Flooding, power outages, and other impacts from storms are among the top climate change-related concerns for Fairfax County residents, the recently released results of a county survey suggest.

606 community members participated in the survey that the Fairfax County Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination (OEEC) conducted between June 8 and July 2 as part of its Resilient Fairfax initiative, which will produce a plan for how the county can withstand and adapt to the threats introduced by a warming planet.

81% of respondents cited severe storms as a concern, followed by changing temperatures (79%) and flooding (60%), according to the survey results report published on Nov. 8.

55% of respondents said they’re concerned about drought, 40% about fire risks, and 19% listed other climate hazards, including air quality and pollution, health effects, and the impact on plants and animals.

While the survey drew responses from just a fraction of the 1.1 million people who live in Fairfax County, the results still offer insight into the community’s awareness of the risks posed by climate change — and how they are already affecting people’s lives, county staff say.

“It helps us gather information that’s not available through quantitative data that we have,” OEEC Senior Planner Allison Homer said. “People’s opinions or people’s concerns, that’s not something we have access to without asking.”

Flooding

24.6% of the Fairfax County residents who answered the survey said their neighborhood has flooded within the past five years, with 9.8% of residents saying it has affected their home.

Of the respondents who work in the county, 24.8% said they have experienced flooding at their place of employment. 67.1% of respondents said they have witnessed flooding in the county outside their home or work, such as on roads.

The survey identifies Hunter Mill Road, Richmond Highway, George Washington Memorial Parkway, Prosperity Avenue, Huntington Avenue, and Little River Turnpike among the areas most vulnerable to flooding, though Homer says the evenly distributed flood map in the report doesn’t fully align with the county’s data.

“I think it’s sort of biased towards the areas where people lived that are taking the survey,” she said. “Our most flood-prone roads in reality are mostly concentrated towards the eastern part of the county.”

Flood risks tend to be higher in areas with older infrastructure, according to OEEC Division Manager Matt Meyers, citing the Great Falls area as an example.

“Those were country road when they were first built, but now, they’re surrounded by urban development, so those road culverts were not designed to today’s standards,” Meyers said. “They’re already inadequate, and then, when we have these intense rainfalls, they’re just overwhelmed.”

Power Outages

A sizable 80.7% of survey respondents reported experiencing storm damage other than flooding — such as power outages, damage to infrastructure and buildings, and downed trees — in their neighborhood within the past five years.

In particular, 94% of respondents said they have lost power in that time frame. While 46% said they were not significantly affected by a power outage, many reported notable ramifications:

• Loss of ability to communicate by phone or online (57%)
• Spoiled food (28%)
• Unable to stay inside because their home became too hot or cold (28%)
• Loss of refrigerated medications (2%)
• Operational issues with a life-supporting medical device (2%)
• Other impacts, mostly related to using a generator for power (7%)

Many of the areas cited as vulnerable were the same ones seen as susceptible to flooding, including Richmond Highway, Hunter Mill Road, Lawyers Road, Old Dominion Drive, and Prosperity Avenue.

The fragility of the power grid is an issue nationwide, as illustrated by extreme weather from a winter storm in Texas to this summer’s Pacific Northwest heat wave.

Homer says the county government can help reinforce Fairfax County’s power system by investing in backup generators, for example, but many changes, like moving power lines underground, will require cooperation from the state and utilty companies, which are involved in Reslient Fairfax as part of its Infrastructure Advisory Group.

“Renewable energy like solar installations can help enhance resilience if they’re paired with storage,” Homer said. “…But there are some limitations in Virginia as far as [how] we can use that solar plus storage, so we’re trying to see how much we can do that’s within our power to do.”

The Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan

The survey is just one part of the Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan that OEEC expects to finalize for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors’ approval in June 2022.

In the coming months, county staff will release a climate projections report forecasting temperatures, precipitation levels, and other future conditions. They’re also developing a vulnerability and risk assessment that will incorporate feedback from the survey and an audit of the county’s existing policies and programs to determine where updates might be needed.

The final piece of the initiative will be a roadmap for how the county can implement its strategies for climate resilience.

Since launching in April, Resilient Fairfax has held two public meetings, and Homer says another community survey is planned for January. There will be a public comment period after a draft of the resilience plan is released in April.

The initiative works with the Community-wide Energy and Climate Action Plan that the Board of Supervisors adopted in September, which recommends steps for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the Resilient Fairfax team’s goals is to identify strategies that can address both the causes and effects of climate change.

“Resilient Fairfax is acknowledging that we’re already facing impacts from climate change,” Homer said. “We’re already facing more severe storms and flooding and heat, so while we’re all working to reduce our emissions, we also need to make sure that we’re prepared for the impacts at the same time.”

Here’s a nod to your sweet tooth: A new gourmet cookie chain that has taken social media by storm is coming to Reston.

Crumbl Cookies, a gourmet cookie chain, plans to open a location at 11686 Plaza America Drive, a county permit shows. It appears to be the location occupied by Sprint.

The Reston location is expected to open on Jan. 14, a company spokesperson tells Reston Now.

Two Utah cousins started the company in 2017. Since then, the company has slingshotted across the country with more than 263 locations in 36 states.

Cookies are made from scratch in the store and delivered or sold in the store. Customers have 60 different flavors to choose from, but flavors are available only on a rotating basis every week.

Cousins Jason McGowan and Sawyer Hemsley hoped to create a business that would allow customers to see their cookies being mixed, balled, baked and dressed in real-time.  Cookies are packaged in a pink box that has become iconic on social media.

Photo via Crumbl Cookies/Facebook

Fairfax County will phase out the use of gas-powered leaf blowers in county operations.

Gas-powered leaf blowers are too noisy, dirty, and do not adhere to the newly-adopted Community-wide Energy and Climate Action Plan, according to several county supervisors. Instead, officials are recommending the use of electric equipment, along with leaf and grasscycling.

Braddock District Supervisor James Walkinshaw presented a joint board matter directing county staff to develop a plan for ending gas-powered leaf blower purchases at last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting. The board approved the matter by a vote of 9-1 with Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity dissenting.

“The use of gas-powered leaf blowers presents a number of problems,” said Walkinshaw at the meeting. “Most prominently, their extreme and pentertraing noise levels and the highly toxic emissions from the out of date two stroke engines.”

Walkinshaw noted that the blowers operate at a noise level that could potentially cause hearing damage. He also mentioned that they are inefficient in terms of its output and emit 23 times the amount of carbon dioxide as a Ford pickup truck.

The board matter additionally calls for contractors that work for the county to begin transitioning away from this type of equipment, encouraged by incentives from the county.

“By taking an incentive-based approach to our procurement policies, we can jumpstart the transition from dirty and noisy gas-powered blowers,” wrote Walkinshaw in a statement. “This initiative sends a strong signal to landscaping contractors that now is the time to invest in cleaner equipment.”

However, specific incentives were not discussed and will be established “when staff reports back,” a spokesperson from Walkinshaw’s office wrote to FFXnow in an email.

As of yet, there’s no deadline established for the phase out.

During the meeting, Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn noted that the county currently owns 133 gas-powered leaf blowers.

However, that number doesn’t include ones used by contractors who work for the county, a spokesperson from Walkinshaw’s office confirmed.

Alcron said he still hoped that this idea of banning gas blowers would be also adopted by the Virginia General Assembly, but stated that the county’s adoption was “clearly a step in the right direction.”

McKay acknowledged converting to an entirely electric fleet of blowers could be very expensive for some contractors, but hopes that the county phasing out this type of equipment is “leading by example.”

A cost estimate for phasing out this equipment isn’t available yet, but it’s expected to be minimal, according to Walkinshaw’s office.

Photo via Cbaile19/Wikimedia Commons

More than 16% of children in the Fairfax Health District have gotten a COVID-19 vaccine dose since the shots became available to them on Nov. 3.

As of today (Monday), 17,578 of the district’s over 108,000 residents between the ages of 5 and 11 have received their first dose of the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech regimen, according to the Fairfax County Health Department’s vaccine data dashboard.

After formally kicking off its pediatric vaccine rollout with first lady Jill Biden last week, FCHD announced on Thursday (Nov. 11) that it will host a series of vaccine clinics specifically for this age group at nine public elementary schools starting tomorrow (Tuesday).

According to the county health department, it is working on the 19 scheduled school-based clinics with Fairfax County Public Schools, the Virginia Department of Health, Giant Pharmacy, and Ashbritt/IEM, the same contractor partnership that operates the mass vaccination site at Tysons Corner Center.

“Capacity at each clinic is expected to be 150 doses,” FCHD spokesperson Lucy Caldwell said by email. “In the event supply is exhausted at a particular event, our staff will assist families onsite to make an appointment at a nearby vaccine provider.”

For now, the clinics will all take place after school hours or on the weekend, though FCPS officials have said they plan to eventually make vaccinations available when students are in school as well, likely after their winter break.

Unlike at the county’s mass vaccination sites, which have temporarily suspended walk-ins, appointments are not needed for the school clinics, but children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

According to Caldwell, the schools that will host the clinics were chosen by FCPS and county health department staff based on data showing areas with “higher rates of COVID-19 illness but less access to sites offering vaccine for children ages 5-11.”

However, every clinic is open to all children regardless of whether they attend that particular school.

Vaccinations for all ages can still be scheduled at health department sites, Inova, private healthcare providers, and various community sites like grocery stores and pharmacies through vaccines.gov.

Overall, at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose has been administered to 855,751 residents of the Fairfax Health District, which includes the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church. That amounts to 72.3% of all residents, including 83.7% of people aged 18 and older.

762,954 residents, or 64.5% of the population, are now fully vaccinated, including 76.4% of adults.

While vaccinations have helped reduce the pandemic’s threat, they haven’t extinguished it entirely.

After dropping to 58.7 cases last Wednesday (Nov. 10), the lowest point since July 24, when the Delta variant first took hold, Fairfax County’s weekly average has ticked up over the past few days and now sits at 77.1 cases per day, according to VDH data.

With 93 new cases today, the Fairfax Health District has reported 94,770 COVID-19 cases total. 4,390 residents have been hospitalized by the novel coronavirus, and 1,219 people have died.

While it’s too soon to tell whether the rise in cases is a blip or the start of another surge, past patterns and a resurgence of the virus in Europe have health experts reiterating the need to vaccinate as many people as possible, with the winter holidays and cold weather approaching.

A $5.5 million project to replace an aging pool at the Reston Community Center has earned another award for its environmental stewardship.

The Fairfax County Environmental Quality Advisory Council, an advisory group appointed by the Board of Supervisors, has recognized the Reston Community Center with its 2021 Environmental Excellence Awards. The awards recognize people, organizations and businesses who advance or support the county’s environmental efforts, go above and beyond their typical civic responsibilities and demonstrate leadership in the community.

The project involved the Terry L. Smith Aquatics Center. RCC previously noted the renovation “replaced a 40-year-old pool and its aging infrastructure with two new, state-of-the-art pools: a 25-yard lap pool and a warm water exercise pool.” It opened in January 2020 after a year of construction.

“This year’s awardees have done far more than just demonstrate their passion for environmental issues. They have changed the face of our community by giving their time, energy, and expertise during an exceptionally challenging year,” Stella Koch, chair of the Fairfax County Environmental Quality Advisory Council, said in a statement.

The awards, announced Nov. 9, noted the following for the pool project:

In 2020, the Reston Community Center (RCC) unveiled a completely renovated aquatics center, replacing the aging infrastructure of the original pool with two new pools and other physical improvements. This $5.5 million project incorporated a number of environmentally friendly features, consistent with RCC’s commitment to environmental stewardship. More than 177 tons of construction materials were recycled over the course of the project, natatorium-rated LED light fixtures were installed, and the HVAC and pool systems were replaced with more efficient equipment. 

Other awardees ranged from former Fairfax County Environmental Quality Advisory Council member Debra Ann Jacobson, who died in September 2021, to county workers including landscape architect Suzanne Foster and counselor/therapist Sarah King.

Details on their environmental leadership as well as records of previous winners from earlier years are available online.

Last month, the nonprofit Virginia Recreation and Park Society recognized the RCC renovation in its bricks and mortar awards category during an annual awards ceremony.

Fairfax County should minimize disruption as much as possible when adopting new electoral district maps, the chair of the county’s Redistricting Advisory Committee (RAC) said at a public hearing yesterday (Tuesday).

Paul Berry urged the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to make the least-disruptive changes possible, keeping each supervisor’s district — and who they represent — close to the same, while taking into account factors like population growth and equity.

“We strongly encourage the board to consider the concept of minimal disruption,” he said. “Minimal disruption is the idea that residents of a political geography have as much stability in their civic life as possible.”

With a condensed timeline due to the delayed release of 2020 Census data, the board-appointed RAC met 13 times between July 27 and Oct. 12 to develop recommendations for redrawing the boundaries that will determine local supervisor and school board districts for the next decade.

The committee ultimately released a report on Nov. 1 with 64 proposed reapportionment maps: 32 that maintain the county’s current nine-district setup, 25 with 10 districts, and seven with 11 districts.

Berry recommended keeping a 10-member county board with nine district seats and an at-large chair, the most common plan from both the public and RAC members.

The board agreed to adopt a redistricting plan on Dec. 7. The public hearing record has been left open, allowing written comments to be accepted until the vote.

Local Process Differs from State

Redistricting is legally required every 10 years in conjunction with each new Census to ensure electoral districts have proportional representation.

According to the 2020 Census, Fairfax County’s population grew 6%, from less than 1.082 million in 2010 to over 1.15 million in 2020, and it is now a minority-majority locality, with notable growth in its Asian and Hispanic populations.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay contrasted the county’s redistricting process with the one currently underway at the state level, where the new Virginia Redistricting Commission succumbed to the partisan gridlock it was intended to prevent.

The Commonwealth’s new General Assembly and congressional districts will now be drawn by the Virginia Supreme Court instead.

“This is a very different process than used in Richmond for redistricting,” McKay said. “I, in past lives, have served on a redistricting committee myself, as has [Hunter Mill District] Supervisor [Walter] Alcorn, and I can attest how open and transparent our process is and a model for how you do redistricting.”

Berry, a substitute teacher for Fairfax County Public Schools, said the effort was 100% citizen-led, drawing more proposals than any previous redistricting effort in the county. RAC members came up with 24 maps, and the public submitted 40, an increase from three in 2011.

Equity, Development Among Concerns

The residents and leaders of public-interest groups who spoke at yesterday’s public hearing were split on whether Fairfax County needs change or stability.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax Rev. David Miller urged supervisors to consider how the county could promote equity and inclusion.

He argued that Black and Latinx communities’ political power shouldn’t be diluted by breaking them apart, citing the country’s history of discriminatory practices like redlining, where financial services are denied to certain neighborhoods — usually ones that are predominately Black.

Several speakers called for a South County district to be formed, citing the changing character of the region.

“It might have worked okay for decades, but not now,” said Dale Rumberger, president of the South County Federation, an organization that represents residents and civic associations in southeastern Fairfax County.

He cited the increase in homes, shopping plazas, and schools. Looking back at his 31 years in the district, he said he couldn’t count how many new housing developments have emerged and continue to be built.

Meanwhile, others called for continuity:

• Katherine Ward, co-chair of the Mount Vernon Council of Citizens’ Associations, said there’s no need to change the current Mount Vernon District makeup at this time.
• Jon Kandel, president of the Montebello Condominiums Unit Owner Association, said it made no sense to move the housing development out of Mount Vernon.
• Vienna Mayor Linda Colbert asked for the town to remain in Hunter Mill District, saying its population and demographics are really not changing.

Resident Cathy Hosek said if any precinct is moved, homes with Springfield addresses should be considered first, noting that it can be confusing for residents who have that mailing address but aren’t in the Springfield District.

She also said supervisors should consider what equitable representation would look like. The RAC report noted that if all nine supervisor districts were equal in population size, each would have 127,874 residents.

After the Board of Supervisors votes on a new electoral district map, the plan will need to be certified by Virginia’s attorney general, which is expected to happen on Feb. 22, 2022.

Earlier in the day, the board agreed to reappoint the redistricting committee on Dec. 7 so it can examine the names of the county’s districts. Conversations about renaming Lee District are already underway, but Supervisor Rodney Lusk said no decision will be made until after the committee makes its recommendations.

Veterans Day, honoring all those who have served in the U.S. military forces, is Thursday (Nov. 11).

From banks to post offices and more, expect many services to be not operating to observe the holiday.

Libraries, courts and other swaths of county, state and federal services are affected, such as the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles.

Aside from banks, most businesses will be open. If you’re unsure, call ahead to check.

Meanwhile, Fairfax County Public Schools will have a two-hour early release.

Transportation

The Fairfax Connector will operate on a holiday weekday schedule, meaning some routes will offer their standard, weekday service, while others won’t operate at all.

The Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority Metrorail will continue with its reduced frequencies on the Silver Line amid its railcar investigation following a derailment in Arlington on Oct. 12.

WMATA buses will operate on a Saturday schedule.

Metro will have off-peak fares throughout the day, and parking at all Metro-owned lots and garages will be free.

Parks, Falls Church Services

County recreation centers and parts of Frying Pan Farm Park will be open, but other Fairfax County Park Authority centers will be closed.

Rec Center admission will be free for all veterans, active-duty military personnel, and their families with a military identification.

City of Falls Church offices and services, including the Mary Riley Styles Public Library, will be closed.

Photo via Aaron Burden/Unpsplash