A board overseeing Fairfax County’s wetlands has ordered an Alexandria-area man to tear out a newly built bulkhead that jutted into a protected area of Little Hunting Creek.
The costly mandate demonstrated the county’s unwillingness to allow encroachment into its wetlands, in this case an 155-foot-long barrier that ran along a stretch of the Potomac tributary in southern Fairfax. The seven-member board on Thursday night ordered Jason Matteo, who had the bulkhead built in spring of 2006 without a permit, to restore the area by June1. And they rejected his request for a retroactive permit.
“Our job is to enforce the rules,” wetlands board chairman Glenda Booth told The Examiner on Friday. “And granting a permit after the fact for a violation makes the rules virtually meaningless.”
A structure that pushed only 10 feet ahead of the shoreline swallowed up 1,550 square feet of wetlands, according to data provided by Fairfax County staff who, after an analysis of the project, recommended Matteo be turned down.
Matteo, contacted on Friday, apologized.
“I do want to make it right, and I’m making it right,” he said.
Less than half of a percent of Fairfax County’s 395 square miles consists of wetlands, which conservationists tout as both a natural pollution filtration system and a buffer against storms. The areas are considered even more important in a highly developed county like Fairfax, where impervious surfaces that speed unfiltered runoff into waterways have grown tremendously in recent years.
