Some local hunters are getting their Legolas on: it’s bow hunting season.
Fairfax County kicked off its annual archery program for qualified bowhunters this past weekend to help control the local deer population.
environment
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A Reston resident says she’s facing fines and possible legal action over the presence of milkweed on her property.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, milkweed has a “bad reputation,” but the wildflower is vital for monarch caterpillars and other pollinators. It’s also toxic to the invasive spotted lanternflies, which have proliferated across the D.C. region over the past few years.
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Invasive species, an overpopulation of deer and climate change are threatening Reston’s valued forests, a report released earlier this summer found.
Reston Association’s 2024 State of the Environment Report (RASER), published in June, deemed Reston’s urban forests to be in “fair” condition due to the “collective severity” of those and other challenges, including negative impacts of construction and yard debris getting dumped in natural areas.
Like a monster in a horror movie franchise, the hydrilla that long plagued Lake Thoreau before lying low over the past couple of years has now returned.
Though past management efforts have seen some success, the invasive aquatic plant, whose full scientific name is Hydrilla verticillata, has resurfaced in “significant quantities” throughout the lake this summer, Reston Association announced on Monday (July 28).
Time is running out for Fairfax County homeowners to get a federal tax credit for adopting solar energy.
The reconciliation bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump on July 4 will eliminate a residential clean energy credit that lets residential property owners deduct 30% of the cost of installing rooftop solar panels, solar water heaters, geothermal heat pumps and other clean energy systems from their federal income taxes.
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Spotted lanternflies are booming in Fairfax County.
Primarily concentrated in the western part of the county just a couple of years ago, the invasive pest can now be seen throughout Fairfax and the D.C. region. Sightings have also been reported this summer in Arlington, Falls Church and the District.
Fairfax County and an energy developer have begun the process of converting part of a closed landfill site in Lorton into a solar array.
The county’s Department of Public Works and Environmental Services (DPWES) and Madison Energy Infrastructure will officially break ground at 10 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday), on the 5-Megawatt Solar Array Project — though officials connected to the project told FFXnow work on the site actually started weeks ago.
Reston Town Center is now deriving some of its power from the sun.
A 1.3-megawatt solar photovoltaic system mounted on top of the town center’s green parking garage was substantially completed at the end of 2024 and began commercial operations on Tuesday (May 27).
Fairfax County is seeing mixed results in its efforts to eliminate solid waste.
“We’ve made progress,” Braddock District Supervisor James Walkinshaw, chair of supervisors’ environment committee, said after the Board of Supervisors received an update on the county’s Zero Waste program on Tuesday (May 20).
Advocates for nature and bicyclists appear to be at odds on Fairfax County’s planned Cinder Bed Road Bikeway, but leaders on both sides still hope to find some areas of compromise.
At issue is “Segment 6,” the northern section of the bicycle/pedestrian trail proposed by Fairfax County transportation planners to connect Newington Road and the Franconia-Springfield Metro station.