MC Kiwanians learn about threats to river

At a recent Middlesex County Kiwanis Club meeting, the speaker was Brent Hunsinger, Advocacy and Coastal Programs director at Friends of the Rappahannock, a voice for river conservation and stewardship.

The organization is actively involved in The Most Endangered Rivers (MER) campaign, and the speaker explained that the Rappahannock has been designated as the number six most endangered river in the U.S. Hunsinger emphasized that this is not a water quality assessment, but rather a call to action. It is a problem of a decreasing quantity of water.

The primary threats to the river include:

• Rapidly declining groundwater levels in the Potomac Aquifer caused by enormous draining by commercial entities
• Explosive regional growth
• Data center expansion requiring water usage
• Major inter-basin transfer of water between river basins

What is needed is a coordinated cumulative water supply strategy among the five regions that comprise the Rappahannock watershed. This needs to occur at the state level, led by the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). If this does not occur, one can expect lower water levels in the river, water with higher salinity, and industries like traditional agriculture, crabbing, oyster harvesting, and fishing to come under increasing pressure.