Over the last several weeks Mr. Charles Smith, Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services (DPWES), kindly answered a series of questions concerning the Lake Accotink dredging project currently in consideration by Fairfax County.  Mr. Smith responded to questions on two occasions, 25 February 2022 and 22 March 2022.

Below, please find the list of questions that were posed by the Springfield Citizen Association (SCA) and Mr. Smith’s responses.

Contact information for Mr. Smith is provided at the end of the string.

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(25 February 2022)

1. Has the County received any indication from the owner of the Southern Drive location to sell the five-acre parcel?  Has the County asked the question?

• County staff have reached out to the owner of the vacant parcel on Southern Drive as well as the adjacent parcel to the east where we show potentially using part of an underutilized parking lot to allow truck staging onsite.
• The owner of the vacant parcel has not provided a response. However, the property has severe development restrictions due to the presence of resource protection area and floodplain easement for the piped stream that make much of it unusable for most types of development without special exceptions. It appears this is why this parcel was never developed. If the Southern Drive site were selected, we would begin negotiations with the vacant parcel’s owner as part of the next phase.
• The owner of the parcel to the east of the vacant parcel indicated to county staff a willingness to potentially develop a long-term lease arrangement to use underutilized portions of their property during dredge operations.

2. Where on Southern Drive would the dump trucks be staged day-after-day?

• Dump trucks would stage within the project work area.

3. How many dump trucks would be involved in the shuttle between the de-watering site and the quarry?

• We do not know how many trucks would be involved in the operation. That would be the construction contractor’s responsibility to secure sufficient trucking capacity to sustain the dredging operations.

4. If there are 96 outbound truck trips per day, what is the estimate of work days in a calendar year?  As a rank amateur at this I estimated 200 working days after subtracting weekends, holidays, bad weather, etc.  My math says over 19,000 outbound trips in one year.  Is my estimate way off?  Are the County’s estimates for work days far fewer?  Highland Street, Accotink Park Road and Southern Drive would do double duty at over 38,000 trips in a year by my math.  Can that possibly be right?

• The goal of the dredging would be to remove approximately 500,000 cubic yards of material from Lake Accotink during the base dredge. A typical dump truck holds about 10 cubic yards of material. This would equate to 50,000 loads over a three year period, or 100,000 total truck trips (combined incoming and outgoing) on Southern Drive, Accotink Park Road and Highland Street over approximately 3 years.

5. We have engaged with our State Delegate, Ms. Watts, whom I’ve copied on this e-mail, on who would bear the burden of road maintenance, i.e., the State or the County.  Ms. Watts informed us that the cost of such regular repairs to streets not designed for heavy truck traffic may well fall on the Fairfax County Department of Transportation; at the very least it remains an open question.  Over the course of three years in the first-dredge iteration and many subsequent dredge iterations those maintenance costs become onerous, to say the least.  Have you or your Staff confirmed who will pay the cost of road maintenance in the near and long term?  Will those costs be factored into the decision between Wakefield and Southern Drive?

• We have not had any discussions concerning road maintenance at this time. We work closely with the Virginia Department of Transportation on all county construction projects to comply with state law. This project will be required to adhere to state requirements.

6. We are also highly skeptical that truck traffic would exclusively use Highland Street for egress.  We say this because today trucks exiting the industrial park do turn right onto Hanover Avenue and proceed to Old Keene Mill Road to avoid the Highland – Amherst intersection traffic light.  How could the County preclude such an evolution of truck-traffic flow?  Any policy would have to be strictly enforced to avoid further uproar from parents with school-age children attending Crestwood Elementary on Hanover.  Furthermore, the negative impact to the number of residential properties would climb egregiously given Hanover Avenue cuts through the heart of the Crestwood Community.

• It is common to place restrictions on truck routes within plans approved by the county and state as well as within construction contracts. Those restrictions are enforceable through project permits and via contract management.

7. Has your Team also factored in the contrasted transportation costs from the Wakefield and the Southern Drive options?  I did a rudimentary Google Map distance measure for each.  I took the shortest distance in miles and time according to that tool.  Wakefield was about 5 miles shorter and about 7 minutes less than Southern Drive.  Though distance would be a constant, as we all know time on the road is subject to the whims of regional traffic.  My point is, Wakefield would save approximately 10 miles per round trip covering many thousands of trips over the years.  How much time would be anyone’s guess depending on circumstances and impossible to predict.  Will those calculated costs be included in the Staff recommendation to the Board of Supervisors?

• Arcadis staff has taken into account the distance to truck materials as part of their analysis. This is a factor used to evaluate potential sites.

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(22 March 2022)     

1. Is the County continuing to pursue its purchase from the private owner or is that process now in limbo? (Is the County also continuing to negotiate leasing more space in the industrial park?)

• Charles Smith:  We are not pursuing any land acquisition or leasing. If land rights are needed for whichever option is chosen, we would pursue them after we had settled on the location for the dredge spoils processing and pipeline, and we do not have any direction for that effort at this time.

2. As for Wakefield’s wooded parcel, once the main dredge project were to be completed, how much land would be needed for the following mini-dredges?  My thinking being that the mini-dredges would not need so much land and replanting could be commenced on a majority of those seven acres.

• We would need the same amount of land for each maintenance dredge as for the base dredge. The rate of processing for the maintenance dredging would be the same, but the duration would be shorter. The reason for this is that if you drag out the time, the lake keeps filling in, so you lose efficiency by going at a slower pace.

3. as there been progress made on refining the costs for the dredge pipelines to either site?  If so, may we know the cost estimates?

• In terms of pipe line cost, there is great potential variability based on length of the pipeline (cost per linear foot), the elevation changes (both length and elevation changes greatly influence the number of booster pumps necessary to move the slurry of water and sediment), and land acquisition costs for right of way on private lands. It appears that for the two pipeline routes for the Southern Drive alternative, the a pipeline may run between $2 to $2.5 million dollars (ductile iron pipe with an estimated 60 year life). For the Wakefield Park Maintenance Area depending on the route, a pipeline could run between $4.5 to over $7.5 million. The good thing about the pipeline is that it is a one time investment since a permanent pipeline could be used over numerous dredge cycles so the relative cost over the life of the program is low.

4. As an added comment, given that Audrey Moore Recreation Center is due for a major refit, if not razing and rebuild (https://annandaletoday.com/report-recommends-audrey-moore-recenter/?swcfpc=1), the coordination of the dredge project at Lake Accotink and the Audrey Moore renovation at Wakefield would limit disruption to residents.  Admittedly, it is a seasonal softball hub, but truck traffic from the dredge would not pass the fields.  Of course, construction traffic at the recreation center will.  The DPWES has a lot on its plate.

• I am aware of planning efforts being underway for the renovation of Audrey Moore RECenter. If the Wakefield Park Maintenance Area is selected, we are uncertain how we would route trucks in and out of the site. The two options are 1) use the park entrance at the traffic light on and off of Braddock Rd which would put all of the trucks mixing with park traffic for a short distance and the primary issue may be stacking at the light while exiting the park; or 2) a dedicated separate access off of Braddock Road with right turn into and out of the site only (no traffic light). Traffic will be a primary consideration regardless of which site is chosen.

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Charles Smith, Chief (Charles.Smith@fairfaxcounty.gov)

Watershed Projects Implementation Branch – Central

Stormwater Planning Division

Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services

12000 Government Center Parkway Suite 449

Fairfax, VA  22035

Office: 703-324-2467

Cell: 571-206-2693

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpwes/stormwater/