Happy Friday — we’re back with more hot, dry, and crackly bones. Water is top of mind given that Charlottesville is still under an extreme drought warning, despite a few thunderstorms this week and that Memorial Day washout.

The average person uses about 100 gallons of water a day, and if you’re wondering where it all goes, here’s a rough breakdown:

Never do math in public, but by my calculations if you skipped the morning shower, only flushed at high noon, and ate dinner from a frisbee and a camping spork, you could host that epic slip-n-slide party after all and still help conserve water.

Do one long thumb scroll for more Cville-specific updates like local events, cool houses, and pets to adopt.

🐶 Speaking of: Pond! Adopt this girlie and move to Maine. She’s a brown-eyed Great Pyrenees x husky mix (1 years old, 57 lbs) who deserves cool temps and long walks with you. On these walks, you are also carrying a chilled glass of white wine and your hair is perfect.

🐱 Plus a mystery cat named Astro …

Last week, on an instantly regrettable whim, I decided to go for a run around O-Hill. That’s short for Observatory Hill, which means it’s not a hill at all. It’s a beautiful tiny mountain with enough elevation gain for star gazing within the city limits.

The thing about O-Hill is that it will lure you in with secluded trails and dappled forest light, and then it will make you want to die. Not once but twice: first while you’re running to the top and later too, at 3am, when you wake up with the world’s worst charley horse in your calves.

“Bananas!” I shouted last weekend from a tangle of sheets while my lower body continued to seize up. “I promise to eat more bananas!”

Frannie got out of her dog bed and came over to lick the sweat off my arms and toes as I lay there, frozen, wishing the pain away in a modern and embarrassing retelling of the Laocoon myth.

“Frannie, I should have just taken you for a long dog walk on the perimeter trail,” I whispered with my face in the pillow. “I’m so sorry.”

The perimeter trail is relatively flat as it circles O-Hill on the same grade. It’s a lovely place for dog walks and mountain lauryl sightings and protecting the integrity of your calf muscles. Frannie loves it there.

The running road, however, goes up and over the mountain. It’s agonizingly steep except for two brief flat parts: the 100 feet where UVA’s aerospace research lab is set up and the 100 feet where UVA’s physics labs are set up.

Which means that if you’re walking your dog, you won’t see the decommissioned nuclear reactor building hidden among the trees. But you might on a run.

This year alone, I’ve discovered that:

UVA’s nuclear reactor was apparently built by a swimming pool company because the reactor core had to be surrounded by a nearly 30-feet-deep pool full of 70,000 gallons of water (think of the slip-n-slide parties with that tank). When the reactor was on full throttle, the whole thing turned bright blue.

Thankfully, this was all happening in the late 1950s and 60s (so none of the Manhattan Project vibes, and well before all the meltdown stuff in the 70s and 80s). Instead, this was part of the wave of colleges leaning into nuclear research in the age of the “peacetime atom,” when nuclear power was viewed as an exciting way to improve things like agriculture, medicine, and — stop me if this sounds familiar — as an alternative, cleaner fuel source instead of polluting fossil fuels like coal and oil.

In its heyday, the university reactor spanned far more than just the engineering department — it helped the chemistry and bio divisions with things like irradiation, the hospital for cancer therapy, and even held tours for school kids to watch and learn.

“People who study nuclear-related stuff — it’s almost a religion to us. I still think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread,” said Paul Benneche, the supervisor of UVA’s reactor when it was up and running, in an article published less than a decade after the building was decommissioned.

That happened in 1998, after years of waning public support and growing disillusionment with nuclear power (waste, expense, delayed timeframes chief among the complaints).

All the radioactive material was shipped away, and besides the building itself, the only other sign that nearly 40 years’ worth of nuclear engineering students hung out around here is the mountain biking trail right up the hillside: It’s called the reactor trail.

I don’t want to get much further into the radioactive weeds, but one of the reasons I wanted to bring up nuclear power in a Hot Bones edition is because I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one who keeps seeing recent headlines about how people like Bill Gates are pushing for smaller next-gen nuclear reactors to solve our growing energy prob.

As you might imagine, AI and data centers are a large part of this storyline. Meta, Google, and Amazon all have skin in the game, among others, and shifting legislation is aiming to support private investment and innovation and get things online faster.

Okay.

I’m absolutely not an energy expert (and if you’re looking for that, check out this Volts podcast episode and this Cardinal News article), but if I may say a few things into the microphone.

Statement 1: We need energy innovation to get us off planet-warming fossil fuels and onto something cheaper, cleaner, and more sustainable. Let that be a blanket statement.

Statement 2: The combination of Big Tech’s “move fast and break things” mindset + nuclear power and literal radioactive waste is not a concoction I really want to be near anytime soon, even if they’re not the ones actually pushing all the reactor buttons.

Statement 2.5: We could just build less data centers?

Statement 3: Perhaps the most important statement. We already have cheaper, cleaner, and more sustainable alternative energy sources.

Say hello to wind, solar, and geothermal. And batteries for when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t winding. Case in point: Last month, solar generated more electricity than coal for the first time ever in the U.S.

Not to be too reductive in a very complex, very divisive energy argument, but given our current available clean energy stack, obsessing about microreactors and small modular reactors feels like the notch below “billionaires in space unnecessary.”

Or put another way, why go to NYC to wait in line for a cronut when we already have amazing donuts and croissants right here in Cville? Next-gen nuclear proponents, reply to this email with your thoughts! I’m ready.

I love how this story turns out.

In a very passing-of-the-energy-source-baton moment, the UVA solar car team now uses part of the reactor building to design and build their prototypes.

The team started in the late 1990s (right around when the reactor was decommissioned) and these days they’re focused on designing vehicles that are literally powered by the sun rather than “traditional” EVs (which fuel up with a charging plug that then pulls energy from solar panels or the grid overall).

Josh Elquiero, the team’s president, was nice enough to chat with me via email this week about what it’s like to work in the old reactor.

These days, the building is officially called the Observatory Mountain Engineering Research Facility, “but we affectionately call it the Reactor,” he said. “It’s a very dated place with features you don’t see in regular buildings: the thick concrete walls block all cell reception, a former reactor pool … serves as storage, and the whole place gets incredibly creepy once it gets dark outside.”

Still, Josh noted that it’s “a reliable building that has served us well.”

“A lot of other engineering teams work out of Lacy Hall, a smaller but highly equipped space, but with our solar car being so large, having a larger space helps us immensely. We have over 100 members on the team, so it would be challenging to have our space anywhere else.”

Next year, Josh noted that the team is going to build out another solar car iteration, the Rivanna 4, with the long-term goal of competing in the Formula Sun Grand Prix and the American Solar Challenge, an annual open-road, cross-country race.

Until then, they’ll be working away in the old reactor, hidden in the woods high above campus. Dog walkers and hikers will pass within 20 feet of the nondescript building. Mountain bikers will cruise by in a blur. And occasionally, very occasionally, a foolish, weary runner may even jog up to the front door in search of flatness before the rest of the big hill. Mountain. Calf-muscle murder mountain.

Out in the country with the rough and tumble pollinators.

🎉 Festivals of the week: Merrie Mill is putting on its biannual art fest and book fair this Saturday from 11am - 5:30pm, with live music, free art stations for the kiddos, and chats with local artists and authors.

🐝 Then shuffle on down to Schuyler: For the Piedmont Discovery Center’s free pollinator festival from 12 - 8:30pm also on Saturday. You’ll get to learn about native bees, wasps, butterflies, and other lil critters with expert guides, plus enjoy live music at the end.

🎨 And don’t think we’re stopping the art train there: McGuffey’s annual Y’ART Sale is also on Saturday (1 - 4pm), where you can find original art, a hodgepodge of creative materials, and quite possibly the perfect quirky find for that blank wall at home.

🗑️ Trash? Who needs it: The Rivanna Conservation Alliance is hosting a trash pickup right below the reservoir dam on Sunday from 9 - 11am. Gloves and bags are provided.

🌄 The longest, possibly best day of the year: The summer solstice is on Sunday, June 21 and Bar Botanical (the one in Crozet with the mountain views) is hosting a 4-course, plant-based rooftop fundraiser to keep the vibes going. Tickets just went live for the June 28 evening.

🏠 Historic house of the week: This classic 1949 bungalow in Belmont is adorable and quite possibly overpriced. Comes with a sunroom, in-law suite, huge backyard, and a questionable mulch demarcation line (3 beds, 2 baths for $497k).

🏡 Cool rental of the week: Live out your log cabin fantasy but with running water and a fully updated kitchen, plus Adirondack chairs facing the Blue Ridge Mountains (1 bed, 1 bath, $2,250/month in Afton).

🚰 Name something better: than drinking straight from the garden hose as a kid. Can’t be done! That’s the peak. But you can land among the stars by becoming a 2026 Clean Water Advocate. You’ll get to participate in a free online education program designed to help people, communities, and orgs to protect Virginia's water quality.

💼 Job of the week: Facilities and Events Associate at Apex Clean Energy (no salary listed but job perks include discounts for EVs, solar panels, bikes, etc).

💾 Remote job: Industry Content Senior Associate at Greenlight America ($60k - $85k).

➕ And lastly, a few folks followed up about last week’s library photo. All UVA libraries are free for the public to visit, and I highly recommend the McGregor Room at Shannon if you’re in a leather armchair and mahogany bookshelf mood.

Have an event or rec you’d like to share? Hiring? Interested in advertising? Share any and all info here.

So this spring a medical sterilization facility right near the Richmond airport released a bunch of ethylene oxide (highly toxic, cancer-causing gas) into the air, and wouldn’t you know it, the quarter of a million people nearby were not notified.

Thankfully, this is still illegal to do, but the fine ended up being a slap on the wrist.

By using this link, you can demand accountability. Nothing hits like justice on a Friday afternoon.