Aug. 16, 2023 Editor, The News-Gazette: At the height of a deeply hot summer came August, capped by the heat dome that curtained the South. It drew both Rockbridge residents and people from afar to the waters of the Maury River to frolic in its cool and shade by its shores. Their cars lined the road through Goshen Pass, and the calls of children rang up and down the mountains.
The first weekend of the month, as children of all ages reveled in the last weeks of summer before school began, the normally clear blue-green water of the Maury turned cloudy and green. What was happening? Certainly not any rain that would bring on such turbidity.
No, indeed. Thank the man who manages the 382-acre Lake Merriweather for the Boy Scouts. Now that the scouts had decamped, someone decided that summer was over. The month of August was designated for draining the sludge, detritus and sediment of the ill-managed lake past its earthen dam.
Down came the dirt. Up came the water level, filled with the slush and muck of Merriweather. The usually pristine Maury welcomed those enjoying the last legs of summer with cloud and murk.
Why should one organization get to decide when summer ends on the Maury River? Why must it be August — and not September or October or even November — when it’s time for the beautiful Maury to have to absorb the sins of the Boy Scout lake?
I, with other state-certified water monitors, routinely monitor the health of the Little Calfpasture River below the dam. It is, for all intents and purposes, practically a dead river. What draining that lake does to the quality of the Little Calfpasture, and then the Maury, on through to the James, and ultimately to the Chesapeake Bay, is measurable and detestable.
That the Boy Scout organization is allowed to make the decision about when to ruin the water quality of the Maury is also detestable.
Give August back to the summer, you managers of the lake. Give us back our beautiful river and keep your sludge to yourself. ANN OLSON Rockbridge Baths