Havasu Canyon

mike kraynak
[Benjamin Lee Whorf] discovered that [Hopi] differs dramatically from languages of the Indo-European family such as English or French, particularly in its expression of the concept of time. English and its related languages have three major tenses – past, present, and future (“it was,” “it is,” “it will be”) – plus the fancier compound tenses such as “it will have been”. Having these tenses, Whorf argued, encourages Europeans and Americans to think of time as so many ducks in a row. Time past is made up of uniform units of time – days, weeks, months, years – and the future is similarly measured out. This division of time is essentially artificial, Whorf said, since people can only experience the present. Past and future are only abstractions, but Westerners think of them as real because their language virtually forces them to do so. This view of time has given rise to the fondness in Western culture for diaries, records, annals, histories, clocks, calendars, wages paid by the hour or day, and elaborate timetables for the use of future time. Time is continually quantified. — David S. Thomson, “Worlds Shaped by Words”

Collateral damage

sign by Max Frazee
This afternoon the RWSA Board of Directors will continue to address the issue of sanitary sewer overflows (SSO’s) occurring in their transmission system secondary to failed infrastructure (leaky pipes) that are part of the collection system.
Fixing the pipes is the expensive option, 400 million to 2 billion dollars.
Building a new sewage pumping plant is the quick fix for SSO’s and comparatively inexpensive (labor and materials cost 25-37 million dollars).
The concern of central Virginians is the collateral damage, the loss of value to our region. Pumping plant plan pricetags discussed to date do not reflect collateral damage costs, damage to the social, economic and cultural fabric at the foot of Monticello Mountain, impacts to a city park, the primary gateway to the Rivanna River, impacts to a national historic district and impacts to a neighborhood.
The overall cost of the project, to date, has not reflected the cost of locating the pumping station in “the wrong place”.
The cost of building a new 53 million gallon per day pumping plant must include the costs to mitigate its calamitous side effects, costs not reflected in the “materials and labor” estimate.

South of the Tracks

left bank of Moore's Creek

Sec. 10-71. Duty to retain or establish stream buffer.
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this article, any land adjacent to the following listed waters, shall provide buffers for the purposes of retarding runoff, preventing erosion, and filtering nonpoint source pollution from runoff:
(1) Rivanna River;
(2) Moore’s Creek;
(3) Meadow Creek.
(b) A required stream buffer shall be no less than one hundred (100) feet wide on each side of the stream, which buffer
shall be measured horizontally from the top of the stream bank.–CHO Minicode

North of the tracks we are spending millions to restore Meadow Creek. South of the tracks, on Moore’s Creek, the poor man’s creek, is there a mitigation plan, any plan? Put in the new sewer pipe, grind up the trees. That is that?

53 mgd


Tandem Friends School students test Rivanna River water with technical direction and apparatus provided by Rivanna Conservation Society executive director Robbi Savage.
The students canoed to Riverview Park from an undisclosed location on the north fork of the Rivanna.

April 6, 2011, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors will hear from Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority executive director Tom Frederick about locating a new, fifty-three million gallon per day sewage pumping facility in this park.
If you are a county resident, please communicate with your supervisors about this bad idea. Riverview Park and Darden Towe Park are our community’s only gateways to the Rivanna River. Not good locations for sewage infrastructure.
To petition the Board of Supervisors on this issue click here.
Architect’s rendering of the proposal for the park.