Style Weekly published a cover story about the campaign to save the Pamunkey River. Read it here.
Coda
December 30, 2006
In May of 2005, the Virginia Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Hanover County by declining to revoke the permit for the wastewater discharge issued by the State Water Control Board in 1999. Subsequently, the Virginia Supreme Court elected not to hear the case on appeal. The good fight was over.
Nonetheless, Frances and Henry remain grateful to the many supporters who offered encouragement over the course of the multi-year Save Our River campaign. Recently they received an unprompted request from local student Austin Short for permission to film a video on their property for a school project about the Pamunkey River. His interest in the outcome of the Save Our River campaign and his concern for the river itself fuel the hope that his generation will be more successful in conserving this important resource.
Governor Appoints Broaddus to Scenic Rivers Advisory Board
August 27, 2003
Governor Warner has appointed SaveOurRiver.org's Henry Broaddus to Virginia’s Scenic Rivers Advisory Board. The new 15-member Board assumes the responsibilities of 20 discontinued boards. Members will serve as formal liaisons between agencies and the public, ensuring that agencies understand and respond to public concerns, and that the activities of agencies are communicated to the public. The Board also will provide advice and counsel to the executive branch.
Virginia Supreme Court Affirms Legal "Standing" of Family
April 18, 2003
In a decision released April 17, the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed an Appeals Court decision that grants standing to Henry Broaddus and Frances Broaddus-Crutchfield. This decision allows the mother and son to proceed with their challenge to the State Water Control Board (SWCB) permit, issued to Hanover County in 1999 for its proposed wastewater treatment plant and sewage discharge. For more than four years now, the family and other supporters have contended that the permit violates state law, because it allows Hanover to discharge treated sewage into the Pamunkey River, which already violates water quality standards.
The Pamunkey was declared impaired for low oxygen by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1999, just two weeks after the State Water Control Board granted Hanover a permit for the discharge. Furthermore, In 2001 the United States Geological Survey stated that pollutants from wastewater discharges into the Pamunkey River had increased by 457%. Subsequently, regulations allowed reduction of the flow to the Pamunkey from Lake Anna by up to 50% in times of drought. By July, 2002, 19 miles of the Pamunkey were said to be "tainted by fecal bacteria from unknown sources," according to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
County officials have already wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars over a four year period in their efforts to evade challenges to the SWCB permit and to hide the impacts the project will have on water quality. That effort has failed.
"The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." --MLK, Jr.
