Riverkeeper's job: Helping solve problems on the James

The James River ran gray and icy, not a great place for paddling. But David Sligh was about to shove off to work.

Sligh, 48, is the new riverkeeper for the upper James. A combination investigator, scientist and river advocate, Sligh looks for problems in the James and tries to solve them.

From a boat landing here about 55 miles west of Richmond, Sligh planned to check out a report of tree-cutting upriver -- probably legal, but still a potential source of erosion. And he wanted to get reacquainted with this part of the James between Buckingham and Fluvanna counties.

"It's never a bad idea to look at a stretch you haven't seen in a while," Sligh said.

Before the chilly morning in early February was out, Sligh would get a sense of the river, all right -- and suffer a mishap that, had he not been prepared, could have killed him.

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The bearded, bespectacled Sligh carried his 14-foot kayak to the water's edge. The tree-lined river, about 150 yards wide, looked wild and pretty in a drab, wintry way.

Wearing the pants of a body-warming dry suit, Sligh waded out to turn over some rocks. He was looking for river-dwelling insects. The bugs -- some of which need clean water, some of which tolerate pollution -- can provide a quick gauge of a river's health.

But Sligh couldn't find any rocks small enough to turn over. "They're here," he said. "They're just covered up" in mud.

That itself was a worry. There are lots of pollutants with lots of imposing scientific names, but a major problem in the James is old-fashioned dirt. It flows into the river from construction projects and banks trampled by cattle, among other sources.

Dirt can smother the bugs that feed fish. That can mean fewer fish, and a less-healthy river.

The dirt is part of a larger issue called runoff pollution. It includes manure, fertilizer and other contaminants that rains wash off farms, parking lots and yards.

This runoff -- not chemicals from factory pipes -- is the James' biggest problem. Sligh hopes he can make a difference, for example, by helping farmers find money for fences to keep their cattle out of streams.

As Sligh mucked about, the air temperature was in the mid-20s, the water about 40. The work fascinated Melissa Butler and Heather Ryder of Bremo Bluff, who had dropped by for a river visit.

"I'm cold, and I'm not even in the water," said Butler, 21.

Butler was unfamiliar with the keeper but interested in the river. She swims in the James in summer, and her two young children play along it.

"I don't want them to get sick," she said.

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Sligh is an employee of the James River Association, a Richmond-based environmental group. He became a riverkeeper in June. He declined to reveal his salary but said it's between $40,000 and $50,000 a year.

His territory is huge, covering 242 miles of the upper James -- from its source west of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Mayo Bridge in Richmond -- and thousands of miles of tributaries.

Co-worker Chuck Frederickson is riverkeeper for the tidal lower James.

There are nearly 200 riverkeepers -- as well as baykeepers, soundkeepers and lakekeepers -- on six continents. The programs are sanctioned by the Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental group based in Irvington, N.Y.

There are three other waterkeepers in Virginia, one each for the Shenandoah River and the Eastern Shore and another for the Blackwater and Nottoway rivers.

One of the biggest challenges facing Sligh is a mysterious case of sick fish. Each spring since 2004, an unknown ailment has afflicted and killed smallmouth bass and sunfish, mainly in the Shenandoah, but also in the upper James.

"Starting in March I'll be out there a lot, looking for dead fish, looking for sources [of pollution], talking to everyone I can," Sligh said.

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Sligh is a native of Botetourt County, north of Roanoke, where he played in streams, became an Eagle Scout and developed a love of the outdoors.

He holds a bachelor's degree in environmental science from the University of Virginia and a law degree from Vermont Law School. He is married and lives in Charlottesville.

Sligh made news in the mid-1990s when he worked in the Roanoke office of the state Department of Environmental Quality.

He felt that higher-ups were pressuring front-line DEQ employees to issue pollution permits that weren't tough enough on industries. At first Sligh objected within the agency. In February 1995 he quit his job and spoke out publicly.

In December 1996 the General Assembly's investigative agency issued a stinging report, saying the DEQ coddled polluters and was poorly managed.

Officials in the administration of then-Gov. George Allen called those findings inaccurate and politically inspired. Sligh took them as vindication. He says conditions for DEQ workers have improved since those days.

Robert G. Burnley was a high-ranking DEQ manager when Sligh went public. In an interview, Burnley recalled that Sligh made highly technical arguments, and Burnley said he isn't certain Sligh was correct. But he said Sligh was right to speak up.

"I think the world of David," Burnley said. "I appreciate the things he did" in airing those concerns.

Between leaving the DEQ and becoming riverkeeper, Sligh went to law school and worked for conservation groups in other states.

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At the landing, Sligh mounted his kayak -- the type you sit on, not in -- and set off. He said he could be gone a few hours and made his good-byes.

Minutes later, however, he hit a hidden log and fell off the boat. Drifting downriver with the stiff current, Sligh hung on to the kayak with one arm and tried to back-stroke to shore with the other.

Forty-degree water can kill a man in street clothes within minutes. Motorists along the nearby U.S. 15 bridge saw Sligh struggling and called authorities.

After perhaps 15 minutes in the James, Sligh grabbed a fallen tree and made his way to the bank. He still had his boat but had lost his paddle. By then a small crowd of rescue-squad workers and onlookers had gathered.

Protected by his life jacket and dry-suit pants, Sligh was tired and cold but OK. "Sometimes it doesn't work out as planned," he said.

Then again, lots of people got to meet the new riverkeeper.