Sometimes press makes all the difference. Sometimes it doesn't. Maybe you can help....
On June 30, 2005, a "Guest Column" I co-authored with a friend who happens to be a Ph.D. stream ecologist was published in the Washington Post, Fairfax Extra, concerning a potentially grave threat to the Chesapeake Bay:
The blemished underbelly of a key environmental policy has been exposed in Fairfax County. Streams feeding into Chesapeake Bay are protected by sound scientific and legal regimens to shield them from contamination -- except when it conflicts with development interests. An extensive, science-based process defines which streams should be protected. A comprehensive legal framework ensures that development avoids these streams. But Fairfax County officials recently confirmed that this protection can be removed irreversibly and without public input at the behest of developers using only "eyeball" evidence. As a stream ecologist and an environmental lawyer, respectively, we are greatly concerned about this lack of parity and its potential consequences for the bay
What came after, however, is even more interesing...
The basis of our concern in writing the Guest Column was the fact that, while Fairfax County in Virginia has actually adopted a very robust scientific
protocol to establish environmentally sensitive buffer areas along perennial waterways (which cannot be disturbed by development), these buffers can be eliminated in developing areas based simply on a developer's visual observations of a purportedly "dry" stream. While the protocol includes 26 hydrological, physical and biological characteristics that decades of scientific inquiry have shown mark the critical features of a perennial stream, the "declassification" of a perennial stream just looks at one of those: visual evidence of above-streambed flow.
This is particularly insidious, because water moves through the sediments of a streambed even when it is not visible. As my friend wrote in our column:
This flowing water, often less than an inch out of sight, supports aquatic life and can certainly carry pollutants toward the bay. A number of the protocol's 26 factors can signal the likely presence of such below-streambed flow: seeps and springs, for example, or aquatic creatures that require running water to live. Flowing streams also write their signatures on the landscape, as meandering channels with a sequence of riffles and pools. The protocol accordingly cautions that visual "flow may stop at a point and begin again some distance downstream," and the simple observation of flow by human eyes or lack thereof is not determinative. In other words, appearances can be deceiving.
(note: The column is no longer current on WaPo, but is available at our local website (see Washington Post Guest Column in left-pane index)).
After our article was published, we "piled on", sending letter after letter after letter after letter after letter after letter from respected stream ecologists - some nationally and even world renowned - to the Fairfax Board of Supervisors. The particular stream being stripped of protection, on a property the subject of a hotly-disputed proposed development, was the very first to be taken out of protected status. Our point was "Measure Twice; Cut Once". Each and every one of the scientists writing to the Board praised the protocol used to classify protected streams, and descried the use of eye-ball evidence to cancel out such protection. Even the Potomac Conservancy weighed in with a great letter challenging the legal basis for doing this. My own legal analysis had already been submitted to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, as well as the Board. (See 4th item in index: "Letter to VA DCR")
On July 11th, however, the Board of Supervisors smiled nicely at the dozens of us who came to testify and wave all these letters, and promptly stripped the stream of protection, with cursory discussion and without even blinking. Well, truth to tell, the ten of them had enjoyed over a quarter-million dollars in campaign contributions from developers. Really, what were we thinking?
But what was truly amazing was the fact that the press, even after being alerted to what was going on by the June 30th Guest Column -- and the campaign contribution expose by the bitsy local newspaper -- just passed this right on by. Even the Virginia agencies charged with administering the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act so far seem willing to let the local jurisdictions play havoc with the law if it furthers development interests.
So, we're organizing in Fairfax County, joining together various citizen groups all concerned about runaway development in Fairfax, but who have seldom worked together in the past. Our new website, FairGrowthNetwork.org, is not quite done yet, but it is accessible. I posted a blog there yesterday about what happened with our Board of Supervisors.
Anyone here care to help ferret out more about what is going on here, or contribute to public pressure to make sure that the Chesapeake Bay - a full THIRD of which is already a "dead zone" - doesn't pay the price for this perfidy? If you are local to Virginia or to any community near the Bay, you can find addresses to write to here. Or write to our local newspapers:
The Washington Post - letters@washpost.com
The Washington Post Fairfax Extra - fxextra@washpost.com
Sun Gazette - letters@sun-gazette.com
The Connection - Fairfax@connectionnewspapers.com
Fairfax Times - scahill@timespapers.com
The Examiner - http://www.dcexaminer.com/threads/
Let's up the ante.
PS - oh yeah, this is why I've been away for a few months....