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Asking the
Board to Hold Developers Accountable
Comments to Board of
Supervisors, September 4, 2007
Good evening. My name is Bob Woodson. I
live at
2068 Aquia Dr
, in the Griffis-Widewater District. My house backs to Aquia Creek, and I know
first hand the problems that are caused when development projects dump mud into
our creeks. I support the proposed amendments to the erosion and sediment
control ordinance.
I am, however, quite concerned that the Board still has not acted to implement
phased construction. This erosion and sediment control management practice
limits the amount of soil that can be disturbed at one time, and is listed in
Chapter 3 of the Virginia Soil and Erosion Control Handbook.
In July I came before you and brought to your attention this letter [hold up DCR
letter] that was sent to the County last year. In it, DCR, a state agency, specifically
recommended that no more than 25 acres at a time at Hills of Aquia be disturbed.
That recommendation was never implemented.
What
I want to know is why, in all that time, hasn’t anything been done to make
sure that the recommendation for phased construction is enforced at Hills of
Aquia? Either Supervisors knew about the recommendations, and deliberately chose
to ignore them, or they didn’t know about them and were asleep at the wheel.
Instead
of taking steps to actually fix the problem, the Board has spent nearly $50,000
to “study” the problem. And now, for three months in a row, instead of
acting to implement the erosion controls recommended by DCR, a majority on the
Board has said that we need to study phased construction more. In the meantime,
the mud has kept coming.
Other
jurisdictions have implemented requirements for phased construction. Why
haven’t we? For example,
Prince
William
County
requires phased construction when there are sensitive environmental features on
a development site. The Chief of the Watershed Branch in the Public Works
Division at
Prince
William
County
said he would be more than happy to share with you how they have implemented
this very important tool to keep mud out of creeks.
Folks,
we’ve got a real problem when a majority of the Supervisors keep making
decisions that benefit big developers, and hurt us. And that is exactly what has
happened with the Hills of Aquia. If we get any kind of solution to the mud in
Aquia Creek, it will happen only because of the hard work of the Aquia Harbour
Property Owners Association Board, not because of anything the Supervisors did.
We have to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.
Which
is why I am asking you to amend the soil and erosion control ordinance to
require phased construction on a site specific basis, and to implement this
management practice now at Hills of Aquia.
Thank
you.
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