Fairfax County officials agreed Monday to pay $341,000 to restore part of its troubled network of streams.
The newest target in the larger restoration effort is part of an unnamed 1,200-foot stretch of water that county staff says is suffering severe erosion. The stream is located south of George Washington Memorial Parkway and just west of Little Hunting Creek.
The Board of Supervisors approved a contract with Environmental Quality Resources LLC, which delivered the lowest “responsive and responsible” bid on the project that was still about $34,000 more than what engineers had anticipated, according to documents supplied by the county.
The goal of the effort, according to county staff, is to not only reverse the erosion, but to improve water quality, recreate the stream buffer and boost the natural habitat within the stream.
“Devoting any resources to restoring the health of our streams is certainly worthwhile, and I applaud them for it,” said Glenda Booth, chair of Fairfax County’s Wetlands Board and vice president of the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia.
The county is facing a larger water problem, however. Four out of every five of its streams are listed in “fair to poor” condition, Booth said.
Environmentalists have said the main culprit for the county’s sorry stream condition is decades of development that have turned Fairfax County increasingly urban. That change means an increase of impervious surfaces, such as sidewalks and parking lots, that accelerate unfiltered runoff directly into streams.
