Presentation on water quality set

Published 10:23 pm Friday, April 8, 2016

A state health official who specializes in shellfish sanitation is the guest speaker at the Nansemond River Preservation Alliance’s River Talk this month.

Keith Skiles, director of the Virginia Department of Health’s shellfish sanitation division, will speak from 7 to 8 p.m. April 19 at the CE&H Ruritan Community Hall, 8881 Eclipse Drive.

Local waterman Robbie Johnson, co-owner of Johnson & Sons Seafood, will also make comments.

Email newsletter signup

Their presentations will revolve around the topic, “Watermen, Virginia Department of Health and the Community Working Together to Preserve and Restore Suffolk’s Waterways for Shellfish Harvesting.”

The River Talk event is free and open to the public, said NRPA Executive Director Elizabeth Taraski. It will open with a social from 6:30 to 7 p.m.

Skiles said he plans to explain and field questions about the role of the state’s shellfish sanitation and water quality programs.

He will also discuss his agency’s history of monitoring water quality in the Nansemond River. The agency’s decisions to close parts of the Nansemond — as well as other rivers — to oystering are determined from the testing results of 30 water samples taken over a period of two years.

According to a NRPA newsletter, the state health department has periodically closed portions of the Nansemond River for shellfish harvesting due to the high levels of bacteria since 1933. Because of the repeated high bacteria levels, the state health department has had to expand the closure areas over the past 80 years along the Nansemond River and most recently had to close all of Bennett’s and Knott’s creeks to shellfish harvesting.

Last September, the condemned area along the Nansemond River grew by another 84 acres, according to the newsletter.

Anyone wanting more information on River Talk should contact Taraski at taraski.nrpa@gmail.com or 708-6114.