Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Environmental Committee, Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Date: Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 46m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/2831
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-11-04. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:07] afternoon everyone we have a we have a tight schedule today and I'm gonna try to get started quickly I'm Dan Stork the chair for the Environment Committee and I asked all of our audience members thank you all very much for coming but if you could please keep your comments tight and brief and focused and we have again many many more things to do today we do have this meeting scheduled till 3:30 from 1:30 to 3:30 but the agenda is pretty full so I would also ask everybody else to I guess just be conscious of that we have the last time

[00:00:45] on the agenda more or less is the bamboo I know that we would love to present to that but it really depends upon how long some of our other topics takes I just wanted to caution our folks that are here for the bamboo portion of it we hope to get to it but I there's no guarantee of that so with that the first item is We pass out summary notes, and were there any changes from the prior Environment Committee summary notes?

[00:01:13] Anyone have any changes to those? If not, we also had some expected updates. Board members, we always ask for some things to be followed up on. And Supervisor Gross, you had asked about universal designs for EV bus charging stations, and just wanted to see if you had heard any.

[00:01:31] I don't recall seeing a response on that one. So if we could get a response. Maybe somebody could double-check to see if that actually went out. Sometimes I miss things, but I don't recall seeing that one. John, if you could give us at least a very brief update on where that is.

[00:01:48] Good afternoon. John, you're – yeah, thanks. John Morrill, Acting Director of the Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination. My apologies for not providing written response. In answer to the question, yes, the charging infrastructure for both transit fleet buses and school buses is the same charging equipment. It's a combined charging system. And so aside from payments and how the accounting happens, in case of emergency, you should be

[00:02:27] able to charge school buses from transit fleet charging. Well, thank you. But I think for continuity's sake for the committee, it would be helpful to have a brief written response that we can have in the files, just in case it comes up again. Thank you. Will do.

[00:02:47] Thank you. Thank you both. And then the second time we had was Supervisor Waukesha had asked about conversion of county EV vehicles, and I, Supervisor Waukesha, I think we got a Q&A for our budget that I think answered that question, which is, I mean, maybe, sadly, it was about 10% of our fleet. It's about 200-some vehicles, about 20-some EVs, and there's explanations that are in there. Some of them are, some of the other vehicles are hybrids, etc., but But we still have a long way to go, if nothing else, that I think it highlighted to us.

[00:03:20] So with that, I'll let the minutes of the meeting stand as the record of the meeting. And we are now going to move towards the Lake Akatik dredging issue and portion of that. And we have Chris Harrington and Charles Smith are here to present. And with that, I will turn it over to you, to your gentleman.

[00:03:36] Thank you. Chairman McKay, Subvisor Storka, members of the board. I just wanted to give you an overview of the report out, basically, from what we were charged to do in terms of seeking to establish a dredging program for Lake Akatink. To give a quick overview reminder, Lake Akatink Park is a very valued resource by the community.

[00:03:58] It serves a tremendous number of people, communities around the lake, and it's a very diverse community that serves in that area. Although it lies in the Braddock District, it also has its entrance through Franconia District, and it touches on Mason District and also Springfield.

[00:04:14] So it touches a lot of districts within the county. There's 250,000 visitors per year. That's by count, but that doesn't really necessarily account for the many other people who arrive through the many entrances through that park. It is also just to remind you that there was a significant community engagement effort by the park authority starting in 2016, extending through 2019, to basically look at it.

[00:04:37] It started with a master plan revision process, but it was quickly realized that we needed to figure out how to manage the lake itself. and the outcome of that process is what we're here to talk a bit about today it was decided to establish a dredge program with some very basic goals to establish an average depth of eight feet and implement a maintenance dredging program uh in addition that the goal was to establish a lake that was to serve aesthetic and recreational uh as a aesthetic and recreational resource for the community the two links we have at the bottom of the slide are the same two that chris sent sent out to you in an email on April 11th.

[00:05:12] It just tells our story map and project webpage. So the timeline, as I mentioned, was 2016 through '19 was significant community engagement. At the end of that process, there was a recommendation to dredge the lake. There was a presentation to the board in October of '29 to the budget committee, and there was an approval for the financing plan for the lake, for the dredge program, excuse me.

[00:05:35] And then we came for our first approval for seeking a loan from the state, from the Virginia Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund in June of 2020. That fall, we hired our vendor, Arcadis, and began the study design. Then we went through a significant intensive period starting in September 2020, which involved community outreach, significant number of investigative processes to look at, alternatives for dredging, and community stakeholder engagement. And during that same cycle, we came back in July of '21 to ask for permission to seek an additional $30 million in loans. So we

[00:06:12] already knew by that point that we were climbing in price. We weren't sure how far that was going to go, but at that point we stuck with the 30 additional million. And then at the conclusion of our process, we had realized, or as we got through it in later 2022, that that number was climbing significantly. We finally reported out to the community in February, so we published a story map which talked about what we are finding in terms of our costs and our recommendations as staff.

[00:06:42] We then held two public meetings and went through a public survey and comment period, which concluded on April 1st. So just to overcap or review what the dredge program would require, it would require establishing a dewatering site, not at the lake.

[00:06:58] There's no room near Lake Akatank, so it would have to be pumped via pipeline to a dewatering site, which would be cleared. And the dredge program would take place at the lake itself, be pumped to the dewatering site where the dredge spoils would be drained of their fluid. They'd have to then be trucked to a disposal site.

[00:07:16] We estimated it would take 500,000 cubic yards of dredging, which is about 50,000 trucks over a three-year period, and then we'd have to return once every five years to re-dredge it to maintain the depth of the lake to meet the established project goals, which required about 15,000 trucks in a one-year period every five years in order to accomplish a maintenance dredge.

[00:07:38] So evaluating the options, we went through a really extensive process. And I think the key is that the project team identified alternatives. We reached out to the public and communicated those. We got a lot of suggestions from both the stakeholders and the community at large. We also re-evaluated those.

[00:07:55] So we looked at 19 potential disposal or dredge spoil reprocessing sites, seven pipeline alignments, and we looked at somewhere in the neighborhood, I think it was nine spoils disposal options, including beneficial reuse and disposal on county property.

[00:08:11] When we came up with our final numbers based on where we thought was actually viable, we came up with a base dredge total of about $95 million. We also knew it was our charge to establish a maintenance dredging program and be able to come back and report out to this board what that would cost.

[00:08:31] when we inflated those costs over four dredge cycles in a 20-year period after the post, after the main dredge, we are close to $300 million for maintenance dredging in a 20-year period. So the total for 25 years of dredging is about $400 million. So the drivers for this included doing additional bathymetric surveys and finding out the lake had accumulated additional sediment from 2016 to 2021. We also realized that when you empty the lake, it becomes more efficient at capturing the sediment that's coming to it.

[00:09:03] So over the three-year dredge cycle, you have to over-dredge by 100,000 cubic yards just to meet your eight-foot depth requirement. So that drives you up to that 500,000 cubic yards or a 43% increase. We have much higher processing costs than originally anticipated, and that's just based on current market rates and the current industry standards.

[00:09:24] There was also higher trucking and disposal costs. There were some assumptions made that we no longer consider valid in the original concept. We could not find a low-cost or no-cost disposal site. And the cheapest would be to basically take it to a quarry in the western part of the county at Luckstone and deposit it there.

[00:09:42] We have a fixed rate for deposit fees. The frequent maintenance dredging is also a significant factor. Also inflation. Inflation has gone up, obviously, and so our CPI went up to about 5%, and that's what we used to inflate our costs, which that is the normal process for the county for all large projects, is to inflate outward to the midpoint of construction.

[00:10:03] So when we look at those out-year costs, those are based on the normal inflation process. So the big things we wanted to really emphasize to help look for ourselves and to communicate to others as to why these costs went up. If you look on the left, you're seeing what were the assumptions that were made in the original concept, the $30.5 million dredge program.

[00:10:26] And you'll see that there were assumptions made, we talked before about the quantity, which we now consider to be quite low compared to what we know to be the truth now, the number. We also look at the disposal options and where we went from assumption of low cost to the fact that we have hard numbers now on the actual disposal site and current trucking numbers.

[00:10:47] There was also some assumptions made about being able to use the power lines in Wakefield Park, which we know from talking to Dominion Electric extensively and analyzing the available space under their lines that we cannot meet production rates by using that site, So therefore, we had to pick another site, which would have environmental impacts, and we'd have to clear it to make a pad site also within Wakefield Park is what we think is the most viable option.

[00:11:10] And then at the bottom there is the issue of maintenance dredging and the $300 million cost over time, and that's how we programmed it in. So those are the primary differences between the original concept and the current understanding. So as we began to see these costs go up, we thought we should do our due diligence and reevaluate some of the other options that were looked at.

[00:11:33] Those included removing the dam, establishing a new stream channel. Those included using a four bay, which is not viable because of the rate of sediment gain within that system. The main option that seemed to have some viability we wanted to look at was the smaller offline lake option, which is essentially creating an acting creek as a stream, lowering the dam height, and creating a smaller lake to the side.

[00:11:56] When we looked at that, it has significant costs. You have to overdredge, creating 82,500 truck trips just to get it down to the base material below the existing sediment. Then you have to build a dam, a state-regulated dam that runs for half a mile along the creek, and it's a significant cost, about $200 million.

[00:12:15] The other issue is that we feel as staff that there are safety risks that are not acceptable. You're building a dam along a riverfront, which is subject to frequent flooding, and we think there's significant risk associated with potential future dam failure. And we don't think that's sustainable over time.

[00:12:33] So the implications we realize are significant in the sense that community impacts, we know there is a loss of open water resource, which is the primary factor that's been driving this project is the desire to retain an open water system for aesthetic and recreational purposes.

[00:12:49] And we realize that that is a loss that would be realized if we do not dredge. At the same time, we could continue to manage Lake Akatank Park for the resources, for the public for recreation that has tremendous potential and it has continued usage that could be enhanced with additional effort. We would avoid all the trucking, the environmental impacts, and the costs associated with a long-term dredging program, which I'll remind you is not currently funded. The environmental impacts, we know that most of the sediment that's captured by the lake will actually be caught in the Accutane Creek floodplain. This is based on empirical data from the U.S. Geological Survey, from multiple studies,

[00:13:29] and it's been including a study that was included in Accutane Creek that was conducted as part of a bay-wide survey that was published last year. The restoration within the creek channels is already required, so we have to restore channels of Accutane Creek as part of Accutane Creek TMDL because the impairment is the sediment in the channels themselves.

[00:13:50] It's not what arrives down at the Chesapeake Bay. The avoidance of loss of forest cover would be an environmental positive impact as part of not doing it. And the opportunity to manage the lake footprint actually with intent so we can choose how to manage it for desired outcome.

[00:14:08] From a regulatory perspective, we have to restore stream channels. Even if we dredge the lake, we still have to pay for stream channel restoration within the system. We also feel there's a minimal amount of additional load that would be assigned to the county downstream of Lake Akatank as part of the Akatank Creek TMDL.

[00:14:26] We do not think it's that significant in the scale of things in terms of what we're already managing in that system. And in the project costs, we would avoid an average of $16 million per year for the next 25 years. That's just for 25 years. That cost continues to go up in out years as you continue to have to dredge once every five years.

[00:14:47] And then the stream restoration in the creek is necessary, again, to meet the county requirements, even if the lake was dredged. So the results of the survey that was conducted, we got 1,078 responses. And if you have questions about how this was done, Chris is the whiz on this because it's not my bailiwick, but it was done using standard social science methods to analyze the data.

[00:15:11] And people were able to write in a free response. They were not required to say yes or no on a particular question. That's how it was structured. And we do have published the results of that survey online. So you can see every comment, but there is no personal data included in that record.

[00:15:28] Of those responses, the vast majority live close to the lake, within five miles. The interesting thing is that they were, of course, they were familiar with the study. 51% visit pretty regularly. And then walking and hiking, biking is clearly the most frequent activity, with boating also reported.

[00:15:48] The near equal number of people that responded in terms of dredging shows that there is a pretty even split in that response between yes dredge and no do not dredge. In addition, we have folks concerned about dredging costs, and this is in terms of kind of how the response is kind of queued up in terms of the percent answered.

[00:16:08] Also needing more information, support returning to looking at the park master plan and park envisioning and also supported support to some of them 14 transitioning to a wetland so chris you want to take over here in public chris errington director of public works and environmental services so part of our ethos in public works is always get it done and so it brings me no joy to come to the board with recommendation that we come here today um to not proceed with dredging as the board had originally directed staff after reading all 1078 of those comments after participating in the public meetings that we had in February I have a deep understanding or I have

[00:16:48] an appreciation of the deep connection that some residents have with the lake and their desire to save it at any cost so it brings me no joy to disappoint them either but as Mr. Smith and our expert consulting team in Arcadis have worked very hard to examine all options and I very much appreciate the work that they have done after that analysis I don't see how it is in the county's best interest to proceed with dredging this reservoir. Dredging will be very expensive.

[00:17:15] The costs will be distributed across all county residents, and we can only proceed with the dredging initially if we're also willing to commit to ongoing maintenance dredging to make that investment count. One in five survey respondents, as Mr. Smith indicated, expressed opinions about the project cost, and of those expressing an opinion at a 20 to 1 ratio, respondents felt that the costs were too high for the benefits. In looking just at the environmental impacts, I also conclude that the negative environmental impacts from dredging outweigh the positive environmental benefits that would be realized from maintaining Akatink as a lake.

[00:17:49] Again, nearly one in five survey respondents expressed concerns about environmental impacts associated with this decision, so clearly it is an important factor. Environmentally, there is no increase in flood risk if we don't dredge. Dredging would have a substantial negative carbon impact.

[00:18:07] Ongoing construction would be a recurring negative impact to the park and the neighborhoods. Not dredging will not harm the bay, and we will meet our regulatory obligations to protect the creek and the bay through stream restoration anyway, regardless of whether dredging proceeds, and stream restoration is a more cost-effective and sustainable approach.

[00:18:24] At this cost, and because I believe the environmental negatives outweigh the environmental benefits, I don't find that proceeding with dredging is an efficient and effective use of our resources. However, I cannot easily quantify what the lake means to those residents who very dearly love it.

[00:18:41] Although 89% of respondents use the park for walking and that isn't changing, I can't do the cost-benefit analysis of what it means to lose the aesthetic value of the lake or what it would lose with the loss of the open water for those about 26% of respondents who have recreated on the water from our survey, what that means to them.

[00:19:01] You may also be wondering why we're not presenting what happens if we don't dredge in more detail. And we are intentional in not presenting what will happen in the future if we do not dredge. Our task was to determine how to dredge the lake, but our detailed analysis now suggests that is no longer feasible from my perspective.

[00:19:19] The lake will eventually transition to a wetland if we don't dredge. Wetlands are invaluable carbon stores, excellent water quality filters, and support high biodiversity. Survey respondents supported by a more than two-fold margin a transition to wetlands relative to being concerned about any negative consequences that could come from wetlands.

[00:19:39] However, when and how it transitions and what the ultimate state would be is dependent upon the degree of maintenance and intervention that we apply. There are multiple options available, and each of those options do come with their own costs. So this is not a multi-million or hundreds of millions of dollar cost to no cost decision.

[00:20:00] But because the change would be dependent, or because this is a change, excuse me, in community expectation, and because evolution of the lake moving forward is at least partially dependent upon the desires of the park users. That is why I am recommending that we do support the park authority in restarting the visioning process for the park. And with that, Director Cole, I'll turn to you. Hi, Jay Cole, Executive Director of the Park Authority. As Chris said, this whole process began with a master plan for Lake Akatink, and so part of our recommendation is to go back to the master plan, but with an investment in the results of the master plan for the community. So at the end of the

[00:20:38] they get something back from this experience. So, instead of an open-ended, you know, when it can get done, we have some sort of a commitment in working with the BOS to get something built. I totally agree with Director Harrington. When there's various ways of building a wetland, and depending on what the results are, it depends on how much money we put into that.

[00:21:07] So we support going back to the master plan and determining what's best for this community. Because it started because this was such a high-valued asset, such a high-valued park, an aging park, that we know we needed some new amenities.

[00:21:23] Okay. Well, thank you all very much. I think we all recognize the degree of difficulty here, given that we've had a conversation for this for now, during the whole time I've been on the board, which is seven years.

[00:21:38] So if it were simple, obviously the next steps would be easier and clearer to all of us. With that, I'm going to turn it up to the chairman and give him an opportunity, and then the board members could identify if you want to speak. Thank you, Supervisor Stort.

[00:21:54] First, I want to start by, you know, thanking staff for the work that they've done. I know it's been significant and the public outreach was meaningful. I do trust Director Harrington when he says it brings him no joy to bring this recommendation forward.

[00:22:11] I can say as one supervisor who's represented this area for a long time and used this park since I was a mere child, it brings me absolutely no joy to hear that either. And so I think, you know, there's profound disappointment in the conclusion that staff has made here.

[00:22:32] I don't think it's because there wasn't a thorough evaluation. I don't think it's because you started with the intention to do this because I remember in the early stages of this, for those of us who were involved in it very early, that we needed to have a new master plan for the park.

[00:22:50] It was time to upgrade the facility, look at amenities. I don't think at the beginning of that process anyone thought, and there are people in this room, myself included, who have lived through dredges of this facility, and I don't think any of us thought that this was coming at us.

[00:23:06] In fact, I know none of us thought that this was coming at us. And so I guess, you know, I'm certainly not ready to pull the plug on this, to follow the staff recommendation, because I know I have a lot more questions I think the public and community does, and I'm going to let Supervisor Walkinshaw talk a little bit about what we think could be next steps, and we've talked about this a little bit.

[00:23:32] But before I do that, you know, obviously, if the county were to go down this path, you've made the recommendation based on the task you were asked to do. But I think, obviously, for all of our sake, there's going to be a new task asked at a minimum, which is to show us exactly what would happen out here, show us exactly what the options for, quote, unquote, management, wetland management would be at this facility.

[00:24:02] And, you know, I think the community is owed an exact explanation of what could happen here over what period of time and what do they think about that before we could close the door on anything. I mean, that's a completely reasonable expectation for people in the community to have.

[00:24:22] And to me, that's a critical part of the next steps. I agree that there needs to be, you know, a resumption of the visioning process for the park and the master planning for the park. I know that there's been rumors out there about the demise of this park and what might happen to it in the future, and I just want to be perfectly clear about this.

[00:24:44] This property is owned by the Fairfax County Park Authority, and the Fairfax County Park Authority will manage this property no matter what as a public park, open to the public, as an amenity for people in the community. There's no other desire to do anything else with this facility.

[00:25:03] I do think as a part of our looking at what things could happen here if we don't dredge, because we know what the repercussions of dredging are, I do think we also need to give a look at the wildlife, ecological, cultural resources, other things that might be impacted by any decision to not dredge.

[00:25:25] So it's unclear to me, you know, what it would look like, but it's also unclear to me what are the real environmental wildlife, waterfowl, other implications of doing this. And, you know, I know having lived through the Huntley Meadows Dam project that in that particular case, it changed Huntley Meadows Park very much for the positive.

[00:25:48] But we got to a point where because we weren't managing it well enough, we lost a lot of habitat and we're starting to see that come back. And so I think we really need to get a really clear understanding of how that's impacted.

[00:26:04] And then if in addition to that, if we were not to dredge this facility, what does that mean for other amenities that could be at the park? Or what else would the community want to see happen here if we went down that path?

[00:26:21] And that's where I think the revisioning part is important. But I don't think you can get to revisioning, new visioning or a park master plan process until we get a really clear picture of what could happen here if we don't dredge this facility. And I know that wasn't within the original task, but I think it's an obligatory task at this point before we could make a final decision about dredging or not.

[00:26:45] The last, just a technical question I wanted to ask, because I think the most disturbing thing about this to me is the five-year maintenance dredging program. I think the initial cost of dredging doesn't give me pause. You know, obviously, I don't look, you know, short-sightedly at spending $95 million.

[00:27:05] But if I knew I was spending $95 million to save this lake in perpetuity or for an extended period of time, it would be worth the investment. But the idea of the amount of intrusion that would happen here every five years, having lived through past dredges, I guess my technical question is, is the five-year maintenance dredging program that is outlined here the only option?

[00:27:28] And how do we come up with five-year intervals? So the load that's arriving at the lake is pretty consistently an estimated somewhere around 46,000 cubic yards per year. That's based on average over time. And that's heavily weather dependent.

[00:27:43] So, for instance, Tropical Storm Lee deposited a disproportionate amount of sediment. But the bottom line is as that lake gets emptied, it's much more efficient at taking out a fraction of that load. So we estimated in 2016 that it was removing about 50% of that load, about 23,000 cubic yards per year.

[00:28:03] But as it gets deeper and it has more space, it'll capture a much higher percentage. So what we felt was that in order to properly plan a maintenance program for its life cycle costs and needs, five years was an appropriate time frame to estimate we'd capture at least 150,000 cubic yards and need to come empty it back out.

[00:28:25] And that's just because of the nature of this system. It's a 30-square-mile drainage area with high imperviousness and high stream erosion. Now, we are working hard to cut that down over time, but it'll take many decades before the work we can do could reduce that load enough to reduce the capture rate.

[00:28:42] Because even as the load arriving at the lake comes down, its ability to capture a certain amount doesn't go down as you empty it. So even if you dropped it to 30,000 cubic yards per year, as the lake got emptied, it would capture the majority of that 30,000 cubic yards. So it's just about the capture efficiency of the lake as you empty it.

[00:28:59] And that's really what's driving that return frequency for the maintenance dredging. So, in other words, if you were recommending a 10-year gap, you would still be moving twice the amount, and would the cost be the same? I mean, I'm trying to think of, you know, the cost implications, the environmental implications, the neighborhood implications.

[00:29:19] If you stretched these intervals out, what would that mean? Would it mean the cost goes up? Would it mean there's further damage to habitat as a result of that that we have to factor? I mean, what would it mean if you replaced a five-year dredge schedule with every 10 years?

[00:29:35] Well, the effects of the 2008 dredge were erased in a very short period of time. The key is that if you waited 10 years, it's possible to reach that. If you still keep eight feet as your target, you could capture 500,000 cubic yards in 10 years.

[00:29:52] You could be back to where you, in other words, well, $350,000 and have to over-dredge to get back to your rig, just like we are now. In other words, now we say we'd take 400,000 cubic yards out in order to get eight feet, but you're still capturing it as you dredge, which takes three years. So what you would do is you would take what you would do in a one-year period every five years, do it twice.

[00:30:10] You might have to go back to another three-year dredge and have much increased quantity. And so you really, to keep up and make it functional for the purposes that we were given as the targets, you really need to return more frequently. You don't save any money.

[00:30:27] I think you actually end up being more costly. The other thing we discussed was if you do not dredge frequently, every time you dredge, you have to learn how to do it again so you're less efficient, and you also, the community has forgotten about what it takes to dredge, and now that displacement of community resources and the loss opportunity by the public is enhanced.

[00:30:50] So, yes, you spread out the interval, but now the pain is revisited and the duration of that dredge is prolonged. So we don't think there's any savings that actually could be the opposite. It could be more costly over time to increase the time intervals between the dredge cycles.

[00:31:07] Okay. Well, I, you know, I'll withhold any other comments until after we talk about next steps because I know we want to spend a moment talking about that. But, again, I... You know, I have a hard time stomaching the recommendation. I have a lot of other questions, but that's not to say I don't appreciate the work that you all have done to get us to this point.

[00:31:29] It's not the news I don't think any of us wanted to hear, but I don't doubt the integrity of what you've done here. But I think you all have to also understand that as a result of the process we've been through, there's still a lot of questions out there we need to answer, I think, before we can make a decision here on what to do next.

[00:31:48] so thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have Supervisor Walkinshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and first thank you for giving us some time on your busy agenda for this, and I also want to thank the thousand-plus community members who responded to the survey and submitted their comments, and the hundreds and thousands over the years who have advocated on behalf of Lake Akatink, and the term that some of my constituents have used to describe Lake Akatink is a treasure, and I think that's apt. It is a treasure for Fairfax County. It's an amenity that's beloved

[00:32:27] by generations, and people have stories of taking their grandchildren and their children there or going there with their grandparents and their children, and my family's in that category. I have vivid memories of taking my son there shortly after he was born and would like to take my grandkids there someday. We made a commitment. Fairfax County made a commitment to save Lake Akadink by dredging it. We made that commitment in 2019. We said it would cost close to $30 million

[00:33:02] and there would be relatively minimal maintenance dredging costs. And a lot of folks are angry and hurt that we're talking about not keeping that commitment. I just want to acknowledge that That's a very real feeling that people across the county have.

[00:33:19] The survey results were mixed. I think that's a fair description. But this lake has hundreds, thousands of very strong and passionate supporters, especially in the neighborhoods around it, but all around the county.

[00:33:35] For my colleagues, I know that the new cost estimates are eye-popping. It's a lot of money. But I agree with the chairman. I'm not ready to give up on the possibility of dredging or to accept the staff recommendation.

[00:33:52] I think if the board is not willing to commit the resources to do the full dredge, we owe people a lot more answers as to what would happen and what it would look like. And the truth is we have not conducted any kind of a comprehensive study or analysis of the managed wetland option.

[00:34:14] And I don't think it would be responsible for us to make a decision without doing that. Also, I think we need to acknowledge that the way this process has proceeded, where over the last seven to eight years, staff and consultants have worked diligently, but on their own, to conduct studies and then produce recommendations that are then shared with the community for feedback hasn't created the level of trust that we need.

[00:34:48] And that's why I'm going to suggest, and Chairman McKay, Supervisor Lusk, and I at an upcoming board meeting will propose to establish a task force on the future of Lake Akatink to review the recommendation and the work and studies that have taken place up to this point to more fully study and analyze the managed wetland option so the community knows and the board knows, if that's the direction we go, what it actually means.

[00:35:22] And to consider the possibility of a hybrid approach that maintains an open water feature. And we'll suggest that that task force deliver findings to the Board of Supervisors to inform our decisions. So to my colleagues who maybe have been prepared to say we've got to give up on this and accept the staff recommendation because it's too much money, I would just ask you to wait, let the task force do its work, and report its findings back to us.

[00:35:52] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Supervisor. And I'm going to call on Supervisor Les, given your involvement with this as well. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I'll just thank Supervisor Walkinshaw and the chairman for their previous comments and align myself with those.

[00:36:09] This is a tough issue. And I know in my own community there are environmental impacts that will affect our community directly if there are decisions made about how the dredge materials are removed. But we also know that this is an asset that the community very much enjoys and wishes to see continue being in existence.

[00:36:33] So I appreciate this thought in terms of putting together a task force for us to look at the options and to bring those back for the board to consider. I'd like to ask a couple questions in connection, though.

[00:36:51] And I just appreciate the summary of the public survey comments, so thank you for doing this. And the thing that was really striking to me, which is something I've definitely done at the park, is the hiking, the walking, and the running.

[00:37:07] And you've listed here that 89% of the residents noted that as their principal use at the park. So that's significant, very, very significant. So, one of the things I'd be interested in knowing is when we look at this conversion to the wetlands, will there be any impacts that would affect the use of the trail network in that conversion?

[00:37:34] So, will people still be able to hike, walk, run, do all the things that we're currently doing today once this migration to the wetlands occurs? The second question I have is, I think, Mr. Smith, when you talked about the stream stabilization or restoration, you mentioned that that's something that would need to be done at the park.

[00:38:07] Do we have any details specifically on what that stabilization, what that restoration would entail? And then do we also have any cost associated with actually undertaking that? Do you want to answer the first question?

[00:38:26] Jay Cole, Executive Director of the Park Authority. As part of any master plan, the answer is ultimately yes, but I don't want to preclude, I suppose there's an option where a million people come out and say they don't want to enter into the park anymore, but I seriously doubt that that would exist.

[00:38:43] So people really value the trail system and the ability to walk around and hike and bike and run. And I would imagine that we would, I know we would highlight whatever amenity is there in their ability to circumnavigate whatever it is that still exists there.

[00:39:01] We just finished, we're about to finish a very large project with the trail system. And the reason why this impact, this did not impact that bridge was because we always will have a very, very heavily utilized and valued trail system in Lake Akatank, regardless of what happens here.

[00:39:20] We would just hope to augment and enhance that experience. Okay. I appreciate that, and I would imagine that in this discussion of options, you'll be able to detail some of the different uses that might exist as a result of those individual options.

[00:39:38] And then let me ask, I know that we have some requirements that are connected to the Akatine Creek TMDL, and just trying to understand, if we don't dredge, how do we address the specifics around those TMDL requirements, and do we have any sense of what those costs might be?

[00:40:04] Yes, sir. So we have done some rough estimates in terms of if you looked at how much sediment's being produced by the creek and if you reduce it by X amount over time. I don't have a hard number for you today, but I'll say we've done a lot of analysis. Our previous efforts to address local TMDL, so the difference that we're facing here is that in the past we were driven largely by the Chesapeake Bay TMDL, which said that the county had to reduce a certain amount of sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus from arriving at the Chesapeake Bay.

[00:40:35] We have met that goal. The county's been very aggressive at addressing the Chesapeake Bay TMDL goal. So now we're switching largely, or more and more, we're switching to local TMDLs. Those are much harder because there is a much higher amount of sediment load that we have to take out.

[00:40:51] Acatank, I can say with great certainty, we have invested a tremendous amount in Acatank, all the way from Nottoway Park by Vienna, a tremendous amount in Providence District, Mason District, Braddock District, Springfield District, and in Franconia. We're implementing and have implemented stream projects.

[00:41:09] To date, I don't have an exact number for you, but I believe we probably invested somewhere in the neighborhood of about $25 million so far. Wow. We have a project in Braddock District called Long Branch Central. to address the long branch central tmdl which is a subset of the acting creek tmdl with a current price tag of about 40 million dollars that we are have the public has reviewed and we're working to implement uh and we will continue to move forward so i don't have a final number for you sir but we i can say we're working very aggressively with acting creek watershed to try to approach that issue we don't have any a window over time in which that load would be reduced significantly

[00:41:47] enough to dramatically reduce the load at the lake that's something we don't know that's larger because of the nature of the shed and how big it is and the storm-driven aspect of a lot of the production of the sediment. Okay. No, I appreciate that. And then I'll make one last point or request.

[00:42:04] When you look at the options for the dredge, if it would be possible to show actual facilities in other places that we could reference what that might look like for the future of Lake Akateng. So basically showing us what the future could look like by giving us examples of other other places where those exist i think that would just be helpful for people to see and maybe if they can go out and visit get a sense of how those are operated and managed and then last i want to thank um mr smith uh specifically and i want to thank mr harrington as well for their exceptional

[00:42:42] work in uh communicating to the community what the county's decision and position has been i want to acknowledge that i myself was in some meetings where i know there were some tough questions. And I want to say Mr. Smith handled those, and Mr. Harrington as well, extraordinarily well. And I know how committed you are to helping us make the right decision here. So I just wanted to publicly say that. And thank you for your work. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[00:43:12] Thank you, Mr. Supervisor. Thank you. Supervisor Gross. Thank you. And thank you, Charles. We've been working together a long time. It's nice to see you moving up in our county leadership. A couple of questions and then some comments. First of all, total acreage of the park and the acreage of the lake. Can you remind me that? Because the overview looks like the park is considerably large and the lake is a portion of it. The lake

[00:43:47] is about 55 acres. I believe the park acreage is 493. Okay, all right, thank you. Although Lake Yakutink is not in Mason District. Its sediment is, because the last time, I believe it was just the last time it was dredged, maybe the two times it was dredged, it was pumped to Mason District.

[00:44:09] But we're full. We don't have any space for additional dredge soils. This is a bitter pill to swallow, absolutely. But I think it's better to know these amended costs now than if we had started doing something in 2019, the actual construction, and then found out that we were going down a rabbit hole. So the sort of putting a stop to, or a pause during the pandemic was

[00:44:41] not a bad thing. A couple of questions about, now Supervisor, I think Supervisor Walkinshaw mentioned a task force. I presume that this task force will not be the same one that would be doing the visioning of the master plan. These would be two separate groups. Is that correct? I would assume that that's going to be the situation. Yeah, that would certainly be my intention.

[00:45:11] Thank you. To that point, Penny, I mean, I don't think you can remaster plan until the task force finishes the conversation. Well, and that's okay. I just want to make sure that we're not laying, um, the same tasks on, um, the same, two, two, two completely separate tasks on the same group of people that we actually would have two groups of people. And maybe some would be membership would be different, but it would, it would have to run, what is it we call it?

[00:45:41] Okay. Um, but once we got into the master plan for, for the park authority, how long does that master planning process take I know that some in my district have taken forever and then sat on the shelf so how long would you anticipate once a visioning process started could you do it in a year could you do it in less um absolutely we can do it in a year um we have and this is not to rush any decision but we knew that this was you know coming up the minute that um the board of supervisors

[00:46:20] makes any decision we would start on our master planning process if that was the decision okay the next day. We know that it's coming. We have the staff ready to do it. I think the important aspect of this particular one is for it not to sit on the shelf. We are undergoing a relook at our master plans to make sure that that happens. One of my large pet peeves as well. We want to promise the same community that we do the master plan when we build something and not promise a community something and then build it 30 years later. So I think it's important that the intent and the movement and the final result be part of this decision so that we're doing a master a plan for something that is going to go from planning to design to building all right because

[00:46:59] it took more than 10 years to go from visioning to actual construction for hoag park and i don't see that we have that kind of time um if we did nothing if if nothing was done if we just sort of laid it made it the status quo what is the anticipated lifespan of the lake as as director harrington indicated we can't predict that it's really it's very difficult it's possible it'll just like it does now for many years and we do know that it it slowed down dramatically in its capture rate from 2016 and 2021 it only captured 50,000 cubic yards in about five years so that's

[00:47:35] a that's a great slowdown and again it's also very much event driven large storms change everything they could remove a lot of sediment from the lake and they could deposit a lot of sediment from the lake so I think it's it's very difficult to predict what I think I will say we have thought about it a bit internally and i think that you what you can do with a a managed wetland is you can be more intentional you can engineer and look at ways to direct that sediment so that you can have a desired outcome or predictable outcome so that's if that's helpful but we can't predict how it will look if left yeah we know that hurricane agnes in 1972 took out lake barcroft there was

[00:48:14] no lake. It disappeared. And so a lot of work went back into, but that's a private lake. That's not a county facility. One last request, I guess I would suggest, and I've seen this done in other environmental situations, and it might be sort of helpful as one of the aspects, is if you take something like LIDAR and do a sort of over time to demonstrate how the park and the lake area

[00:48:47] would look with these changes. Sometimes it's helpful to see that because so often we look at the aerial view. The aerial view doesn't give us the up-close and personal view. And I think there's LIDAR and probably newer technologies now that would be able to give us that kind of 3D look. So that would be a suggestion that you might want to consider. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[00:49:15] Thank you, Supervisor Gross. I have Supervisor Alcorn, then Supervisor Herod. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Quick technical question. I think I know the answer to this, but I need to ask. Stream restoration and stream channel restoration, are those the same things?

[00:49:33] Yes, sir. So basically, there is the potential to do stabilization, which in the old days, you basically armored it. You created riprap and better ways to move that stormwater away. What we try to do now in the restoration is mimic natural processes better so that it conveys the water and also allows vegetation to regrow and hopefully over time returns biology to the stream itself.

[00:49:56] Yeah, that's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure because I heard the two different terms used, and I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything I didn't understand there. I was on the Park Authority Board when this came up, at least the most recent iteration of dredging came up. I believe it was 2017.

[00:50:12] And I remember there was a lot of discussion back then about it. There was, at the time, we were talking about TMDLs for Chess Bay. And so that was obviously different. I definitely remember it seemed like a lot of money then, but it was a lot less money than what we're talking about today.

[00:50:31] The other thing that I remember was it was a close call environmentally then because of the disruption associated with dredging. Obviously, for continued use of the lake as it is, that was pretty clear, the outcome.

[00:50:48] But the impacts of dredging and the disposal of the dredge material and, you know, the transportation and all that, I remember there was an open discussion about that. But the other thing that I, you know, and this is kind of where we got as a park authority board back then, was because of the dollar amounts involved, we basically bumped it upstairs to the board of supervisors.

[00:51:13] It's like, you know, this is, I mean, that was the thinking. You know, we don't set the tax rate on the Park Authority Board, and this is something really that the county board overall needed to deal with. So, of course, now I'm on this board. I can't escape it anymore, but nowhere else to punt this one to, I guess.

[00:51:35] But I am, you know, I'm okay waiting, you know, and seeing, you know, what a task force can come up with. But I have to say, I'm very sympathetic to the staff recommendation. And if I had to vote today, I would vote with staff. This is an awful lot of money, and particularly for a countywide tax that supports it in the proportion that this would require. And, you know, the chairman said But the one that really gets me is the annual costs, the recurring annual costs.

[00:52:10] It'll just be really tough. So, again, I look forward to seeing how this plays out, but I didn't want anybody to think anything different. So I appreciate what staff is doing and continuing to work with the community on this. So thank you.

[00:52:25] Thank you, Supervisor Alcorn, Supervisor Herdy, and then Supervisor Smith. So I believe after redistricting, I don't have any piece of Lake Akatink anymore. You mentioned Springfield District of Buttsit, but I don't think that doesn't mean that it's not near and dear to my heart.

[00:52:42] It is in a lot of my residents. It certainly is. I actually grew up, my first childhood home was on Hanover Avenue right down the street from the lake, and we spent a lot of time there. We still have a lot of good memories. The 80% is no surprise to me.

[00:52:58] Burke Lake Park is our most visited park, and the biggest reason people come there is the loop trail around the lake. People like to walk trails around water. I mean, that's just the way it is. And I think that's why you're finding this is even harder.

[00:53:16] Just a couple of questions and thoughts, and I made notes as I was going through the slides. It says the park was visited by over 250,000 people per year. I went back and looked at 2019, it said 300,000 people per year. We had a, I mean, I would think during post-pandemic it'd be higher, not lower.

[00:53:38] Our pandemic levels for trails were absolutely astronomical and out of the roof. That does not surprise me at all. There's a reason why the CDC, when they closed everything down and said to stay home, they came back two days later and said, except for trails, keep trails open. So that does not surprise me.

[00:53:54] No, but it said it was 300,000 in 2019 and it says 250,000 now. That's a drop. That doesn't seem right to me. I'll just suggest that I will acknowledge that our number, I didn't recheck that number with the park authority.

[00:54:11] I do acknowledge that there's a note in one of the website sections that that number is much higher than $250,000. So that was a number that was counted at one point, but I acknowledge I'll defer to the park authority in terms of trying to estimate what that number is.

[00:54:26] I'll also add that Lake Akatink, like a little different than Burke Lake, has so many entrances. And so the number of counting by cars and people coming in the front is going to vastly underestimate the amount of people coming in from the neighborhoods and the other trips. I know all about that from both parks because they come through our neighborhoods and they park in our neighborhoods, and some of our neighbors don't like it.

[00:54:49] So we do hear that quite a bit. Like I said, I was comparing this to what we did back in 2019. Our project goals in 2019 included stormwater management, and they seem to have been dropped from this slide. Is there a reason we dropped stormwater management?

[00:55:07] Yes, sir. So staff looked at that on the stormwater side, Our specific recommendation to our director at that time was this is not a stormwater facility. It can't be managed in a sustainable way to meet appreciable stormwater goals. It doesn't have a detention capability.

[00:55:24] It's a pass-through lake, so every time it rains, it doesn't really hold back any water, so it doesn't reduce the actual flow. It also doesn't remove enough sediment to be effective to clean water quality in a meaningful way, as is generally calculated through stormwater facility management.

[00:55:40] So we recommended that this not be a stormwater facility internally, and I know that the goals that we were working with that we outlined just at the start of the project was the 8-foot depth and establishing the maintenance program for recreational study purposes.

[00:55:57] Okay, and the 8-foot depth comes from where? It came from the original study done by WSSI. When we were looking at a water body that could be sustainable for fishing, for boating, to have some clarity to it because the shallower it is the more turbid it is it stays muddy so by creating some depth it's able to clear up between storm events so the thought was if we hit eight feet that would be enough to give us a buffer between dredge cycles as well as to provide between those dredge cycles somewhat that a better water quality uh an aesthetic environment was that

[00:56:36] Was that the same depth in 2019, or did that change? No, it was all each time. So that's been consistent throughout. Yes. One slide four. Just looking at options and things, and hopefully the task force will take a look at some of these.

[00:56:56] The Conowingo Dam obviously has got the same issue that we do. I know they were able to, but they're hydroelectric, so it's different. but I know they were able to get EPA grants there. Have we approached our congressional delegation about federal grants, EPA grants, any of that kind of thing to help offset some of the costs?

[00:57:19] We have looked into the concept of grants. What we've discovered is that there are not grants for maintenance of stormwater facilities. There are grants for essentially dam removal and to do things that provide a long-term sustainable environmental benefit, but to maintain a stormwater facility, that's on the locality.

[00:57:38] So we are not aware of any funding source to do maintenance. Not even on park, but, I mean, again, Conowingo Dam did it. That was a dredging facility, but, again, it's a hydroelectric, so maybe it's different. But that wasn't a stormwater project either, and it wasn't a dam removal.

[00:57:56] There, I believe, I don't know the specifics, but it may be more related to the fact that it could be a water supply, whereas Lake Akating is not a water supply. So that is, there are a lot of federal funds available now for resiliency around water supply. I don't know for a fact.

[00:58:12] Okay. We probably should spend some time with our congressional folks just to see what they might have. Obviously, the first thing that came to my mind when you look at some of the pictures on chart four is Virginia Beach seems to be the pro, because although they don't have to dry it and haul it away, they just pump it from offshore back onto the beaches.

[00:58:35] But have we reached out to them at all to see what kinds of things they do? Well, we didn't look at Virginia Beach. Beach replenishment is interesting because that's moving material from one place to another, obviously, to create a recreational resource in that case and an economic resource.

[00:58:54] We looked at several beneficial reuse options. The primary two, one is discussing with Luck Ecosystems, which was one of the largest materials processing companies in the state of Virginia. And they have a very advanced soils processing capability and separation capability.

[00:59:09] They told us flat our quantities are too large. They couldn't keep up with the dredge material. You have to have such a large site and separate out what you would term a meaningful fraction, that portion of the material that could be repurposed into a soil product or something else.

[00:59:26] A second one was recommended by a resident, and it was with a company that makes building materials out of dredge spoils. They are headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. When we interviewed them, they looked at our sediment report. They said it's possible you could convert it to a building material, but they do not have any.

[00:59:43] They're trying to work in Baltimore, and they're trying to work in Norfolk, and they can't establish programs in either Baltimore or Norfolk yet. So those sites are still taking their dredge spoils and dumping them in the bay, and since the Baltimore create islands for wetlands, and Norfolk's looking for options because they used to do the same thing, create islands out of their dredge spoils, but they're having to seek alternatives because they're running out of space.

[01:00:05] So the bottom line is for that beneficial reuse, you'd have to barge it to Florida, and we were clear that there's no savings there. So we did look at that option. There's not a simple way to waste it or to repurpose it that we found that would save cost.

[01:00:23] Did we ever look at using the railroad spur? I was going to say that's because that's, again, transportation is a big piece of this. Yes, sir. So in that instance, looking again at the fact that we couldn't find a place to reuse it, the railroads generally are hauling a usable product, sand, gravel, coal, something that is going from a source to an end user.

[01:00:46] In order to haul it, you have to specialize cars. So we discussed, we had actually at the time as our consultant reached out to industry, and they were looking at the availability of cars, the size of sidings, and then you have to figure out where to take it because very few places will take essentially sludge.

[01:01:02] and be able to dump it at a siding where it has to then be picked up and moved somewhere else to be deposited. So we couldn't find any place to take the spoils. So we felt that rail was not a viable option because the difficulty of the loading process, the hauling process, and disposal, we couldn't see any economic benefit in terms of our viability with that option.

[01:01:25] So that's not a good one. Correct, sir. I got it. Let's see what else I got here. Pass on that one. On the public survey, did we get any indication of how many people were concerned about, I mean, how many of the people that opposed the dredging were concerned about trucking through the neighborhoods? Because I see a bunch of other stuff. Did we ask about trucking?

[01:01:59] So the survey was an open response question. It was just how do you feel about it? And so then we coded using standard social science practices to look for what people were responding. We You noticed that about 4% of the 1,078 respondents indicated a concern about the hauling aspects.

[01:02:17] I would have thought it might have been, from what I'm hearing, I would have thought it would have been higher than 4%, but if it was open-ended and they didn't list it, they didn't list it. You know, we talk a lot about the cost of doing nothing.

[01:02:36] I think one of the things that I'm sure the task force is going to look at this is really the impact downstream. if we don't dredge the lake, and that's one of the key things that I've heard from people that have contacted my office is the cost of doing nothing, and I think we do need to look at that, and I don't, I'm not going to ask now, but I think that's something that clearly needs to be looked at.

[01:03:07] Timeline on decision? That's up to the board. Oh, okay. They're looking for input from us today. Number one, do we have enough information? Number two, is it dredge, no dredge, which was the original question?

[01:03:24] And so far, I'm not hearing people saying we should dredge. I'm also hearing a lot of other questions, which I think I know that the chairman and others have spoken about. So a further look at this that they're going to bring back to the board. So, Supervisor Herod, I don't want to interrupt. Nope, nope. I think that was kind of it.

[01:03:41] And I know it's a tough one. It's a real tough one. Thank you. Supervisor Smith, and then we'll have Supervisor Faust. I'll check. Thank you. You know, I appreciate all the questions because it's obvious the level of detail that you've taken to look into this and look into different options and different choices, and I think that's reassuring to hear that piece.

[01:04:04] I do have a question about, you talked about disposing of the sediment at a quarry. You know, it comes from the public. Are those materials safe? What do they do to groundwater? Can you just give me a high-level explanation of that? Well, since the quarry is in your district.

[01:04:21] That's why I'm asking the question. And you'll be happy to know the quarry is permitted by Fairfax County, not by DEQ and not by the EPA. So we held several meetings with luck. They have very specific criteria and levels. The levels in our analysis that we did with our extensive sediment sampling show that we, with all but one sample, which was a benzene hit, which we feel is somewhat of an anomaly, all but one sample were well within their criteria to be deposited in the quarry, a suitable fill.

[01:04:50] So based on that, you also have to do extensive testing during the dredging operation. So you have to test it while it's being dredged. And there's random sampling of different loads to make sure you're within the criteria. And they even reserve the right to sample as you drop it on the pad. So in each case, you have to meet their criteria in order to be able to be left at their site.

[01:05:10] In addition, you have to meet moisture parameters. If it's too wet, you have to pay more. So you have to dewater it more to keep your costs down while you're doing it, which takes a little bit longer. So there's a lot of parameters. But I think what we found was luck was not only their business model is very tight.

[01:05:25] They have very specific criteria and they have predictable rates. They also have great capacity. They could take 14 million cubic yards in the north cell alone so they could keep us in business with depositing dredge materials for probably 25 years before, and the south cell will be open by that time. So we felt that luck was the most reliable and lowest cost option and predictable, and yes, we met their criteria.

[01:05:46] Okay. I'm happy to hear that. But with all that being said, the cost is prohibitive, you know, and I understand, you know, the process and the expectations and, you know, when the community has a resource they want to keep it, but I think the cost is prohibitive.

[01:06:04] I think it is going to be beneficial to have a task force to look at this, to look at what options are, because people need to know what to expect, but I appreciate the work, and I do think that the dredging is difficult because of the cost.

[01:06:19] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Professor Faust. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I'm glad the recommendation is to continue to look at this because I think it's absolutely a huge decision that we're being asked to make.

[01:06:39] And we kind of turned pretty dramatically from where we were over the years thinking how we could resolve this. So it's good. But, you know, I definitely see serious cost impacts, obviously.

[01:06:59] I think environmental impacts running 50,000 truck trips, did you say? Is that one way or two ways? So it's two ways because you have to bring the trucks in to pick up the load and bring the trucks out to drop the load.

[01:07:17] Right. Okay, so it's 25,000 times sales. No, sir, it's 50,000 in, 50,000 out. So we just counted a full round trip as one trip, but it's 50,000 and 50,000 out. Yeah, okay. That's a lot. The path of those trucks is, you know, interests me.

[01:07:45] I mean, I know I owned a home on a road where over three years, 100,000 trucks will pass back and forth, right? Is that what you're saying? I would like to know what that path is. I know it's not in my district, so I apologize for asking.

[01:08:02] But, you know, if there's 10,000 people impacted, that's different than if there's 20 people impacted. Yes, sir. We looked at that very extensively. We had two sites we considered viable, the Wakefield Park site and the Southern Drive site. Wakefield Park is in Braddock District on Braddock Road, and the Southern Drive is in the Franconia District off of Highland Street, which comes into the park and it comes off of Backlick and Cumberland.

[01:08:29] There was significant concern in the Franconian community. Springfield because it would have to come through neighborhoods. There was no way around it. The only way into that site was to drive through neighborhoods, and because you had to come in and come out on the same roads, 100,000 trips, so roughly 180 trips per day, and that community was very concerned about that potential truck traffic in that community, but it was a viable option from the perspective of it had the right area. It was an industrial park, so that was one site that we considered technically feasible, but there was definitely concern there. Now, on the Wakefield side the original concept that was being kind of promoted was you would come in and come out by the

[01:09:09] beltway if you wakefield park has one traffic light is a highly visited park has a rec center courts mountain biking it has farmer's market summer camps you name it it's going on we would essentially shut the park down for three years there's no way you could use that traffic light with 95 truck trips and actually again you have to double because that's to turn in and turn back out so it's 180 passes through the intersection uh you would basically shut the park down for three years so we felt as staff that's not viable instead we thought that in order to make it viable you would have to have a deceleration lane off of come off the beltway decelerate into a unique and

[01:09:47] isolated processing area trucks turn they load they go back out with an acceleration lane going west to go out to the fairfax county parkway up to 66 and out to centerville to the quarry Because you could not create, and you know, with the widening of Braddock Road that's going on now, Braddock Road has tremendous traffic, and it's currently, it's going to be widened in the near future.

[01:10:07] There's no way to create a second intersection with a traffic light. So we felt that the only way to maintain a traffic flow and minimize impacts and keep the park open would be to come off the Beltway again, turn in, turn out, and go west on Braddock. We realized that's also, again, a lot of trucks, but that was the only way we figured you could route them in a way to minimize impacts.

[01:10:27] Okay. $400 million over 20 years was the number you laid out, is that correct? Yes, sir. So roughly $95 million for the base dredge and escalating costs, $300 million for four recurring maintenance cycles of dredge.

[01:10:44] I mean, sometimes numbers are difficult to put in perspective, but basically, if I remember correctly, and Jay will correct me, particularly if I'm under or over, So it's $100 million every six years for the park authorities' bond currently?

[01:11:04] For the 2026 bond, it's $180 million. $180 million. Four years, $100 million for four years. So this 2020 bond was $100 million for four years. I'm just trying to put it in perspective. I mean, I know there'll be different funding sources, but this is almost equivalent to the entire park CIP budget over that 20-year period.

[01:11:30] And I do know that it wouldn't all necessarily, if any, would come out. Okay. Well, I think that that's my questions for today.

[01:11:45] But, you know, anxious to see where this thing goes and keep an open mind on it. Thank you, Supervisor Fowler. Supervisor Pouchek, and then we're going to go back to Supervisor Waukesha. I appreciate that.

[01:12:00] And I'll be brief. I think a lot has been shared, and clearly some of us are coming very late in the game to this. So number one, very much appreciate that there will be a task force looking at this. I think this is a complex issue. And we've talked about some of the impacts on the budget and the costs there.

[01:12:22] And probably because we studied wetlands my freshman year in high school, I'm here sitting and wondering-- I don't know the full history of this area, the creek. First of all, did this used to be a dry wetland, just a creek?

[01:12:38] Did we know what it was before? I think it's fairly typical. They picked a narrow point in the stream valley, they built a dam, and it's just a drowned riverine valley. Okay, I appreciate that. So a little bit different managed wetland versus one of the natural or we don't call them reconstructed, but saved, I guess, wetlands that we have out there.

[01:13:01] Yeah, I think for me, as long as we have that time, it seems like there's no need to make a faster decision. I think understanding the cost impacts and opportunities, both on the community, the natural impacts, I think we do.

[01:13:19] For me, it's really important that final line here saying supporting the needs, wildlife habitat and the park authority and the county policy. Because I think when we say parks, it's a big umbrella, right? When we say parks, it's anywhere from recreational facilities to our natural resources.

[01:13:38] And we know that we've done some good things and we've done some things that have hurt those natural resources. So I think being able to understand those, the impact on the community and both the costs and benefits to the natural resources and habitats, as well as the community and creative ideas for other ways to help ensure that the recreational components and the benefits to the community can be looked at, I think, are important.

[01:14:11] So, again, I appreciate that. I'm sorry, Supervisor Walkinshaw, that you've inherited this very challenging need to look at the future of this, I guess, lake and the Akatink. But I appreciate the work and your time and the chairman and Supervisor Lusk.

[01:14:32] I do think that it's not an easy one, but I do hope that we can find a way to address as many of the needs as possible. Thank you, Supervisor Pacek, Supervisor Walkinshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and just want to correct one thing because Mr. Smith said we're widening Braddock Road.

[01:14:50] We're not widening it. We do have an improvement project. You're trying to get me in more trouble. We do have a Braddock Road improvement project. And, you know, just to the truck issue, and Mr. Smith outlined the two possible routes, east or west on Braddock Road, both create challenges.

[01:15:11] Going west on Braddock Road does go through neighborhoods because there are people whose homes are on Braddock Road, and obviously the neighborhoods that border it. Going east creates the conflict with the park and with folks who are leaving Ravensworth Farm and other neighborhoods and crossing that already difficult intersection.

[01:15:31] So the trucks are an issue. That said, I think from Braddock District perspective, from my perspective, the trucks are not a deal breaker. I know if we move forward, there will be a high school gymnasium at some point full of hundreds of people angry at me about the trucks, but I think this project is worth doing.

[01:15:52] So the trucks are not a deal breaker from my perspective. And I want to just thank my colleagues for keeping an open mind and giving the task force the time to work through this and make sure we're presented with a full picture before a decision is made. And I want to highlight a couple of things for the colleagues.

[01:16:09] If you haven't already, please do go, and for the community, go onto the project website. There's an FAQ document there that's generated based on the questions, the common questions that have come in from the community and answers a lot of the key questions that folks have asked.

[01:16:26] We also appreciate staff being willing to post all of the comments that came in through the survey. So there's a 250-plus page PDF where you can see all the questions and comments that people gave, as well as the storyboard that gives the background.

[01:16:46] And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving us the time today. Thank you. Supervisor Wachshine, Mr. Chairman? Yeah, just real briefly, I want to also thank the board for understanding that there needs to be some time here given to this.

[01:17:01] The abrupt change of events that we all have experienced, I think most of us are still trying to wrap our heads around, and that's engendered a lot of other questions and a reasonable expectation to understand now that we know these facts, what are the options ahead of us now? Because to me, the question of dredge versus not dredge may be technically answered from the staff standpoint, but the question about what becomes of this park has been far from answered, and that's going to take some time.

[01:17:30] And I think, you know, the task force is absolutely essential to drilling down on what will become of this facility if we do not dredge it before we get to the point of discussing other amenities. And that's going to take some time. And I just want to point out that, you know, we bring forward a board matter to set up this task force that this will be a widely open, transparent process, that the task force meetings will be open to the general public.

[01:17:56] We expect this to be an ongoing dialogue, not a small group of people that go off in isolation and bring us another recommendation like we have here, but that this is, you know, a task force, but it'll also be engendering community dialogue and folks from the community will have ample opportunities to participate in that.

[01:18:16] And then last, but not least, of immediate concern, because I spent considerable time at Lake Act Inc. this weekend, and I know that in this year's budget, should it be passed, we're including funding to replace the playground out there.

[01:18:35] I was a little bit alarmed when I saw people using it. I know that it's closed. It's not safe. It's not properly roped off. And I'm worried about somebody getting hurt. Coincident to that, I know there's been some chatter about people now that the silt has piled up in the lake, people traversing out into the lake with maybe not a full understanding of the risks associated with that.

[01:19:02] So I would just say in the interim here, let's make sure we've addressed those liability and public information issues out there because I was seeing things over the weekend that I think we wouldn't want to necessarily be encouraging.

[01:19:19] And so anything we can do to spread the word that this is a public park, it's open to the public, we want the public to come to it, we want them to enjoy it. but immediately we need to make sure that nobody gets hurt out there and that we address those issues. J. Cole, safety is obviously our number one priority.

[01:19:36] We're going to change the fencing around there, and ASAP is what to get the elements removed so that there's not that hazard out there anymore. So we will get back to you and let you know when it's done at every step, both you and Supervisor Walken-Jones.

[01:19:52] Yeah, I appreciate that. And then lastly, you know, I'm anticipating this playground gets funded in this budget. Anything we can do to quickly expedite its replacement so that potentially maybe we don't have our kids that want to use this facility miss a whole other summer.

[01:20:08] Being able to use it, that would be appreciated as well. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And with that, I'm going to thank Director Vosper, Executive Director Cole, Coordinator Charles Smith, as well as our Director Harrington for being here and speaking.

[01:20:26] And I think we know kind of what the next steps are based on the conversation we've had today. And with that, I just want to let the folks know that we will not be having time to do the bamboo ordinance. But we are going to go immediately to the private stormwater management facility assistance program.

[01:20:43] So if we could clear quickly and bring the next group in, we have again until 3:30. I'm hoping that we can fully get this presentation in before 3:30. And then we have also I wanted to do just a very brief couple minute presentation or at least an identification of where we are with the Green Bank process.

[01:21:06] So with that, I know we have Chad Crawford here to present the local stormwater management assistance fund. We have several stormwater management programs. I really asked Chad to start with an overview of the different programs to identify the different programs through the slide deck that he's going to present.

[01:21:28] Hopefully, this will make it easier to understand all the different components, if you will, of our stormwater management program. And with that, if you're ready, Mr. Crawford. And I'll start. Good afternoon. This is Ellie Cotting, Deputy Director for Public Works.

[01:21:43] And we do have a five-minute version of this presentation if you want to try and keep the bamboo people. So Chad will proceed with the five minutes. I'm wary of doing that because there's so many different programs to this. So if you could maybe just let people read the slide and just highlight a couple pieces on them and then go through it that way.

[01:22:01] If people don't have the slides, they'll already have seen the slides because they would have gotten that ahead of time. And that will give us a chance to do both, speed up the presentation but still give folks a chance to hear any particular comments or issues that you wanted to make sure we understood. Good afternoon.

[01:22:19] I'm Chad Crawford. the director of maintenance and stormwater management division. We're here today to give you two updates and a recommendation for the creation of a stormwater fund. I will be brief and you can stop me at any time. These are the three programs we'll be discussing today.

[01:22:41] The first is the CAP VCAP program. I have slides on the ongoing private to public pilot and we have a recommendation that the board approve and move forward with the creation of a maintenance grant program. The CAP-VCAP program is an existing program, a cost-share program, where the project owner may receive financial and technical assistance to do water quality or energy efficiency retrofits. The Northern Virginia Soil Water Conservation District administers this program, and I understand it's going well. Thus, we're proposing that we model the proposed

[01:23:19] maintenance grant program after it. Private-to-public pilot, since 2017, we moved forward with the private to public program where we entered four different locations in the county into this program. Some privately maintained ponds can apply for county maintenance and these efforts are taking time. I have more slides on this. For the private to public program,

[01:23:55] the cost of rehabbing a facility is prorated based on the amount of area draining to the pond that's off-site and on-site for the community. I realize the text is small on this. The pilot status is shown on the slide. It encompasses four communities and since 2017, two are complete and two are incomplete. It's been complex. It's taken a lot of time and often required significant

[01:24:27] capital investment. Our next step with the private to public is to complete the transition for the two outstanding ponds to the county's maintenance program. Should the board want to continue this program, roughly 175 ponds might be eligible as currently envisioned. We estimate the total capital cost of all $175 coming into the county's maintenance to be $75 million just for the initial part. There would also be an increase in county operation maintenance cost, which is not shown, and there would be a need for additional staff to not only implement the program but to

[01:25:07] maintain the facilities once they're in the county maintenance. Slide number eight is the proposed maintenance grant. This slide outlines the proposed maintenance grant program as recommended. it. Giving you all a moment to read it. Are there any questions on this slide? I would say just keep

[01:25:40] continuing and we will at the end. Okay. I'm going to move forward to the next slide. As there was some interest in having a comparison, we provided a comparison of the three different programs that we discussed so far today. The VCAP program, the private to public maintenance transfer program, and the proposed maintenance grant program on this slide.

[01:26:02] It speaks for itself. Lastly, our recommendation at the board approves us to move forward with the proposed local stormwater management fund, or grant, as I've referred to it, with the creation of a local stormwater management fund under Appendix O of the county code, and to establish a private stormwater maintenance assistance grant program to implement it with initial funding proposed at $250,000.

[01:26:31] Okay. Thank you, Ms. Crawford. And we'll start with Supervisor Palachuk. Sure, thank you. And I know we're short on time. Really appreciate the presentation. And I have to say, though it doesn't seem this large that the Virginia Center Palm Project is beautiful, successful, I think it's been a great project, but I know that it's taken quite a bit of time and staff resources.

[01:26:58] So, you know, I think my only question is if we feel that we will get the same or better quality, For the grant program, I think looking at the amount of time that was spent on just one and it's still not finished, I think it makes sense to have more of the fund program.

[01:27:18] It does seem that the private to public transfer is quite onerous and maybe not, as we're talking about investments, the best use of our accounting investments. But I guess my only question is that is do we feel that we can get that similar quality? Your teams have done an excellent job there.

[01:27:38] Ellie Cotting, Deputy Director for Public Works. So they're entirely different because the maintenance grant program will allow private owners to take responsibility and do the maintenance in accordance with their desires, their community's desires, and then there would be a cost share on the maintenance side. Whereas, to your point, the county took on the project for a very large lake, so the majority of the facilities that would be eligible for this program are going to be smaller also.

[01:28:01] The smaller facilities, okay. Yeah, I'm comfortable with, I guess, today's quick meeting, getting more information, but I think we should definitely look at the cost share and the grant program. I would love more information as a follow-up. Thank you, Supervisor Pacek.

[01:28:17] I'm going to turn to the chairman, then I'll come back to Supervisor Gross. Yeah, I just wanted to be clear. The private to public pilot, obviously the grant program is separate from that, but the actual transfer then, are we saying we're abandoning that, or are we just saying that that has to be parked and considered separately from the grant program?

[01:28:41] Because I get the, I understand the grant piece on the shared maintenance, but I also know for the longest time we were talking about transferring some private ponds to the county in perpetuity should certain conditions be met. What is the status of that piece of it and how does it relate to what is being presented here? So the private to public program and the grant program are mutually exclusive. The private-to-public program is underway with two of the four projects completed. Two are outstanding, and there's still some homework the staff need to do to make a recommendation one way or the other. And so we propose to complete that pilot and come back to

[01:29:18] the board with our recommendation at some future date. And we don't know what the timeline is on that at this point. We're hopeful this next year that three of the four will be done. The third one is being queued up now for construction. The fourth one is still at the very beginning stages of it. We may wind up, depending on where the third one goes, cutting our losses on the fourth and come back without completing it. And they're uniquely different, though? I mean, in other words, if you didn't do the fourth one, you're still, you feel like you can gather enough information from the process for the first three of the pilot to make a recommendation to us whether or not we

[01:29:56] should proceed any further with that. I believe so. I believe there will be adequate information to make a recommendation. And just last question, are there ones in the queue, like for ones that have come up since our pilot began, are we keeping a running list of interest across the county in this program? Yes, yes. Do we have any idea what that order of magnitude is, how many might be in the queue? I'm estimating at this time less than a dozen. Okay. I can get you an actual number, though. I think just an update to us with, and understand, you know, especially once you make the decision about the fourth or not because this particular you know private to public program we've

[01:30:35] been talking about a lot of years and we've got to you know we really and i understand why this is important to look at and and to understand all the pros and cons of it but at some point we've really got to either get serious about putting this program in place you know in other parts of the county or if the recommendation is for whatever reason we shouldn't continue to do it We need to understand that probably sooner rather than later.

[01:30:59] That notwithstanding, I mean, I certainly fully support the budget amount that's in here for the grant program because I think that is a different target audience, and we want to get both audiences accommodated. But the private-to-public one is one that we really probably just need to bring to a close so that we know what we're doing moving forward sooner rather than later.

[01:31:20] So I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Supervisor Gross and then Supervisor Musk. Thank you. And where is the money coming from on this? Is this from our stormwater? This would be from the stormwater tax, yes. We already have hundreds of millions of dollars of uncompleted needs, so you think that this would, I guess it's $250,000 is the initial.

[01:31:53] I'm concerned about, you know, the fact that we've got a lot of, everybody is paying the stormwater fee, which took us, golly, I think nine years to even implement a stormwater fee. And so I'm really concerned about how this is going to be used because we have so many projects that are not these.

[01:32:15] So I think we need a little bit more information. Maybe we could get that list again of all the projects that we would like to see done under the stormwater fee. But one of the groups I want to make sure, this is open to houses of worship. Houses of worship generally are tax exempt, but I believe they do pay the stormwater fee. Is that correct? Houses of worship do not pay into the stormwater fee. They do not pay into the stormwater fee. They do not pay taxes. And yet this program would be open to houses of worship

[01:32:52] who are now responsible for whatever they're doing themselves. This would allow them to access public funds. So the intention behind this program is it's a very limited situation where someone would be eligible for a maintenance grant, and we could certainly consider the fact of how much tax they pay as part of that framework.

[01:33:12] This is to help resolve some very sticky situations where you have maybe unclear maintenance obligation that allows us to get a facility back into working condition that is in private ownership. so it's really a niche area okay i just i i just wanted to point that out because there were a whole lot of there was a list of several and and the stormwater fee is not applied to every property in the county some are exempt um now many of these are hoas and they were approved the land use cases were but it would have been approved with the hoas assuming the responsibility for

[01:33:48] their stormwater detention. So from a legal standpoint, would they be abdicating their responsibilities or simply signing an agreement that gives those responsibilities to the county now? Are we talking about the maintenance grant, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. For the maintenance grant, there would be no change in responsibility and ownership. It just allows in these niche situations, very limited, it allows the responsible property owner to come into to come into compliance. All right. On the environmental side, I see some positives here. On the financial

[01:34:26] side, I'm not quite so sure. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Gross, Supervisor Austin, and Supervisor Smith. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll go quickly. I just want to thank the staff for the presentation. Thank you for the work on the grant program. I look forward to seeing that continue. But my questions are directly connected to those of the chairmen.

[01:34:47] And so I really want to see this private to public continue to move. As you are aware, Ellie, we've had a number of folks in our district who've been waiting kind of to hear, particularly Kingstown, Pinewood Lakes, to hear what the disposition is on these pilots so that we would know what's going to happen potentially with any future additional projects.

[01:35:10] So I think anything that can be done to expedite and get to a conclusion sooner is going to probably be better, and I did sort of hear your thought in terms of the first three projects, maybe having those be the template to determine if we can make a decision going forward.

[01:35:30] I personally would say I would support that, and then I would also agree that the fourth project, if we go forward, would be the first project in the new program, right? So then they're not necessarily being taken out, but they're just going to be decided, it'll be decided after we've made a decision on those other three.

[01:35:49] So I just think that this program is really important for us to finalize a response on, and we know that there are a number of communities that are waiting kind of patiently and anxiously to hear what we decide. So thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Lusk, and then Supervisor Smith, and then Supervisor Alcron.

[01:36:10] So I think it was a little confusing because we had different programs in here for me. So I want to focus on this grant program, And I was kind of wondering what the purpose is. Ellie, you started to talk about the purpose of this niche thing.

[01:36:27] But if you can kind of expand that a little bit and explain it to me. Because here's my assumption. We have water quality problems because some people aren't taking care of them, and we want to find a way to get them taken care of. But if you can go into a little more detail of how that would work.

[01:36:45] So we have some public maintenance of facilities, and then we have the majority of our facilities in the county are privately maintained and in most cases the private maintenance obligation is very clear in some cases i won't get into the details now but we can talk about specifics another time in some cases the the ownership has not been clear for one reason or another and so this small very small maintenance grant allows us to meet our ms4 permit obligations which we are held to bring non-compliant bmp facility owners into compliance And this allows us to have more of a carrot than a stick and to keep the county's interests in mind.

[01:37:23] So, for example, we propose that if an HOA had dissolved, which does happen, if an HOA had dissolved and there's no one left to take care of this facility, we would require that they reform and become current before we would allow them to be eligible for this grant program.

[01:37:39] So we have ways to entice them to take on the responsibility and to pay for a portion of it to get into our MS4 compliance requirements. And then once you get to this point where they're in compliance, is the expectation that they remain in compliance? Yes. It's a one-time eligibility.

[01:37:56] That explanation helps me with this a lot, and so I am open to us doing something because I think there is a greater benefit, but I agree it needs to be tight and the expectations need to be clear. Thank you, Professor Smith. Yes.

[01:38:12] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So just to follow up on Supervisor Smith's question. So the max that anybody could get in this grant would be $7,000. Is that correct? So you're asking for $250,000 or suggesting that.

[01:38:28] So that means we're looking at how many potential awardees, 300-some? Is that right? If you do the math, that equates to no more than 30 a year. Okay, 30, sorry. Missed a zero in there. So the idea for this is a pilot, or is this something that would be recurring?

[01:38:51] Are we just trying to figure out how we would do it? We're proposing this as an ongoing program. And again, I put it up on the slide number eight. The criteria is the facility needs to be non-functional, Ellie touched on it, and has to have no private maintenance agreement, be defunct, or has some kind of design or construction issue that is unresolved and is creating this hardship non-compliance.

[01:39:17] It's not to reward bad actors. It's a very limited pool of candidates that would be eligible for this. I think 30 is probably going to be a high number, to be honest. Yeah, I was going to ask if we really think 30 is, I mean, $7,000 doesn't go very far.

[01:39:35] I mean, you know, per site, right? I mean, that's, but you think there would be projects out there that this could really help. Okay, okay. I do want to thank the chairman for his comments on the other program, the private to public, because, yeah, I am interested in sort of seeing where that goes and being open to maybe new approaches for that.

[01:39:59] The one thing I do want to just bring to the board's attention, this is actually, even though he stepped out of the realm, a legislative issue. As the board's aware, I did serve on a statewide working group, Structural Integrity for Common Interest Communities structures.

[01:40:16] And although it was set up with the idea of basically trying to prevent another Florida disaster, there was a lot of discussion during the working group about things, structures like this that are owned by homeowners associations. So we'll have to see where that ends up in the legislative process.

[01:40:35] But one of the big areas of discussion was making sure that reserves were truly calculated and then budgeted in finance. So this is a good example of how even when we say everything is private, it's your responsibility, at the end of the day, if things fall apart, they somehow wind up in our lap.

[01:41:00] So I think I just want to flag that so when we get to legislative discussions, that might be something we want to weigh in on depending upon how the legislation looks. So thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. And I wanted to have these programs together because I think, at least for me, there's multiple ways that we've tried to approach stormwater management.

[01:41:23] And this is kind of the latest recommendation. And so from this, they're looking, staff is looking for, number one, is there a concurrence to move forward? create a local stormwater management fund and establish a private stormwater management facility assistance grant program so i think i'm not it's not clear to me i i think obviously there's interest to move something forward but i know that part of that is we have these other two options so i think my sense is that we should move forward with this and i haven't heard anybody shake their head the other way but i also know that there's expectations that we need to address some of the

[01:42:00] the private to public pilot and see because there's some heavier lifts out there that we may need to do in addition to the grant programs. I'm seeing head nods on that. So with that, then I'm going to say that's our guidance. And we will then move on to the final item.

[01:42:19] And so thank you very much, Ms. Conning, Ms. Crawford. And we will have just the last comment is if we get John Morell up here just to give us a brief update on the Green Bank, that'd be Great, Sean.

[01:42:47] Good afternoon, Supervisor Stork, members of the Board of Supervisors. I'm John Morrill, Acting Director of the Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination. Happy to say that we continue to work, staff continue to work with all deliberate speed toward the establishment of a green bank for Fairfax County.

[01:43:08] We continue to be in touch with stakeholders as well as with colleagues in the office of the county attorney toward an ordinance for the Green Bank. Given the complexity of the issue and that this is the first in the state, the county attorney's office is engaging external counsel to assist with this.

[01:43:32] We still aim to advertise an ordinance in late June for consideration in July. And the expectation, based on the timeline, that we would be actually providing our first loan sometime in late 2023, early 2024?

[01:43:54] Is that still the basic timeframe that we're on? I think that's reasonable. Much depends on the market. And part of what a Green Bank does is to, you know, there's some market development and promotion of the availability of things.

[01:44:11] But between the attention that the federal government is putting toward this effort and General County, the outreach we've done so far, I'm optimistic. Thank you. Any questions on that?

[01:44:27] Yes, Mr. Chairman. Just, I think, I know the answer to this from last time, but I just want to confirm it again. that the program that we're working on would not preclude us from down the road, potentially participating in a larger regional green bank of some type.

[01:44:44] In other words, we're moving forward with what we can and should do now, but we're not precluding that option as a future potential thing we could do down the road. You are correct in that the goal is to stand it up as a Fairfax entity, first and foremost, but understanding the size of the market expansion to include regional partners.

[01:45:10] But I think that is one of the things that we want to thread the needle carefully with the ordinance. And that's what I want to make sure of, is that we're not going to be in a situation if that were to come to fruition of starting over. I mean, we're starting our own program because we can do it independently.

[01:45:28] We want to. Time is of the essence. But I just want to make sure we're mindful of this could potentially, down the road, grow into something larger. And we just don't want to tie our hands so tight that then we can't get out. So I just want to make sure that's on the horizon.

[01:45:44] Thank you, Chairman McCabe, for that question. Yes, we've been working with other local and regional entities to ensure that when we create this program, there could be a potential for them to also work with us to move forward. So you have that.

[01:46:01] And if there's a bigger one that's maybe set up by the federal government, we will still be able to do that. But right now I'm looking at, I've been working with a couple of CAOs because they're waiting for this to come out so they can attach on to it. Good. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you all.

[01:46:17] Any last questions? If not, this environmental committee is adjourned. Excellent.

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