Courtesy of the City of Alexandria
Taylor Run in its current state.
“Don’t Bulldoze Taylor Run” signs are popping up from the West End to Old Town as Alexandria residents learn of plans to use a controversial process called natural channel restoration in a portion of Chinquapin Park, which houses a delicate ecosystem and hundreds of old trees.
The park is located at 3210 King St., off of Chinquapin Drive near Alexandria’s high school.
The lawn signs are just one way that an increasing number of Alexandria residents are voicing strong opposition to restoration plans for one of Alexandria’s most unique waterways.
Because of the volume of outrage from the community, Alexandria officials have been working with engineering consultants to adjust the project in ways that address some environmental concerns, including reducing the number of trees to be removed and making efforts to protect a rare wetland area.
A Change.org petition started by the Environmental Council of Alexandria now has more than 2,600 signatures and calls the plans a “heavy-handed approach that is not needed and will not restore the stream, nor will probably do much to reduce pollutants that harm the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay either. These projects are a billion-dollar business for high-priced consultants who advise local jurisdictions like Alexandria. These projects are based on models, and often a poor understanding of stream behavior or other environmental causes and impacts.”
City officials say the goal of the project is to “stabilize the stream corridor, enhance and conserve the stream ecology and protect the public infrastructure while meeting Chesapeake Bay cleanup goals,” according to a Taylor Run 5 Things to Know flyer. (One of the bullet points on that flyer says, specifically, “We aren’t using bulldozers.”)
The protests from local environmentalists are having some effect: “In response to community feedback, the City, in coordination with its consultants, updated the design to preserve a stand of large mature trees and a 44-inch co-champion maple,” according to the city’s Taylor Run website.
The redesigned plans also show the work occurring further from the acidic seepage swamp, which was a key concern of environmentalists. The acidic seepage swamp is a forested wetland that depends on a mature tree canopy for survival.
In addition, city officials are trying to educate the public about the project with their own resources, including a virtual tour of Taylor Run, examples of other natural channel restoration projects in the region, feature articles about successful projects, an FAQ document and more.
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ) awarded the City a competitive $2,255,000 Stormwater Local Assistance Fund (SLAF) grant that is funding part of the project, estimated at $4.5 million.
Courtesy of the City of Alexandria
A rendering of the a portion of proposed restoration of Taylor Run.
Is Channel Restoration Necessary?
The Environmental Protection Agency has promoted stream restoration as a means to reduce pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay, though other techniques such as regenerative stormwater conveyance are available to meet pollution goals.
Natural channel restoration (sometimes called natural channel design) is a method of trying to bring the path of a river or stream back to its natural state decades ago.
As time goes on and water flows, sediment (often polluted) washes downstream — and in Alexandria, that means it eventually ends up in the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay.
There have been dozens of stream restoration projects across Northern Virginia in the past 10 years, and seven are in the works, according to the Washington Post. Elsewhere in the Alexandria area, a stream restoration project in the Hollin Hills area has drawn protests from local residents. The city of Alexandria is also working on smaller projects for Strawberry Run and Lucky Run, but the Taylor Run project has drawn significantly more attention.
At Taylor Run, the stream’s banks are eroding and water is cutting an ever-deeper path through the park as an increasing amount of water flows through the channel, putting sewer infrastructure at risk and increasingly separating the stream from its original, natural flood plain.
Engineering working with city officials have calculated that the Taylor Run project will help reduce nitrogen, phosphorous and overall sediment volumes into the Chesapeake Bay, moving the city closer to meeting its mandated targets for pollution reduction.
While some of the sediment loss may have occurred by itself over time, much of the damage has been caused by rapid development upstream, according to city documents. Projects in the 1950s through the 1970s in Alexandria largely did not include any effort to reduce stormwater runoff or consider the effect of increasing Alexandria’s impervious surfaces (buildings and parking lots, mostly) on local streams and the increasingly stressed stormwater system.
Alexandria’s plans call for the restoration of an approximately 1,900 linear feet section (about 0.36 miles) of stream near the Chinquapin Recreation Center and along the walking path in Chinquapin Park and Forest Park.
This will require replacing sediment and slowing down the flow of water to decrease erosion. (A creative effort many years ago to slow down the water by dumping recycled building concrete and broken curbs from projects elsewhere in Alexandria did not help and may have actually made things worse, city officials now believe.)
Environmental Council of Alexandria members are concerned about a number of things.
First, the project will require removing more than 200 trees. City officials say that more than 200 trees need to be removed because they are dead, dying or at risk of falling over due to erosion. Planting new trees and native plants — many more than are removed — could help stabilize the riverbanks and create a healthier ecosystem in the long term.
The second concern is the construction that will have to occur as part of the project in the first place. Moving massive amounts of sediment, heavy rocks and taking out trees may require heavy equipment, even if bulldozers specifically aren’t used, to remove more than 200 trees and infill parts of the waterway.
The third concern revolves around the replacement of vegetation in the area: “The City and its consultants claim that they will plant new plants to replace the ones they destroy at Taylor Run. This is not acceptable. We want to preserve what is special about Taylor Run now and not bulldoze it, and then try to replace hundreds of trees and plants afterwards. We have no idea what the impact on other creatures will be,” according to the Environmental Council of Alexandria, which is concerned that removing vegetation there now could leave room for invasive species to take root.
Plans call for planting 2,280 trees including oaks, maples, dogwoods and sycamores as well as 7,200 bushes to replace the trees that are removed, and the city is looking at ways to prevent invasive species from spreading there.
In response, Alexandria officials this year released a draft “Tree Save Plan” along with the planting plan, “Vegetation Schedule” and other detailed information. Further, city officials have explained that trees will be removed individually by trained arborists, who will climb up the trees and remove them limb by limb.
The City of Alexandria is working with two engineering companies on the $4.5 million project. One is URS, based in Germantown, Maryland, which focuses on major infrastructure projects. The second is Wetland Studies and Solutions, a division of Davey Tree — a company that is well known for tree removal services but also does extensive work in utility engineering, lawn care and environmental consulting services.
Alternative Resolutions
At a virtual meeting Thursday night organized by the Environmental Council of Alexandria that drew close to 150 concerned residents, scientists and environmental activists said there are other ways to accomplish the goals of reducing pollution from Taylor Run.
“In fact, they’re way ahead of the requirements in terms of pollution reduction,” said Russ Bailey, a tree steward and local conservationist who lives in Alexandria. “And now they’re turning to stream restorations to get to the finish.”
The Environmental Council of Alexandria has been working with John Field, a fluvial geomorphologist (river geologist) and stream restoration expert, who said there are better ways to accomplish the city's goals.“Basically, we’re replacing the sediment that has been eroding away for decades and we’re putting it back in the stream channel, and making it available to be washed down the stream again.” He argues it is “making the stream less stable, not more stable, counter to the objective of the project.” Instead, the city should be working to solve problems further upstream related to pollution and waterflow, he said.
“The first thing that we should consider is how we might reduce the volume of stormwater that runs into the park and stream from the developed parts of its watershed upstream. This runoff is why Taylor Run's channel is deepening. It's important to address such underlying issues first, before trying to "restore" the streams by creating new stream channels, etc. Otherwise, the projects are likely to simply cause more environmental problems, like more erosion,” according to the Environmental Council of Alexandria.
Further, Field said, the city “basically tacitly acknowledges they’ll be putting large rocks in so the fill will not erode away and essentially locking the stream bed in place. … It is not bringing the stream toward equilibrium position.”
City officials counter that upstream efforts may help, but working upstream won’t entirely replace the need to restore Taylor Run.
Field also advocates for using log dams, which the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation have successfully used in other projects to slow down water, reduce erosion and protect sewer infrastructure. Log dams can also trap a considerable amount of sediment.
Current plans call for reusing many of the trees that are taken down “as part of the foundation for restoration,” according to an FAQ.
Local residents who oppose the restoration of Taylor Run are being joined by statewide organizations including the Potowmack Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society.
“Disturbingly, such projects often cause significant, irreversible damage to native plant communities and introduce and spread non-native invasive species. In addition, these projects adversely impact healthy aquatic habitats and wildlife, and research has shown that they do nothing to improve poor aquatic habitat,” Alan Ford, president of the VNPS Potowmack Chapter wrote in a February letter to the Alexandria City Council.
Ford continued, “Vigorous land development upstream is the primary precipitating factor in stream degradation. The substantial increase in storm runoff from man-made impervious surfaces (buildings and roadways), aggravated by heavier rainfall from climate change, creates an overload that a natural stream cannot easily accommodate. The first course of action to remedy this runoff should be to require property owners and developers to implement controls at the source; to hold water on site, infiltrate it to groundwater, and release it slowly to receiving streams without causing erosion. [Natural channel design] does nothing to reduce the volume and severity of the initial runoff.”
