Would You Swim in the James?

Rich: Welcome to RVA’s Got Issues, a podcast about politics and public affairs in and around Richmond, Virginia. I’m your host, Rich Marr. On this episode, RVA’s Got Issues with the James River. The James is an essential part of Richmond and the region. With James River Week happening this September, we’ll talk with a river watchdog about just how much we have to celebrate in the River City But how some big and gross challenges remain. Then, RVA’s got questions about starting a business. Why does it seem to take so long to get a business off the ground in the city of Richmond? Finally, for our community spotlight, we’ll talk with Lucas, Fritz, the co-owner of the Bury Music Group. We’ll find out what’s happening with the music scene in Richmond and also find out what’s a bury. All that coming up on RVAs got issues.

 

Rich: On this episode, RVA’s got issues with the James River. The James runs right through the heart of the city of Richmond, and the river’s watershed includes all of our local counties. Lately, the James in Richmond has been a little nasty. Lots of sewage overflows that the city is working to fix. But overall, the river is a lot cleaner than it used to be. Here to tell us about just how far we’ve come, And how far we have to go is Bill Street. He’s Chief Executive Officer of the James River Association, a non profit group that describes itself as the guardian of the river. Welcome, Bill.

Bill: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Rich: Bill, Richmond is the river city, the James River is an important local resource, and it’s a cultural and historical symbol of who we are.

Rich: Can you start by talking about some of the ways that all of us in RVA are connected to the river?

Bill: You know, the way I love to highlight that connection is pointing out that 60 percent of our bodies are made of water. And if you’re drinking water from a tap or just using water in this region, it’s coming from the James River. So we are literally all connected and all have a vested interest in how the James is doing.

Rich: And, it’s for a multitude of uses, right? You’re talking about drinking water, but there’s lots of different ways that we engage with the

Bill: can Richmond is located at the head of the tide and the foot of the falls. And so it has been a key meeting area and trading area going back, uh, eons, for, from the earliest civilizations with the Native American, but today provide such, a great, recreational opportunity and just quality of life. We’ve got tide water that allows navigation we’ve got the, class three and four rapids coming through the falls. No other major city in the country has those kind of amenities, so Richmond is really blessed with having so many different opportunities and activities around the James.

Rich: Yeah, so every two years, your organization assesses the health of the river, and you publish a report, The State of the James. So, how are we doing? What’s our report card telling

Bill: So our latest report card gives the river’s health, and we look at 18 different indicators of river health to come up with our grade and our score. We’re grade of a B, a lot clearer water. a lot more fish, uh, more oyster reefs and muscles, which really demonstrates the progress we’ve made since the 1970s, Hello I am talking about a thing for a class that is about podcasting. Yay!

[ MUSIC CUE – Something like “Up the Down Staircase” or “Sky’s the Limit” MINUS the dance vibes. I like how sky the limit starts, but then the build becomes too much.]

Man 1: acted.

Gov Mills Godwin: I have authorized the state health commission to close the James River from the fall line in Richmond to the Chesapeake Bay for the taking of fin fish.

Bill: we’re coming up on the 50th anniversary of, when the governor of Virginia had to shut down the entire tidal James River, 120 miles of river to any kind of fishing, recreational or commercial, and to now go from those failing grades to a grade of a B, Is a tremendous testament to the progress that we’ve made,

[ MUSIC CUE STARTS TO FADE, SLOWLY, AFTER RICH SAYS “B?”]

Rich: but how do you get to that B? So you said there’s these, indicators. Like, what are some examples of those indicators that you measure?

[ MUSIC FULLY OUT HERE]

Bill: one of the most noticeable ones that we get a lot of comments on are bald eagles.

[ PLAY EAGLE SQUAKS FOR 3-4 SEC, FADE UNDER BILL’S VO AFTER]

Yeah.

Bill: In 1976, our nation’s bicentennial, our nation’s symbol was completely absent from nesting on the James River. And now, uh, researchers estimate that we may have the densest breeding population of bald eagles anywhere in their range. Uh, and so the, the comeback of the bald eagles is emblematic of, the improvements in, in water quality, the improvements in habitat., But there’s a lot of different stories within that one score. Of course, another equally iconic species that really has, tells a different tale is the American shad. American shad used to be the most. Valuable and most plentiful fish in the whole Chesapeake Bay. because it was so instrumental in the economy and the culture, uh, in our early history, And unfortunately in the James, there’ve been, just a series of challenges to their reproduction and, sustainability that, uh, the population has dropped to the point where they scored a zero on our state of the James report.

Rich: And so now we’re looking at how can we. ensure, better survival of the fish that are left.

Bill: and so there are, uh, water intakes from industrial facilities. There are blue catfish that have been introduced, uh, consume a lot of, uh, juvenile fish and, and other kinds of fish. there’s a lack of habitat for the American Shad and then ultimately there are also, still dams that block passage to their historic, spawning grounds. American Shad used to move up the James and the Millions all the way up into the Jackson River in the western part of the state. and so trying to restore some of that historic spawning, ultimately is where we need to go as well.

Rich: let’s roll it back a little bit. You mentioned a little about this, but, but back in the 70s, the governor literally shut down the river saying like, just don’t get the fish out of here because it’s not safe to eat.

Gov Mills Godwin: until we can be reasonably certain that no health hazard exists, the rivers and the streams that I’ve outlined will continue to remain closed.

Rich: why were things so bad? What had happened to let it get so polluted?

Bill: just not understanding the full impact of what was going on. And just gradually as, more and more people came around the James and more industry, developed along the James, we were putting things into the river that were really damaging and we just didn’t understand the full impact that it would have.

Man 1: It all started when a Virginia health official received word that a blood sample drawn from a worker at a small chemical plant contained large quantities of a pesticide called Kepone, a highly toxic chemical that

Man 1: has closed down the James River for fishing and left central Virginia with an eerie feeling of uncertainty.

Man 4: Well, we found that the compound, uh, produced very severe nervous system effects.

Man 4: And, uh, if this was high enough, they, uh, ultimately, uh,

Man 1: died.

Bill: the governor shut down the river in 1975.

Bill: Janes River Association was founded in 1976. It was founded by a group of concerned citizens who saw a lot of change happening, around them and in the Janes River and realized that unless we sort of band together and provide a voice for the river, They’ll just have to accept whatever change downstream, over, The last 20 years, Virginia overall has now invested over 4 billion in clean water programs. And what really gives me hope that we can make additional progress going forward is that over half of that has come in the last four years. And so a lot of those, funds for wastewater treatment plant upgrades to help farmers implement conservation practices to help urban localities address stormwater runoff from, urban, asphalt and impervious surfaces. Those projects are still yet to be put on the ground and once they do, we’re hoping we see a significant improvement.

Rich: We’re talking with the James River Association’s Bill Street. We’ll hear more about cleanup efforts on the James and the troubling uptick in sewage overflow from this summer when we come back on RVA’s Got Issues.

BREAK

Rich: This is RVA’s Got Issues. We’re back with Bill Street of the James River Association. Talking about the current and future state of the James. So Bill, the summer of 2024 was a tough one for the James, right? Listeners probably heard a lot about significant problems with sewage, storm water runoff into the James. you know, the kind of numbers that, we were seeing in the news, like I think it was January, 2023. It was like 5 million gallons of, of sewage and January 2024 was like 1. 3 billion gallons. Like it just seemed like the charts were going way too high up, up this year. So, so it maybe there’s overall progress, but this seems pretty alarming to have that, that big an amount coming to the river this year.

Bill: so the take home message there is that, these things do happen and they are happening particularly when we get, extended periods of significant rainfall, and so people need to be aware of the conditions of the river if they’re, they want to go out and use it. And so the James River Association has a website called James River Watch. And every week during the summer, we sample, up and down the James River about 30 different places where people like to swim. and we analyze them for how much bacteria is and whether it meets the state’s standard for being safe to swim or not. Uh, the good news is that over 10 years that we’ve been taking these, uh, samples in the city of Richmond, 82 percent of the time, it’s safe to swim.

Rich: You just need to know when that 18 percent of the time is and, and make sure that you take, uh, appropriate precautions.So as much as you folks are fans of the river, you try to get that information out there, right? You’re not going to tell people that the river is safe when it’s not safe

Bill: people to enjoy it and be safe and, and have a great time afterwards as well.

Rich: And so

Rich: what is stormwater runoff? What are we talking about? And why does Richmond have this problem?

Bill: So stormwater runoff is what happens anywhere where it’s developed and we have streets and driveways and roofs that don’t allow the water to percolate back into the soil as it would naturally. And so, The water rushes off and it carries a lot of pollutants along with it, and some of what it carries is bacteria. Now, the city of Richmond, being a historic city, was developed well before sort of advanced sewage treatment systems. and so, like Paris, we saw in the Olympics this year, uh, has a system that combines stormwater and stormwater. And so from households and, businesses. when you combine those two systems, if you get too much rain, it overwhelms the system and they have to spill, the excess capacity into the river untreated. that causes untreated sewage to be in the James River and compose a health risk. And so this summer we had both the, the intense rain events that caused overflows to happen and that creates. bacteria pollution into the end of the river. But we also had a sewage leak in a sewage pipe. And so that is just, where regular sewage that otherwise would make it to the wastewater treatment plant was actually leaking into the river and causing a health concern that way as well.

Rich: So we’ve got, uh, aging infrastructure, right? A broken pipe here and there. We’ve got a system that’s set up to funnel rain with bacteria and combine it with sewage overflow and that gets pushed into the river too. So is this year, this, this particularly bad year, an outlier or is it part of a, like a, a trend, right? With climate change, we might get more of these rains.

Bill: is actually not an anomaly this year. It’s just got a lot more attention, uh, which is, is not a bad thing to increase concern and, and hopefully. Help drive towards solutions. the, the city has been working for decades to, correct the combined sewer system, so we don’t have as many overflows Uh, so we’ve made a lot of progress, but still it occurs on a regular basis.

Rich: Let’s talk about the plans the city has to try to fix this because there’s some, like, cool sci fi stuff involved Like diversion pools, exposing like the runoff to radiation and things like that. Can you tell us a little bit more about this? This sci fi irradiation plan, right? How does that work? Like how are we just going to like shoot ray beams at the, at the river Like what, what exactly are we talking

Bill: talking about? So ultraviolet light actually kills bacteria. Uh, that can be really harmful to, uh, to humans. And so by exposing. waste water and, uh, the storm water to UV lights, in a very sort of concentrated manner to make sure that it’s penetrating through the water. We can kill a lot of the, pathogens and bacteria that pose a threat to human health. And so now we’ve got a sewer system that will have this really high tech, treatment at the same time. Some of the pipes that supply it are still made of wood is pretty remarkable

Rich: And so there is this kind of, I don’t wanna say looming deadline, right? But there’s this legal mandate. to clean up the river by 2035. Is that right?

Bill: So, The city, has estimated that it will cost about 660 million. Um, that needs to be put in place by the end of 20, 2035. Um, so the city currently has about 150 million that have been appropriated from the state. And so we are very hopeful and there’s been good support in the general assembly and the administration. And so we hope that over the next five years we can get the funding that ensures that Richmond can really move forward as quickly as possible. so let, let’s celebrate the, the progress that we’ve made and, and the fact that people can enjoy the James so much. but we really want to finish the job and, and get to be a great, a fully healthy James River that everyone can enjoy.

Rich: Which celebrates James River week in September. Thanks so much Bill.

Bill: Thank you.

 

Rich: On each episode of RVA’s Got Issues, we’ll answer a question from listeners like you. Something you want or need to know about your government or community. And on this episode, RVA’s Got Questions about starting a business. Our producer, Amber Coles is back to help us. Hi, Amber. Hey, Rich. Amber, you have a question from our listener?

Amber: I do. I have a bit of a question slash concern from Christina Gruelich. She writes about a, the lengthy, redundant, and painful processes for opening a business in Richmond. Um, she goes on to say, I’ve known several small business owners who almost went belly up before even opening their doors, the cost for both opening and operating is high, but also the glacial pace of opening. that the city of Richmond moves to help these businesses open. There’s no urgency or even decent anticipated follow up for things like inspection. So she says all this to say, why is it so hard in the city of Richmond to start a business?

Rich: Yeah, it sounds like she’s frustrated quite a bit, which is understandable. Amber, have you ever started a business?

Amber: I know several friends of mine who have started a business. I have a, my own kind of small business. I know the process of like naming the business, but not necessarily like if you’re starting a brick and mortar business, how that works.

Rich: You haven’t turned yourself into a store yet.

Amber: I have not.

Rich: Yeah. So it’s not easy. I mean, forget about just coming up with the good idea of what you want to sell and hiring people, the inventory. You also have to deal with your local government. You actually need three things from the city, from three different offices. You need a certificate of occupancy from the permit office. That’s so the city can say it’s safe for you to actually be in the building. Like the ceiling’s not going to cave in. You need a certificate of zoning compliance from the zoning office so that you don’t open up, I don’t know, like a hardware store in a residential neighborhood that has to be in the right zone for business. And if not, then you’re going to apply for a special permit. That takes a long time. And the third thing you need is a business license from the tax office. Okay. So three different things from three different offices.

Amber: So I feel like a lot of these are what Christina has concerns about, but which one of these do we think that she’s kind of like has the highest concern for?

Rich: Yeah, I really think it’s the permits. That is the, there’s been a longstanding, really bad reputation for the city and their permitting office and how long it takes to get those certificates of occupancy and send out people for inspections. Now, the good news is that the city actually. Has kind of fixed this problem. So even though Christine is right about the stories she’s got from the past, the city argues that it’s not that way anymore. They’ve added online forms for a lot of the permits. They can allow third party inspections. So you don’t have to wait for a city inspector to come out. And in fact, in late 2022, the city announced that they’d basically cleared their permit backlog. They used to have 1200 waiting on any given day. And now it’s down to like a hundred, which sounds like a lot, but it’s kind of a manageable amount for them. So it really does only take a few days now for a permit, uh, really good news for business owners. So problem solved? Yeah, we wish, right? I mean, permitting is much less of a problem than it used to be. But, you know, there’s three different documents from three different offices. It still can take some time to get through those steps. And that third step, for example, the business license. You can’t do that online. You’ve got to print it out. Some lawyers recommend printing it out on white paper. If you don’t, then he might get rejected.

Rich: You have to mail it in at the right time. So it does seem like some of these processes still could be improved a little bit. The city still has some work to do. Still. I hope that Christina and I hope that business owners can feel a little better knowing at least some of these processes are going a little bit better in the city. Just a little, just a little. Now, what if our listeners want to feel better about their frustrating journey with local government?

Amber: Well, listeners can go to our website, rvasgotissues. bpm. org and click on ask a question.

Rich: Yep. Send us your questions. Thanks, Amber.

Amber: Thanks, Rich.

 

Rich: Richmond has always had a strong music scene. It’s famous for its punk and metal among other genres, but now there’s a diverse and growing wave of new musicians coming out of Richmond. We’re shining our community spotlight on Lucas Fritz. He’s the co owner and talent buyer for Broadberry Entertainment Group in Richmond. Welcome Lucas. Hello. Thanks for having me. So let’s talk about your venue, the Broadberry, the club on Broad Street, which cross from the science museum, roughly. First of all, what’s a Broadberry?

Lucas: A Broadberry is nothing a Broadberry is on the corner of Broad and Mulberry or generally near the corner of Broad and Mulberry.

Rich: So it’s not that there are Broadberry trees up and down Broad Street. It’s that you just named it after the corner. Yeah. I didn’t

Lucas: quite get in, uh, far enough into science to graft a couple different fruit trees together to create the Broadberry. Okay. Maybe one day. And how do you describe this place to people? It’s a general admission rock club. Um, we’re open, we say two to six nights a week. All year long, post all genres of music. And you got started at a club like that, right? The camel. Sure. Yeah, I started booking shows at the camel while I was at VCU. I actually majored in jazz performance at VCU trumpet player. I had this goal and an idea that the student performers and student ensembles were kind of getting stuck in this concert hall world where it’s a very formal performance. So my goal was like, well, let’s get people out, out of the concert halls, out of the practice rooms and go play in a bar, have it be loud and people talking over you while you play.

Rich: And so how did you become now like a larger company?

Lucas: Broadberry opened in 2014. I was booking shows at the Broadberry and the Campbell. So two rooms, there was a band that I really wanted to book called Holy Ghost Tent Revival. The only date they had available, I was already booked in the Campbell and the Broadberry. So, because I don’t like saying no, I’m a problem solver. I like to say professional solution finder. And so that was kind of the first step outside of the walls of the brick and mortar venue.

Rich: So can you explain that? I can’t say no. Like, why do you have to get that band enrichment?

Lucas: Great question. I mean, I guess ultimately I don’t, but there needs to be someone that’s kind of fighting for all these musicians, you know, like, For me, it’s like, well, I want to fight so that, you know, Holy Ghost Tent Revival has an opportunity to perform in Richmond, develop their fan base, and have that be a part of their career and their artist trajectory. Then you kind of expand that over every artist that we work with. It’s like, well, it’s my job to work with them and for them and on their behalf to give them the best platform to present their music.

Rich: So what do you look for in a band, right? And I know you are just looking to. Get people into venues and share their music, but you must have some taste. What makes a band you think that’s going to be successful that you might want to book?

Lucas: You know, there’s a lot of factors. I think it was Duke Ellington maybe once said good music is good music. It doesn’t matter what it is. And so like something unique, something different, you know, is it odd time signatures? Is it interesting instrumentation? Oh, this band has a sitar in it. That’s kind of weird. Let’s listen to that. That’s cool. Or, you know, interesting harmonies or interesting song forms. But all that aside, if you go back to the old three chords in the truth or four chords in the truth kind of country music, it’s like. Are the lyrics, do they speak to me? Do they speak to people in general? So, I mean, there’s a lot of things that make music good. It’s all very subjective. So to say, like, I just book music I like would not be true, but I try to book music that I like, and I try to also think, well, what do other people want to go here? And what do they want to see live? And. Um, kind of take all those things into account.

Rich: And so how does this work for a band from Richmond? What are you trying to see for a band from Richmond to help them grow?

Lucas: So bands in Richmond are different because when you’re a local band, there’s kind of like two trains of thought. One is you want to get as many eyeballs or. Ear balls, uh, on your music as possible. Uh, and then at the other point, you need to kind of balance the supply and demand. You can’t play too much because then people, Oh, I miss you this time. I’ll just see you in a week and a half. In two weeks, you can’t play too little where people kind of forget about who you are. So it’s finding this balance of performing enough, growing your local fan base, but then also starting to get out of Richmond, go to Charlottesville, go to DC, go to Virginia beach, get down to Raleigh. You know, they’re all a. Two hour ish drive away. You can go start building a following regionally and that just kind of helps locally.

Rich: So is it, is there an example of a band or an artist you’ve worked with, um, that you’ve seen this kind of growth happen with?

Lucas: So there’s a ton of bands that have kind of developed in Richmond, um, and gone elsewhere. I mean, one, uh, Very successful example is Lucy Dacus. You know, she was performing at the camel opening for other regional artists. Uh, and then as kind of, you know, we said run the gamut of all the Richmond venues, did the, did the camel, did the broadberry, did the national play Brown’s Island and, you know, You know, now she’s playing these gigantic, um, venues kind of all over the country and all over the world. You know, we played a small part in helping giving her a platform here in town.

Rich: Yeah, I mean, I think that some people, particularly if they know Richmond from, let’s say, like the 90s or earlier, will think of it as Dwarfstown, or they’ll think of it as like a, a kind of metal punk scene. But there, there really is a lot of stuff going on, uh, a lot of different genres, right? For sure.

Lucas: You know, you think about what you’re saying, the late nineties are, it’s gray street, you have the twisters, nine to nine, it’s punk, it’s hardcore, it’s metal, but things have grown. I mean, there’s a great bluegrass scene. There’s great jam bands. There’s a really burgeoning hip hop community. It’s a little bit of everything.

Rich: Do you think Richmond gets overlooked as a music town?

Lucas: Yes and no. Richmond doesn’t have the large format space. We don’t have the pro sports team. We don’t have a football stadium, a basketball stadium. You know, the Coliseum was hosting concerts until it closed. So is it getting overlooked by the indie band, like younger, smaller developing artists? No, I don’t think so. But that takes a special person who’s going down, finding these new developing artists, going to see shows in the 500 cap clubs, thousand cap clubs. Are we missing the Taylor Swift’s of the world? For sure. I don’t know that we’ll ever get that size of artist until we can get the venue that’ll support 15, 20, 30, 50, 000.

Rich: When you see bigger bands come through even to play some of the smaller venues, do you get the sense that they think Richmond is a good music town?

Lucas: I think yes. I mean, it’s definitely grown, uh, in the last 20, 30 years. I think the number of venues, the number of opportunities, um, you think the Richmond folk festival, how long that’s been around all the various things that happen within the city that kind of create it as a music town, the recording studios, the record labels, the venues, the kind of group of artists that live here, it is becoming a town. And then through the network of musicians and artists, it is kind of building up as people do want to come here.

Rich: What’s one Richmond band that people aren’t listening to who they should listen to?

Lucas: I’ll say the Mitras. You know, I’ve been working with them for a number of years. Great guys. They are putting in the hard work. They have a really cool three piece rock and roll in your face. High energy sound. I think everybody should check them out.

Rich: Lucas Fritz is co owner and talent buyer for the Broadbury entertainment group. Thanks, Lucas. Thank you.

 

Rich: That’s our show. Thanks to our guests, Bill Street and Lucas Fritz. RVA’s got issues, but we need you to tell us what those issues are. Submit a question, or tell us about something exciting going on in your community. At our website, rvasgotissues. vpm. org. For example, most of the monuments are gone, so what do we do with Monument Avenue? If you’ve got an idea, or know someone who does, drop us a line. RVA’s Got Issues is produced by Max Wasserman and Amber Coles and edited by Steve Lack. Our theme music was composed by Alexander Hitchens. Meg Lindholm is our executive producer. Steve Humble is BPM’s chief content officer. I’m your host, Rich Marr. Thanks for listening.