A reservoir in Rockbridge County has been at the center of a conflict between Scouting America and local conservationists over sediment pollution that has been discharged downstream. But the two sides are working together on a new management plan. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
The National Capital Area Council of Scouting America – they used to be known as the Boy Scouts – created a 444-acre reservoir called Lake Merriweather in the late '60s, when it built the Goshen Dam on the Little Calfpasture River. The lake provides swimming, fishing, boating, and campcraft opportunities to thousands of visitors across seven scout camps each year.
Less than a mile downstream from the dam, the Little Calfpasture joins the Calfpasture River to form the Maury River, home to the Goshen Pass natural area preserve and the source of drinking water for all of Lexington and part of Rockbridge County.
Last spring, WMRA reported on the frustrations that local residents had with the lake – primarily, that it was discharging large amounts of sediment downstream, polluting the Maury for both humans and aquatic life. Concerned citizens formed the Maury River Alliance.
STAN PONCE: There was a strong concern about the water quality element of it, and there has been a history, obviously, of sedimentation downstream that has occurred over the years.
Stan Ponce is a member of the alliance, who previously worked in forest hydrology and civil and environmental engineering for the Department of the Interior and other federal agencies. He teamed up with Mitch Filipowicz, who previously served on the Scouting America council's executive board, to draft a lake management plan that would ideally serve all the stakeholders' interests. The council published the draft plan at the beginning of May, and is gathering the public's feedback on their website.
PONCE: Both entities value the water resource. It's valuable to each of them. … The big problem in the past has really been the lack of communication, in my opinion.
When reached by phone, Filipowicz deferred to Scouting America council leadership, which has not made anyone available for an interview for this story.
Matthew Keck, the council's director of support services, did send us a statement which reads in part, "We continue to appreciate the opportunity to listen and learn with stakeholders through the engagement process. We believe that a lake management plan can serve as the framework to better understand the complex nature of the watershed, which includes Lake Merriweather and the upstream and downstream waterways."
The lake management plan references turbidity research conducted by James Madison University Professor Robert Brent, which found that more than half of the sediment in Lake Merriweather comes from degraded riparian pasture land upstream – cattle pastures where overgrazing and animal movement is eroding soil into the water. But when that sediment collects in the lake, it's human-controlled 'drawdowns' that discharge it in large quantities downstream. The scouts draw down, or lower, the lake each year to clean out debris.
PONCE: There's a lot of different entities upstream, not just the Scouts. But the Scouts basically have a reservoir that catches sediment that comes down. They also, when they draw down the reservoir, they expose mudflats and shoreline, and you get wave action on that, you get precipitation over those areas, sediment can be picked up. That can be transported downstream just depending on the situation.
The new lake management plan notes that "Scouting America will maintain the lake at full pool … as much of the year as possible." They'll lower the lake's water level in December, perform maintenance in January and February, then refill in March.
Ponce said those parameters are largely based on guidance from Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality from 2018. According to the DEQ document, [quote] "Reducing the number of days that the lake is drawn down each year and limiting the depth to which the lake is lowered will produce the greatest reduction in sediment loading from the dam at the lowest cost." That improvement plan notes that the scouts were involved in its creation, and without the scouts' active participation, the DEQ's water quality goals cannot be reached.
But as recently as 2022 and 2023, according to the turbidity report, the lake was still being lowered for more than six months, from mid-September through April. The new management plan states that the limited three-month drawdown was implemented this past year – and it achieved the DEQ's water quality goals.
Linda Larsen, a member of the Maury River Alliance, noticed the difference.
LINDA LARSEN: There was less pollution, and it was for a shorter period of time because it was a shorter drawdown time. … There was less green in the river, it was not as wide a path at the spot where I observe the river, and it did not last for as long. So it was noticeably improved, and we are very thankful for that.
She's also thankful that Scouting America is working with the community on the lake management plan. The drafting process included stakeholder meetings mediated by a facilitation group housed at the University of Virginia. And it recommends the formation of an advisory group that would include scouters, conservationists, DEQ representatives, and others.
LARSEN: It's really a breath of fresh air, and it just is our hope that this will help the health of the river, which will benefit everybody.
An online survey is collecting feedback on the lake management plan on the scouts' website until Saturday, May 31st.
