County Officials Urge Restoration of Route One Watersheds

Mixed-use developmental projects and recently approved storm water management plans could help reverse the decay of watersheds along the Route One corridor, said a panel of Fairfax County experts at a community forum at Wednesday night. 

"Overall the county is poor. We have a lot things in store for us and a lot of restoration. Along the Route One corridor, we have a whole lot of impervious surfaces that had been built before storm water management was regulated," Danielle Wynne, a Fairfax County ecologist said.

According to Wynne, the watersheds Route One passes through, Douge Creek, Little Hunting Creek and Belle Haven, have rated poor for the last seven years and are all above the 30 percent impervious surface limit. When storm water drains into a stream instead of infiltrating the surface, the land around the stream is heavily eroded and flows beneath the flood plain.

"Roughly, if you have less than 10 percent imperviousness in the area, the stream will be ok.  From 10 to 30, they're going to be hit pretty hard, but they'll be ok. More than 30 they're dead, they're gone," Wynne said. "The streams are getting deeper, getting wider and they're not connecting to their flood plains anymore."

Wynne was excited to announce that Fairfax County has approved storm water management plans for all 30 watersheds in the county, but unfortunately the agency has a limited budget to complete the 1,700 projects from every plan. Based off of a previous 1.5 million dollar restoration, Wynne calculated that each linear foot of stream costs $200 to $500 to restore.

"We really need help to implement as many projects in the county, and one of the ways we can do that is through partnerships," Wynne said. "We like working with communities, with school systems, with the Parks Authority, with developers, with anyone and everyone who is doing a project anyway so we can tag ourselves on there or help in some way to get more projects done with the same amount of money."

Stewart Schwartz, a representative of the Coalition for Smarter Growth also presented a Blueprint for a Better Region, a coordinated and comprehensive strategy that helps put "growth in the right places." He stressed that the development of mixed-use communities could create more green space and allow storm water management to be included in the construction from day one.

"These are not separate issues. The restoration of streams, your parks, your history cannot be separated from revitalization of the commercial space along the Route One corridor," Stewart Schwartz, from the Coalition for Smarter Growth, said. ""With compact development, you see a lot more green space. Much more like the towns and villages we used to build.

"You want to have storm water management that that replicates natures natural patterns," Stewart continued. "You want as much green in the area as possible. The point is to capture the water.

Stella Koch, from the Audubon Naturalist Society, urged attendees to consider the small differences they could make on their own property. According to Koch, water retention can go up 10 to 15 percent with small adjustments and stressed that storm water is a commodity, not something to be sent away.

"There are a lot of solutions that are a lot easier than we think," Koch said. "You don't have to put in a big natural pond. You can put in rain barrels, you can put in rain pipe disconnects, you can put in rain gardens. You can massively effect the flow patterns, which gets back to dealing with it at the head waters. It's doable, nothing is not doable."

Residents and Community Association representatives spent the last half hour asking experts from the Coalition for Smarter Growth, Northern Virginia Section of APA-VA, Friends of Dyke Marsh, Lee District Association of Civic Organizations, and Audubon Naturalist Society their questions. Major issues discussed included the Cameron Run flooding, ideas for community involvement and the status of the Quander stream.