Democratic Alexandria mayoral candidates Justin Wilson and Alison Silberberg have different views on how — and whether — stream restoration projects at Taylor Run and Strawberry Run should move forward.
The City of Alexandria has received state funds to partially cover the cost of stream renovations that city officials say can help reduce runoff and ultimately reduce the amount of pollution flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. The chosen method, called "natural channel restoration," is meant to bring the stream's channel back closer to its original, natural state, but environmental groups are opposed to using the controversial methodology. (Both the Environmental Council of Alexandria and the Environmental Policy Commission have come out against the plans at Taylor Run.)
Now, the Facebook group "Bring Integrity Back to Alexandria" has posed the question to the two Democrats running for mayor — current Mayor Justin Wilson and former Mayor Allison Silberberg. (A group moderator said they will pose the question to Republican candidate Annetta Catchings after the Dems' primary in June.) The group's moderators are also asking every candidate for mayor and council about other issues, including the Seminary Road diet, ethics and transparency, flooding and more.
Silberberg said in a Facebook post that she is opposed to moving forward on these two projects without pushing city staff to "go back to the drawing board" to find other ways to reduce pollution. Further, she calls for more transparency around grant applications to ensure more details of projects are known and made public before grant funding is in place.
Mayor Wilson is concerned about the cost of changing course on these projects. He said he's "happy to consider alternatives," but at this point all the alternatives seem to be significantly more expensive and would require making difficult choices about deferring flood mitigation or further increasing fees paid by residents. Not moving ahead on the stream restoration projects, he said, could result in Alexandria not meeting mandated pollution reduction mandates, and that could result in regulatory fines.
Read their complete comments here:
Allison Silberberg:
I am totally in favor of saving the forests of Taylor Run and Strawberry Run. These are two of our last remaining forests in our city. I have been clear and consistent that I am opposed to the stream reconstruction plans using natural channel design for Taylor Run and Strawberry Run. I wrote a column about this entitled, “When Restoration Means Destruction,” which was published in The Alexandria Times in September 2020. Here is the link to my column: https://alextimes.com/2020/03/opinion-allison-silberberg-coronavirus.
Like many of you, I am fully committed to reducing pollution into the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and grants are a way to help fund the costs of many worthwhile projects.
It is important to remember that when City Council approved the application for this grant at the end of my mayoral term in late 2018, no details and no specifics about the proposed plan for Taylor Run and Strawberry Run were included in the staff presentation. City staff did not present ANY information about natural channel design and the devastating impacts this plan would have on the forested environments of Taylor Run and Strawberry Run. There was no granularity. About a year or more after my term ended, the city staff began to share their specific plans, and it became clear how those plans would have disastrous consequences for these fragile natural areas.
In addition to the planned destruction of many mature trees and the threat to the rare acidic swamp located in Taylor Run, numerous residents and experts have weighed in and objected fervently against natural channel design being used at Taylor Run and Strawberry Run. In fact, as I observed recently at Strawberry Run, we have an example of natural channel design that was done there 10 years ago and has failed. Strawberry Run is now littered with the fill and displaced boulders that were placed there as a part of that natural channel design “restoration” project. Why would we be spending more of our tax dollars for another project when we can see that such design has already proven to be unsuccessful in the same stream?
Furthermore, the city has admitted now that they haven’t even tested the soils at Taylor Run and are not required to do so because they are allowed to base their pollution reduction estimates on regional models. But others have had a respected laboratory test the soils and found there is a negligible amount of phosphorus in the soil at Taylor Run. So why are we destroying the forest of Taylor Run based upon data that is unrelated to Taylor Run? This makes no sense and is not responsible. After all, all of us are the stewards of the land and our environment. The city’s plan is not an example of good stewardship.
And most importantly, I believe we must listen to science. The Environmental Council of Alexandria and the city’s Environmental Policy Commission have both written strong letters in opposition to the city’s plans, and they have suggested alternatives that would be far less destructive to the ecosystems and natural resources in both of these areas. City staff continues to assert that their plan will be successful and is a cost-effective way for the city to gain necessary pollution credits for the Chesapeake Bay. I believe these assertions are sadly questionable.
Noted river science expert, Dr. John Field, has written an extensive report on the Taylor Run project that challenges the basic assumptions of the plan put forward by city staff. Dr. Field states, “The City’s plan to reengineer Taylor Run will fail to achieve the project’s stated environmental and infrastructure goals. Instead, it will produce an impoverished ecosystem and ultimately cause more harm to the Chesapeake Bay than the status quo.” Dr. Field goes on to state, “I unequivocally conclude that the current plan will not reduce sediment reaching the Chesapeake Bay, nor protect the sanitary infrastructure over the long run, and will decimate stream and forest habitat for no practical benefit.”
I think Dr. Field’s conclusions sum up the serious concerns that I have about these projects and should cause members of City Council to demand that staff go back to the drawing board and come up with alternative ways to achieve the goal of reducing pollution into the Chesapeake Bay without destroying some of the last remaining forested areas in our city.
If I am elected Mayor, I will push for our City to change the grant process. When the City applies for such a grant, City staff should first bring forward the specifics of all such grant applications so that the public and the City Council can have a strong understanding of the grant proposal before it is submitted. With input from the community, our City Council must decide if a policy and a specific plan are appropriate or destructive, and the community process should happen before, not after, such a grant application is submitted. As far as this grant regarding Taylor Run and Strawberry Run, I would urge Council to reconsider the city’s plan.
Justin Wilson:
A little over a decade ago, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency promulgated the Chesapeake Bay TMDL. This regulatory requirement imposed a pollutant reduction requirement on all jurisdictions in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, including Alexandria.
For Alexandria, this means that we must meet 100% of our pollutant reduction TMDL by 2028. This includes reductions of sediment, Nitrogen and Phosphorus.
The City has worked steadily over the past few years to meet the TMDL and we are ahead of schedule. Yet, we have done the “easy” stuff. Achieving the remaining pollutant reductions are much more challenging.
In 2017 and 2018, prior to my election as Mayor, the City Council unanimously chose to use stream restoration as a technique to meet the remaining pollutant reductions by the 2028 timeline. The Council chose Lucky Run, Taylor Run and Strawberry Run as the locations for these efforts, based on an analysis of City open spaces that had been performed.
We applied to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality for grant funding to ease the impact on local taxpayers and we were awarded millions (more than all but 1 Virginia jurisdiction) to implement these projects.
I am appreciative of the input we have received from the community and the changes that our staff has made to the projects to address concerns that have been cited.
I am happy to consider alternatives, but at this point all alternatives that have been offered are PROHIBITIVELY more expensive than the three stream restoration projects that received grant funding and would require either the deferral of flooding mitigation projects that we just raised new revenue to address OR further increases in the Stormwater Utility Fee. Many of the alternatives that have been offered would make it highly unlikely that the City would meet the 2028 deadline, exposing the City and its taxpayers to costly regulatory actions by the Federal government.
Our staff did just prepare a budget memo at the Vice Mayor’s request that goes into some detail about the available alternatives (https://www.alexandriava.gov/budget/info/default.aspx?id=120542).
All of our neighboring jurisdictions are undertaking similar stream restoration projects to help meet their Chesapeake Bay TMDL obligations. In fact the Arlington Board just voted to approve one of their projects a few days ago.
I certainly recognize these types of projects are controversial. There is conflicting science. We have been trying to follow the direction of the Federal Environmental Policy Agency and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the two applicable environmental regulatory agencies.
Nevertheless, we’ll keep the dialogue going to ensure that we meet our environmental obligations and respect the taxpayers.
