Cleaning the Chesapeake Bay watershed

Prince William County is preparing to play its part in the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The problem is, officials don’t know exactly how to prepare due to a lack of guidance from the federal and state governments, Prince William Watershed Management branch chief Marc Aveni said.

In a report to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors in December, Aveni said he has been given dates to comply with these regulations. However, some of those dates have come and gone with little or no direction from state or federal officials.

“Guidance from the state would be nice,” Aveni said.

“The state hasn’t been real forthcoming, other than do whatever the EPA [Environ­mental Protection Agency]

said.” Cleaning the bay means that the six states in its watershed (Virginia, Mary­land, Delaware, Pennsyl­vania, West Virginia and New York) and the District of Columbia must put into place measures to meet the total maximum daily load or TMDL for pollution and still meet water quality standards. The feds have established 2025 as the year when states must be 100 percent compliant. By 2017, jurisdictions must be 60 percent compliant.

According to Aveni, that means everybody has to pull more weight without the full knowledge of how it will all be funded.

“This will require devel­opers to do more, farmers to do more, everybody has to do more,” he said.

“Where the money comes from to do more is a con­cern and is not clear [yet].”

The county is still factor­ing how much of the cost of stormwater management will fall on the backs of its residents or businesses, Aveni said. Right now, single-family homeown­ers pay $26.36 a year in fees through their monthly mortgage bill, while residents of townhouses, condominiums and apart­ments pay $19.78 a year. Businesses pay $12.80 per 1,000 square feet of impervious area.

According to the Virginia Senate Finance Committee report released last November, single family home owners could pay any­where from $240 to $300 a year to comply with stormwater management improve­ments, while neighborhood shopping centers could pay up to $19,100 a year.

The same report estimated capital costs of between $651 and $845 million for Fairfax County, which shares the Potomac River — a Chesapeake tributary — with Prince William.

The state has placed a Feb. 1 deadline on how the county will tackle this issue, which also includes reducing impervious sub­stances (i.e. parking lots) and deciding who will foot the bill.

There is also a potential financial impact to the county should it not comply. Penal­ties could be several thousands of dollars per day, per violation, Aveni said.

Several homebuilders active in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed have been hit with penalties in the last few years. The Ryland Group Inc. was fined $625,000 to resolve alleged Clean Water Act violations at its construction sites, including those in the watershed.

“The county is looking what it can reasonably do with its resources towards [meeting] this goal,” Aveni said. “…We are doing everything we possibly can, and at the same time, not bankrupting our citizens.”

Getting credit

Prince William County’s Public Works Department has identified projects for the nine watersheds within its borders. Insuf­ficient funding has precluded work from starting. Stormwater management fees and developers’ proffer funds would primarily pay for these projects.

Aveni hopes the county will receive credit from the federal government for some of its previous projects, as well as ones being worked on now.

One of its current projects is restoring Cow Branch Stream, which meanders from U.S. 1 west to Montgomery Avenue off Opitz Boulevard. The first phase, which in­cludes the restoration of a badly damaged bridge near the heavily wooded Mellott property, is nearly complete, according to county engineer Tom Dombrowski.

The bridge was inundated by tree limbs and debris from Tropical Storm Lee last September.

When completed, the $500,000 state and locally funded project will do more than just shore up badly eroded stream banks and mitigate flood impacts. It will also protect a nearby sewer line that runs to Potomac Mills mall.

The difference before the project began and now is a stark one. Instead of steep banks and trees nearly falling into the creek bed, there is now a well-defined body of water. Along the north side of the creek are saplings of various species, just planted this fall, to help restore the area’s habitat.

“We spent a lot of time on stream restora­tion,” Aveni said. “It’s popular with citizens and it’s good for the environment.”

One of the county’s watersheds — Mar­umsco Creek — made headlines after the massive flooding that destroyed much of the Holly Acres mobile home park in north­ern Woodbridge. 

In its Capital Improvement Plan, the county has allocated $80,000 in fees for the next six years to pay for these improve­ments, which include 26 stormwater management issues identified in a 2009 watershed study.

However, Dombrowski said any major project at Marumsco would be difficult and expensive to start, due to the number of property owners involved.

Aveni also said there are no plans to start work there any time soon, due to the fact that the county has a pending appeal involving the status of the mobile homes on the Holly Acres site.

So far, the county has built one storm­water management facility in the Brooke Farm subdivision just west of Interstate 95, with a second one yet to be built due to regulatory restraints, according to county documents.

Staff writer Kipp Hanley can be reached at 703-530-3904.