<bt>This is the second article in an occasional series on storm water and development in Fairfax County.
<bt>Development and growth are spreading quickly across Fairfax County, with contractors and engineers trying to have offices and homes available for the influx of jobs and people migrating to the area.
When ground is cleared to lay the foundation for a building, whether it is a single-family home or a seven-story office, earth is exposed to the elements, and one good rainstorm can create miles of problems.
"Growth is coming and it's going to continue," said Sully District Supervisor Michael Frey at a workshop Saturday morning.
The focus of the workshop was sediment control, discussing what measures work sites should be taking to retain the amount of mud and dirt on-site before a building is fully constructed.
"The challenge is how we can have growth without it coming at the cost of the environment," Frey said.
Fairfax County has developed a 20-year development plan with environmental concerns in mind, he said, but, "it requires vigilance on everyone's part" to make it work.
One possibility for retaining the amount of green space in a community is to create green walkways, said Katherine Mull, a representative from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission.
"A green infrastructure would provide an interconnected path of waterways, greenways, woodlands and wetlands," creating a preserved area in the midst of development, she said.
Consisting of several hub or core areas connected by trails and pathways, the green infrastructure could be "used as a large-scale form of conservation, grounded in science, and providing a foundation for public investment in a community," Mull said.
Between 1992 and 1997, more than 343,000 acres of land in Virginia was lost to development, she said. "We will experience more development in the next several years than there's been in the past 400 years," she said.
THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE facing the county is having enough inspectors to keep up with the increase in growth and the resulting exposed land, said Ned Foster, founder of the Friends of Little Rocky Run, a citizen's organization in Centreville.
"Erosion is a natural process, sped up by the loss of plants and topsoil covering the ground," said Steve Kayser, a program administrator and engineering specialist from the Loudoun County Department of Building and Development.
"We are here to minimize erosion and protect our state and local water from the effects of development," he said. "It's not going to go away, so we need to be prepared."
Loudoun County has more land disturbed by construction every year than any other area in the Potomac Watershed, he said, making the threat of sediment being swept away by rain and clogging local streams a major concern.
"Everything we're doing — the construction, the land disturbance — it all contributes to erosion," he said. "When we see sediment-laden water near construction sites, we become very concerned."
The United States government tried to impose sediment control processes with the 1972 Clean Water Act, which mandated that states maintain waterways and try to return them to near-pristine conditions. "The government made suggestions that were voluntary to follow, but if states chose not to, they could be fined," he said. "Virginia established certain quality goals by 1973, and the Soil and Water Conservation Commission had expanded to 171 chapters throughout Virginia by 1974," he said.
There are currently 868 ongoing construction sites in Loudoun County, Kayser said, an increase of more than 100 from the beginning of this year.
"We inspect 50 plans per month because we need to know where they are and how big they're going to be," he said. The majority of the work sites are between 10 and 25 acres, mostly being developed into commercial properties or subdivisions.
Luckily, Loudoun County has doubled the number of construction site inspectors in the past three years, giving him the workers he needs to be as effective as possible. In order to get to the more exposed sites faster and more often, Kayser said the county has adopted an alternative inspection program, which ranks work sites by size and amount of exposed ground to determine which sites need more frequent attention.
"High priority sites must be inspected every two weeks, which include all sites over 10 acres," he said. Sites that are deemed to be of medium priority are inspected at least once every four weeks, and low priority sites, mostly single-family home projects, are inspected every eight weeks, he said.
"This allows us to spend more time on high-priority projects and it also saves us about $750,000 each year," he said. "Every quarter, we give our reports to the state for evaluation and ranking."
Additionally, the county has developed ways of monitoring the amount of rainfall on each work site in order to track any possible problems it may be creating, Kayser said. "If a site gets a lot of rain on one day, my inspectors better be out on the site the day after to problem-shoot," he said.
THERE ARE 19 MINIMUM standards each site must meet in order to be considered "in compliance" with inspection codes, but if not, there are five warnings given before a work site is shut down.
"If a contractor is given a noncompliance citation, it may result in fines or incarceration," he said.
Residents can help inspectors if they see a problem in their neighborhood or backyard stream, he said.
"You can report any problems to the county if you see a critical noncompliance situation, a public safety hazard, any illegal dumping, excessively muddy streams or excessive water collecting near storm sewers," Kayser said. "We want to try to keep as many acres green and beautiful as possible."
A life-long environmentalist, Pete Schumann has always been on the look out for litter and ways to keep his environment green and healthy.
"There are so many little things we can do together to make a big difference," he said. "As we get more people and development, it becomes a bigger issue."
Any project larger than 2,500 square feet requires a water conservation plan in Fairfax County, he said. "If you're putting in a garden that's 100 feet by 25 feet, you'll need to get one in order to be cognizant of your neighbors and anything else downstream of you."
Most of the work in the county is considered "in-fill development," Schumann said, meaning the work is taking place in an area that's already been somewhat developed. "There are massive outlets of development, and the building community has more concerns now than when this area was all forest," he said.
Large, open construction sites need to have a temporary ground cover in place while the work is being completed, he said. Mulch and temporary grass seeding helps to lock the earth in place and reduces the amount of loose soil at risk of washing away during heavy rains. Site managers are also encouraged to keep the ground damp if dust becomes a problem and are required to have a place for work trucks to wash their wheels before leaving, to keep the mud on the work site and off local roads.
Surrounding the work site, measures to retain as much soil as possible are required, he said.
"There are several kinds of silt fences, which are pieces of fabric designed to trap sediment but allow water to flow through," Schumann said. "A super silt fence has a chain link fence behind it so bulldozers can't knock it over, and they work really well if they're installed right."
Before a work site can be released from its bond, the it has to be inspected to make sure all the work was completed and environmental protection measures have been put into place.
In an effort to applaud the contractors that go "above and beyond the required protection measures," the county holds recognition ceremonies twice during the year to not only thank the companies that are taking extra precautions but to encourage others to do the same, he said.
"We're not trying to stop sediment from leaking into streams, because it's impossible to do that," Schumann said. "We're just trying to do the best we can to keep dirt where it belongs."