We have a little bad news!
If you read last week’s update, you might’ve known that we were slated to plant our grasses on Monday, at Chickahominy Riverfront Park in Williamsburg. This past weekend’s rain, however, had other plans for us.
Unfortunately, the seriousness of flood warnings – even if it seemed pretty chill at the time – caused our planting date to be cancelled. Friday morning, the river height was at about five and a half feet. By Sunday, it had reached about 14 feet. That’s more than twice the average water level, and reached “flood stage” by being over the 12-foot limit.
Even though the water level was at about nine feet on Monday, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation notified us that it’s still too high for us to safely plant our grasses – especially since the program is popular with families and their youngins. We really can’t have little Jimmy floating down the James. Especially since even the fully grown adults have to prepare to get chest deep in the cold, slightly discolored James River water.
The fact that the Editor can’t actually buy me road trip snacks now is a tragedy on par with the global climate change we’re working to undo the effects of.
But we’ve rescheduled the planting for Port Royal on the Rappahannock on May 18th where hopefully everything will go according to plan. The grasses are at full growth and I’m sure dying to get back into a peaceful river and out of this loud and climate unstable stress dungeon we call the office.
It’s not actually that bad. I’m just dramatic. I’ll miss this dungeon dearly when my time is up here.
Check back in a couple of weeks to see me potentially taken downstream on the James, and see the devoted CBF folks and volunteers keep everything fun and moving smoothly.
