Shenandoah National Park Meadow Run Watershed Restoration Project

Shenandoah National Park; Schaberl, Jim

Restore Meadow Run Watershed to Mitigate Effects of Acid Rain The project plans to restore the Meadow Run watershed. Meadow Run is a stream located at the southern portion of Shenandoah National Park. Decades of acid rain from regional air pollution has affected soil and water quality in this watershed resulting in negative impacts to aquatic species and overall forest health. Meadow Run is listed as pH - impaired (acid-impaired) under Section303d of the Clean Water Act. While air pollution has decreased in the last two decades, scientific research has demonstrated that many sensitive watersheds like Meadow Run do not have the capacity to restore themselves naturally. Park staff and Virginia Department of Environmental Quality staff monitor pH in the stream every other month to provide the data necessary for the state’s total maximum daily load process for pollutants, which will require a water quality restoration plan for Meadow Run. The Meadow Run watershed is located east of Crimora in Augusta County, Virginia. Meadow Run is a tributary to the South River, which itself is a tributary of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. The headwaters and most of the watershed of Meadow Run are located within the park. The project area consists of a substantial portion of the upper Meadow Run watershed and covers an area of approximately 2,150 acres. It is entirely within park boundaries and extends from the sharp ridges to the west and north of Meadow Run, to the Wildcat Trail and Skyline Drive to the south and east of Meadow Run. The coordinates of the approximate center of the project area are 38.170°N (latitude) and -78.783°W (longitude). The National Park Service (NPS) prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of a proposal to restore the Meadow Run watershed. The National Park Service analyzed three alternatives in detail in the environmental assessment. Based on this analysis, the National Park Service selected Alternative B: Split-dose Liming as the alternative for implementation because it best meets the purpose of, and need for, action without causing significant impacts on park resources. Alternative B will resolve the degraded existing conditions that would continue under Alternative A: No Action and provide spatially more consistent benefits throughout the Meadow Run project area than Alternative C: Uniform-dose liming. Alternative B will also be more closely tailored to site specific soil conditions, which in turn will have more site-specific benefits on other resources such as water quality, wildlife, and vegetation. The project is expected to improve the water quality in Meadow Run, allowing the Commonwealth of Virginia to remove the stream from the Section 303(d) list of the Clean Water Act. The targeted split-dose approach was developed based on conditions in the project area determined in multiple studies. Project Timeline: Project Kick-off: October 3, 2018 Scoping and planning, Spring of 2019 Civic Engagement, June 5 to July 28, 2019 Public Scoping, October 30 to November 15, 2020 EA finalized, January of 2021 EA Public Comment, January 29, 2021 to February 28, 2021 Finding of no significant Impact (FONSI) signed April 28, 2021 Implementation Plan, TBD Alternative B: Split-dose Liming Application 1, TBD

Shenandoah National Park Meadow Run Watershed Restoration Project

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