Sudsy Foam in the James River Not Seen as a Sign of Cleanliness
Puzzling Bubbles Reflect Rising Tide of Pollution, Activists Say

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 6, 2006

RICHMOND -- Sometimes the mysterious bubbly stuff on the surface of the James River looks like dirty chunks of Styrofoam or floating dollops of meringue. Sometimes it makes little silver-dollar-sized clusters, and sometimes it forms enormous strings stretching a quarter-mile.

On the most worrisome days, say those who know the river, it forms a carpet of beery-like suds from bank to bank.

"There's a ball of it!" said Chuck Frederickson, an environmental advocate who is the James's riverkeeper. He was on the shoreline just above downtown Richmond, and a white glob was sailing by in the current. "See that -- football-size?"

For weeks, the James's strange foam has been the subject of an environmental whodunit in Richmond, as scientists and state officials have tried to figure out what it is and why it's appearing in one of Virginia's most treasured rivers.

Whatever is causing it, environmentalists think the foam is a striking symbol of water problems across Virginia, where a new state survey has found that "impaired" rivers far outnumber those known to be clean.

"It's an unnatural thing," Frederickson said. "The river's out of balance."

Of the 14,282 miles of rivers and streams surveyed, the state found that nearly two-thirds, or 8,984 miles, were "impaired," a 30 percent increase from the amount found in the 2004 report. The James was among the dirty rivers on the list. It is impaired by bacteria and PCBs, industrial chemicals that can cause ill health effects.

Similar troubles have long extended across the Chesapeake watershed. Maryland's list of impaired waters includes sections of the Potomac, Anacostia and Patuxent rivers, among others. And a report released last week by the Natural Resources Defense Council found several contamination problems at beaches on the bay.

Foam is not a terrifically unusual thing to see on a river. Thrashing rapids can whip up white froth, and chemicals from decomposing plants can form bubbles on the surface. So Ralph White, manager of a riverside park run by the City of Richmond, said he hadn't been too alarmed when he'd previously seen bubbles on the James.

Then summer came, bringing more foam than he had ever seen: white, lacy bubbles, dirty brown wads, artistic-looking swirls of foam and slime. On one day, he said, the entire river looked like the runoff from a car wash.

"The foam had covered the entire river, from bank to bank, as far as the eye can see," White said. "It was clearly nothing that would be construed as natural."

The state began an investigation in June and quickly determined that the foam was not harmful to people. Beyond that, answers about what it is and where it comes from have been hard to come by.

State biologists tested the water along 200 miles of the James and found spots with worrisomely high levels of the pollutant phosphorus, which feeds algae blooms that upset life in the river and Chesapeake Bay. One test upstream from downtown Richmond found a phosphorus level 34 times higher than recommended.

But even that was hardly a smoking gun. Phosphorus can come from sewage plants, manure-laden farm runoff, suburban lawns and numerous other sources in the James's 10,000-square-mile watershed. At first, authorities theorized that the foam might be caused by the laundry detergent used at a prison upstream -- but that seemed less likely after the detergent use stopped and the foam continued to appear.

Now, the state is waiting on more tests, trying to learn what the bubbles are made of.

Already, though, many have concluded that the problem is probably man-made. If that's true, the foam's appearance was timed for maximum political impact, since it developed during the summer when the state issued its gloomy report about the human impact on Virginia's rivers.

That survey, released last month, detailed "impairments" in the state's waters: bacteria from human and animal waste, low-oxygen areas where aquatic life struggles to breathe and harmful chemicals such as mercury or PCBs. Only 5,298 miles of Virginia rivers and streams, or 37 percent of the total studied, were found to be as clean as they should be. The state has 50,357 miles of rivers and streams.

Since each survey covers waters not tested in previous rounds, that doesn't necessarily mean that the state's waters as a whole are becoming dirtier. "It's just that we're looking for it in more places," said Bill Hayden, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Quality.

In that context, environmentalists say, they see the foam on the James -- whatever it is -- as a new product of a very old problem.

"It's just an indication that the system is stressed, that there is pollution in the system," said Mike Gerel, staff scientist in the Virginia office of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. "This is not normal."