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Aug. 31, 2023 Editor, The News-Gazette: I was appalled to learn of the desecration of Goshen Pass, and, indeed, the entire Maury River, and one presumes the James, and on into the Chesapeake Bay, too, over the month of August due to the sludgy effluent pouring into the river from the Boy Scouts’ Lake Merriweather. And this in the face of the Maury’s recent recognition as a Scenic River, a designation that could be lost due to this gross mismanagement.
Reports throughout August tell of a green slime clinging to the rocks, befouling the beaches, and eliminating visibility in the water.
The Scouts lower the lake every year to keep sediment from filling it up; however, this year they decided it would be less expensive to drain it completely. Less expensive for whom?
The Maury is a strong draw for our county, and August the height of its tourist season. How many dollars were lost to the river being unusable? How has the wildlife along the river fared? How can birds dive for fish they can’t see? How does this sludge affect the animals who drink from the river, the insects who breed on its waters, the fish trying to breath within them?
And who’s going to stop the Boy Scouts from doing this again next year? Apparently they’ve been doing this since the dam was built back in the 1960s, but never to this extent, and always after Labor Day, so it’s not been as obvious as this year’s mid-summer travesty.
This needs to stop. Or the dam structure destroyed, and the wetlands beneath restored, land that was once better treated by its Native American occupants, evidence of whom lies still beneath the sludge. SARAH CLAYTON Rockbridge County
