Our role with the Shenandoah River

Above: Allan Thomson of The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Dr. John Copenhaver of Shenandoah University

Barriers are broken with the blade of my paddle as it knocks on the Shenandoah River’s door. Her home in the Shenandoah Valley looks quite welcoming and so we continue to wait for her acknowledgment.

She is emotionally unstable from her past relationships with weather, humanity, and agriculture. We hope to help her heal from those abusive relationships.

Our intention is to help her deal with the abuse she has taken from these relationships by creating a healthy friendship and solution options for all the parties involved.

Being a physiatrist in this type of situation is difficult as she loves and hates each past relationship equally. So having a team, Shenandoah Ecoventure, behind me is helpful.

Collectively, we have spent 10 days with weather, humanity, and agriculture to experience what she experienced with those relationships.

We have experienced the weather in the form of rain and we found that intimate relationship healthy when she is clinically depressed and on their sporadic visits.

However, I have discovered that too much interaction can have negative affects on Shenandoah’s health and on her other relationships.

Humanity’s and agriculture’s affair affected Shenandoah’s relationship with weather. Unfortunately humanity is somewhat oblivious to those affects.

Agriculture understands but looks out for it’s best interest for it’s secret relationship with livestock. Shenandoah finds it difficult to tolerate livestock’s habits.

Our team met with Jeff Kelble, the Shenandoah Riverkeeper, Shenandoah’s newest boyfriend. His demeanor and affection for her seemed to mend Shenadoah’s broken heart.

Kelble understood all of Shenandoah’s past relationships with humanity, in terms of corporation, and agriculture, in terms of livestock. He works to keep Shenandoah’s heartache and her pollution disease to a minimum, on a daily basis.

Our team concluded after 10 days of intense studying and investigating that this newly formed relationship with Jeff Kelble is a match made in heaven and the Shenandoah River has benefited from it since their beginning.

As we paddled on her we noticed some of her extremities were suffering because of corporate industries input, livestock wastes and usage as well as poor sewage systems along her banks.

Her image was not clear and you couldn’t see beneath the surface. White frothy foam surrounded her surface and emerald green algae clogged her arteries in those places. The algae bloom was very relevant in most of the miles we paddled and sometimes indicates a serious problem.

With the Shenandoah River, Kelble mentions that it is a sign that this river is very fertile which is a positive and negative sign.

Kelble named more additives to the sickened river and mentioned that a solution is difficult to pinpoint because she is not a bay; she moves at a faster pace.

My hope as the days conclude is that we have helped the Shenandoah River, the Shenandoah Valley, and we have helped the people who are amongst their beauty or who love to experience their beauty realize these places of bliss need our attention. Denial of these pollution problems, outcrop, and other challenges is not an active solution.

Why don’t we, for once, stop being reactionary and think about what type of long term effect we are creating for the environment? Cause and effect.