Around the riverbend

There are no leaves on the trees, but signs of spring are visible at the Rivanna River. A dozen turtles sit on a log on the riverbank, their shells bluish, almond-shaped dots from a distance. “What really has inspired us all along is just the wildness that’s accessible right from the city,” says Gabe Silver, […]

Stop and smell the roses: COVID has changed the way we’re relating to nature

  Just about everything has changed in the last month—and as our habits have shifted, so has our relationship with the local environment. “People aren’t flying, people aren’t driving,” says Jamie Brunkow, the senior advocacy manager of the James River Association. Those transportation changes have effects for our air and our water. “Typically we think […]

Water works

By Bonnie Price Lofton If rainwater doesn’t seep, sponge-like, into the soil around us, it runs away somewhere. In Charlottesville, where much of the ground is covered with impermeable asphalt, it runs into stormwater drainage systems, ditches, and streams that eventually lead into the Rivanna River. That creates two problems: first, without earth to filter […]