Friends’ Annual Fish Fry Fundraiser Saturday Evening October 8, 2011 6-9pm Join us for Dinner, Music, a Live Auction of Adirondack & Antique Metal

Chairs Painted by Local Artists &MORE!

Friends of the North Fork 2011 Annual Meeting A Wonderful Afternoon by the River

Friends of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River

JULY 2011! ! VOLUME 22, NUMBER 2Our mission is to protect and enhance the purity, beauty and natural flow of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River

ShrineMont Community to Hook Up to Shenandoah County’s Stony Creek Sanitary District

in Order to Adequately Treat Sewage

Great news for water quality in Lake Laura and

Stony Creek! Friends of the North Fork applauds Shrine Mont's significant decision and subsequent agreement with Shenandoah County to hook up their sewage system to the Stony Creek Sanitary District. The Shenandoah County Board of Supervisors has approved a plan that the existing sewage system that currently serves Shrine Mont will be effectively taken “off line” and will be replaced by

a pump station and main that connects with the Stony Creek Sanitary District waste treatment plant. Friends, led by member and volunteer water monitor H.B. Lantz, won a 3-year $25,000 grant to assess water quality in Lake Laura and StonyCreek. A year and one half of baseline data showed high levels of bacteria in a tributary to Lake Laura, which receives effluent from Shrine Mont's sewage treatment facility. Friends alerted Shrine Mont, the

Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, Bryce Resort, the VA Dept. of Environmental Quality, the VA Dept. of Game and Inland Fisheries, and Shenandoah County Board of Supervisors of our monitoring plans and has shared data with these entities. Friends is greatly encouraged by this recent development that will bring improvement for water quality in the Basye area and downstream in Stony Creek and the North Fork itself.

Friends moved our May Annual meeting to the river this year and it was a grand success. Boy Scout Troop #88 prepared and served a delightful lunch - YUMMY Cobbler! Steve Reeser with the Dept. of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) presented their fish of the North Fork program, DGIF Biologist Fred Frenzel brought a snake for everyone to enjoy, Thad Hockman presented a fly-fishing demonstration, and HB Lantz and

Ron Falyar talked about macroinvertebrates (critters that live on the river bottom). Lots of old and new "friends" joined us in Strasburg down by the river, everyone learned a little more about the North Fork and everyone had a lot of fun. We also awarded Roger Bolland, Friends lead surface water monitor, with our Volunteer of the Year Award for 2011. Our new stoneroller mascot congratulates Roger on his award! (at right)

Save the DATE!

Roger Bolland accepting the Volunteer of the Year Award

North Fork Exploration 2011 for Teachers & Students

New Watershed StewardsHit the Ground Running

Friends hosted a second summer professional development workshop for Shenandoah County teachers in June. It was another fabulous success and all the participants left with new knowledge of the North Fork and passionate about teaching their students about the North Fork and how to be water stewards. We would like to thank the many, many people that helped make this effort fun and, most importantly, useful to the teachers: Alan Hawkins with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Steve Reeser and Paul Bugas with the Dept. of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF), Fred Frenzel with DGIF, Stephanie Bushong with the US Forest Service, Nancy Carr of the VA Rural Water Association, Patty Rea, representing the VA Master Naturalist organization, and Seth Coffman with Trout Unlimited. Board member

Barbara Halvorson played a huge roll in this ef- fort as well. This year Friends was also able to develop funding for a 4-day-long water oriented summer day camp for Shenandoah County middle school students. Gayle Shaffer, Sherri Fainter and Suzanne Clarke teamed up to bring an incredible array of water protection related activities for the students to enjoy and develop a water stewardship ethic. These included everything from a fish shocking demonstration to creating a play about protecting the health of the North Fork. Both the teachers in the NFE and the students participated in a canoe trip led by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation; several field trips were taken, which included the French Bros. Dairy Farm in Woodstock, the Shenandoah County Landfill, and the Woodstock Waste Water Treatment Plant.

Thank you to Mr. French, to Mr. Dellinger, and Mr. Richmond for hosting our participants.

These two projects were funded by the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund, which is funded by the purchase of the Chesapeake Bay VA license plate (the one with the crab!).

Friends’ Stoneroller Mascot Makes its Debut BUT He Needs a Name

Calling all kids and you adults too ... send us a great name and win a prize from Friends of the North Fork!

Email Leslie: leslie.watson @fnfsr.org

Please Help Us Name our Stoneroller Mascot

Please Join Us or Renew Your Membership

with Friends of the North Fork!!

George Washington National Forest (GWNF) and hydrofracking

What YOU can DO to Protect the Forest and Our Drinking Water

Supplies:Workshop

NewsApril Compost Barrel Workshop

June Rain Barrel Workshop

Great Job Everyone!Friends worked with Natural Art Garden Center to host another rain barrel workshop in June of 2011. This was yet another successful work- shop, with more than 15 participants. Friends would like to thank Lynne and Scott at Natural Art Garden Center and also Philip Griple and Richard Walker at the Strasburg Water Treat- ment facility. They donated used plastic barrels to the rain barrel effort. We are are planning to host more workshops in 2012. Stay tuned for more info!!!!

Hydrofracturing (fracking of subsurface strata to release natural gas) continues to present water quality concerns to surrounding states and the headwaters of the North Fork and drinking water sources currently pro- tected by the GWNF. Hydrofracking is a method of drilling for natural gas that allows penetration miles into the earth and horizontal drilling within particular geologic layers that contain natural gas. The economic potentials could be large but the environmental and infrastructure impacts of this type of drilling are of great concern. First, a permit for an exploratory gas well in the Bergton area remains "on the table" before the Rocking- ham County Board of Supervisors. Friends is working with Shenandoah Valley Network, Eastern Mennonite University and others to develop a monitoring program in order to obtain at least a year's worth of baseline surface, ground water and benthic macroinvertebrate data in the Bergton/Criders area. This data will be useful in

determining any changes in water quality if the drilling permit is approved and

fracking commences at this site. Second, the US Forest Service has issued a draft management plan for the GWNF that would ban horizontal drilling in the Forest. This will limit the impact of any gas development in the GWNF.

What you can do:A public comment period for the draft management plan is open until Sept. 1, 2011.

Please submit your written comments to: comments-southern-georgewashington-jefferson@fs.fed.us

by this deadline. We have provided suggested comments below but personal written comments are most effective:

Ban on Horizontal Drilling (Hydrofracking) for Natural GasSupport the prohibition against this type of drill- ing anywhere on the forest, which will help to protect drinking water resources. Ask for 1) a more thorough study of the impacts of vertical gas drilling, which would still be al- lowed on nearly all of the forest and

Remembering Susan Mitchell

The Board and staff of Friends of the North Fork

would like to thank all who made donations in honor of

Susan Mitchell, our director's mother. Susan passed away in

June after a 15 month struggle with brain cancer.

She was an avid supporter of and volunteer for Friends of

the North and she dearly loved the River and the

Shenandoah Valley. Remembering Friends in her last wishes was a wonderful

way for Susan to celebrate her life and her love of her home.

She was dearly loved by many.

North Fork News - contd...d (2) additional restrictions on vertical gas drilling, includ- ing a ban on drilling in local drinking water supply areas, priority watersheds, dsand sensitive natural, scenic and recreation areas.Public Drinking Water Protection

Support the identification of drinking watersupply areas and the expansion of protective buffers on streams and reservoirs, which will almost double in width up to 100 feet.Ask for 1) all local drinking water supply areas to be identified as priority watersheds and 2)more defined management “standards” to protect priority watersheds, particularly limits on road construction, which degrades water quality.(thanks to our friends at Shenandoah Valley Network for their work on this issue.)Out-of-State Sludge (a.k.a. sewage sludge) is Spread in Shenandoah County

Recyc Systems has spread the first truckloads of out-of-state sourced biosolids, a.k.a. sludge, in Shenandoah County. Sludge from the Blue Plains Waste Treatment Facility in Washington D.C. was spread on Wilson Eastep's farmland south of Mt. Jackson, on July 12, 2011. This was a disappointing day, as Friends and many other groups and individuals have fought long and hard to avoid the importation of sludge from out of state into the Shenandoah Valley. Many reasons exist for our concern over this practice but most importantly, the specific sites (Wilson Eastep's farm and farmland owned by the Mt. Airy Trust in Meems Bottom) are environmen- tally sensitive sites made up of highly porous karst and the flood plain. While this is a set back, we continue to be involved in the issue, working with partners to monitor the spreading and to comment on recent draft regulations from the State pertaining to use of sludge in VA.

Board MembersRon Falyar, President

Kim Uhl, Vice PresidentApril Moore, SecretaryGary Proctor, Treasurer

Mary Gessner, Barbara Halvorson, John Holmes, Margaret Lorenz, Gayle Shaffer   !

 ! !   StaffLeslie Mitchell-Watson,Executive Director leslie.watson@fnfsr.org

Cindy Frenzel, Education CoordinatorCindy.frenzel@fnfsr.org

Calendar of EventsAugust 26 - Sept. 4 - Visit Friends in

the Forestry Cabin with Smokey the Bear at the Shenandoah County Fair

Sept. 10 - Visit Friends at the Broadway Fall Festival

Sept. 16-18 - Edinburg Ole‘ Time Festival

October 8 - Friends’ Fish Fry Fundraiser from 6-9pm at the the Woodstock Moose Lodge Enjoy great food, music and fabulous live and silent auctions

Board members took Sam Stokes, board member for the MARPAT Foundation, a major Friendsʼ funder,

on an afternoon float in July. Mr. Stokes enjoyed his time on the River and learning about all the work Friends does

to protect the North Fork with MARPATʼs help!