fox, deer, bobcats, wild turkeys, beavers, raccoons, giant snapping turtles and some 30 fish species, including pickerel, perch, catfish, sunfish and needlenose gar.
It is one of the northernmost habitats for cypress trees, although most have been lost to logging operations over recent decades. The survivors - living, primeval relics - sit solemnly at stream's edge. With their ``knees'' poking out of the water at the base of ample trunks, these cypress evince a Gothic, subtropical presence in the sheltered tableau.
A meandering brook that is also the source of the Piankatank River, Dragon Run emerges just below Miller's Tavern in King and Queen County. There it forms part of King and Queen's boundary with Essex County, and downstream serves as the boundaries between the counties of King and Queen and Middlesex and of Middlesex and Gloucester, where it suddenly fans out dramatically and becomes the Piankatank. Efforts to protect Dragon Run's wilderness character from the modern incursions of farming, timbering and development have come largely from volunteers, who have formed groups such as the Dragon Run Foundation and Friends of Dragon Run. Protection is made more difficult because the land is owned mostly by crop and timber farmers.
Dragon Run was the first Virginia waterway to be studied under the Scenic Rivers Act, adopted by the General Assembly in 1970.
About 10 years ago, Friends of Dragon Run, assisted by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, bought a 200-acre tract in the middle of the swamp and donated it for preservation to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.
Meanwhile, a regional advisory Dragon Run Steering Committee was formed by local officials, environmentalists and Dragon landowners toward developing local protective ordinances, and the Virginia Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act of 1988 created a 100-foot buffer from building around the swamp.
Uzell organized last week's two-hour canoe trip to give local officials a chance to see a part of Dragon Run firsthand.
For several, it was their first personal visit to the stream. For Michele DeWitt, a regional planner for whom Dragon Run figures prominently in her work, it put a face on a familiar name.
It wasn't quite what she expected: ``I thought we'd have to cross more fallen trees than we did, and I saw less wildlife than I expected.''
Tom Boyd of Tappahannock, a member of the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission, found the excursion ``wonderful,'' and took special note of the erosion Uzell pointed to by the single house the canoeists saw in the swamp. The house loomed next to the stream.
``That's from just the clearing that was needed to put that house there,'' Uzell said of the gouged-out stream bank.
``That's a good example why it shouldn't be there,'' said John England, Middlesex Planning Commission vice chairman.
Boyd said while he's interested in economic development for the area, he's ``just as interested in the preservation of these resources.
``If we don't, we'll lose these wonderful resources forever.''
LENGTH: Medium: 78 linesby CNB