r/VirginiaEnvironment

Bryan Watts looked troubled as he gazed over the Ware River in Gloucester County, leaning against the long, extendable staff he uses to inspect osprey nests from below.

At the top is a baby mirror that he has attached to a paint roller handle — its convex shape ensures good visibility.

The method is simple enough: Take a small boat out to tall, human-made nesting platforms sitting in the river, use the extendable mirror to take a quick look at the nest and any eggs or chicks inside, and move along to the next one.

"What we're seeing in here is a lot of failures, and this has been going on for several years now," Watts said.

As director of the Center for Conservation Biology at William and Mary, Watts has surveyed these nests for years to track ospreys' reproductive health. He released a study in June with nine other researchers describing their findings.

The Ware River drains into Mobjack Bay, a sub-estuary of the Chesapeake Bay that sits on the end of Virginia's Middle Peninsula. Of 10 nests on this brackish stretch of river, ospreys successfully produced one chick this year. In 2023, 81 nests on Mobjack Bay and its tributaries produced three chicks.

Watts compared those numbers to the DDT era — that pesticide, banned in 1972 for agricultural use in the US, wreaked havoc on bird populations by causing them to lay eggs with dangerously thin shells. Osprey populations fell by 80% to 90%, with an average of fewer than one chick per breeding pair, Watts said.

Now, Mobjack Bay osprey are producing even fewer chicks on average.

r/VirginiaEnvironment

Dominion Energy increases monthly bills citing fuel costs

Virginia could have new fees, regulations for hunting, fishing and boating

The biggest drag on Virginia’s business ranking is Trump

New company in the NRV is building electric trucks -- They will be used for park maintenance, golf courses, college campuses and will cost between $20,000 and 40,000.

Data centers want to build their own gas turbines. Would that skirt state renewable energy laws? | As connection queues grow, data center companies propose to build out their own power, with many of them eyeing natural gas turbines

Chesterfield Board indicates it won’t approve any more data centers in the county

Hampton leaders cool to limited Army Corps flood solutions | Army Corps study identifies 45,000 structures deemed at risk of flood damage, proposes raising 4,000 of them; city leaders push back on methodology and cost

Public input sought on possible cuts to menhaden harvest in Chesapeake Bay

Virginia Beach mulls data center moratorium until it can devise regulations

NPS is quietly considering a data center deal inside a Virginia forest

Concerns that Chesapeake Bay osprey populations are struggling

Dominion proposes slight decrease in offshore wind cost on monthly bills | Utility’s new methodology for project costs would chop residential customers’ bills by 90 cents a month but doesn’t align with state regulators’ calculations.

Paper cups, pizza boxes now OK to recycle in Richmond

After severe 76% electricity price hikes due to AI data centers, Virginia requires firms to pay for all dedicated upstream electrical infrastructure — State regulators crack down, governor says move will save civilians ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’

Former SCC Chair: Virginia utility law “obviously receptive” to mergers | Mark Christie says calls for more study of NextEra's proposed purchase of Richmond-based Dominion Energy are not the point. The focus, he says, should be on Virginia's permissive utility merger law.

Full, unpaywalled text of Spanberger's opinion piece in The Washington Post: "Why I’m intervening in the Dominion-NextEra merger"

Vibrio on the rise as climate warms the Chesapeake Bay | Infections are still relatively uncommon, but the costs of infection are severe

Commentary: DEQ study throws cold water on data center development east of I-95

Fighting to save Virginia's rarest plant, the Peters Mountain Mallow