Northern Virginia’s wary embrace of data centers could have major long-term impacts on both water consumption and wastewater treatment across the region, the Fairfax County Environmental Quality Advisory Council (EQAC) says in its annual report for 2024.
The 134-page document offers a status update and recommendations on environmental issues, including land use, air and water quality, transportation, waste management, climate change and ecological conservation.
A new report says Fairfax County leaders need to work on better determining the county’s deer population, explaining the need for deer management to the public and recruiting volunteers for deer-culling efforts.
Those are some of the suggestions made to the Board of Supervisors by the Fairfax County Environmental Quality Advisory Council (EQAC) in its 134-page annual report for 2024.
Fairfax County’s plastic bag tax has pulled in more than $6 million in revenue and taken an estimated 3 million plastic bags out of circulation nearly two years after it was enacted, county officials say.
“There are 3 million fewer plastic bags in circulation in Fairfax County since the bag tax was enacted, which 100% shows the intention is working,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said during an environmental committee meeting last Tuesday (Dec. 10).
Fairfax County supervisors will advocate for data center regulation to be a primary focus of the General Assembly’s 2025 legislative agenda.
Board members expressed support this week for several new recommendations from county staff aimed at granting state agencies and local governments broader authority to regulate data centers, including increased oversight of their environmental impacts.
Officials at Fairfax Water are bracing for one-time and ongoing costs that could approach a half-billion dollars over the next decade to comply with new federal environmental regulations.
Unless workarounds are found, most of the costs of addressing the looming impact of chemicals known as PFAS will be borne by its customers, the agency’s head told the Board of Supervisors’ Environment Committee on Tuesday (Oct. 29).
While the environment is generally a priority for Fairfax County, issues related to trees and invasive plants appear likely to take a backseat to other concerns when local elected officials lobby their state counterparts in the General Assembly next year.
At its legislative committee meeting on Tuesday (Oct. 15), the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors reviewed a number of proposals for promoting tree conservation and addressing invasive species from the Fairfax County Tree Commission and Environmental Quality Advisory Council (EQAC).
Bad news for anyone who has already gotten roots in the ground: Fairfax County’s window for planting trees has shifted back following a record-hot summer.
Forest Conservation (FCON) staff in the county’s Department of Land Development Services (LDS) updated its policy this spring to designate Oct. 1 through May 31 as the recommended time frame for planting trees, pushing back the previous start date of Sept. 1 and extending it through the winter.
It’s not getting its name on an NFL stadium like a Herndon-based competitor, but Navy Federal Credit Union will still make its presence felt in the community this September.
On top of organizing an annual charity 5K, the military-serving financial institution is looking to improve a wetlands area on its headquarters campus in Vienna. The project will be presented to the town’s Board of Architectural Review at an 8 a.m. work session tomorrow (Wednesday).
A trash collection facility in Lorton is the first Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services (DPWES) building to install a rooftop solar system.
The Newington Collections Facility’s 150-kilowatt photovoltaic solar array will reduce carbon emissions “the same amount per year as recycling the contents of nearly five garbage trucks full of waste,” DPWES announced in a news release on Wednesday (July 31).
Amid an extended stretch of dangerous heat, humidity and potential drought, flooding hasn’t been the D.C. area’s top meterological concern this summer, but the possibility might’ve crossed some minds during a passing downpour on Wednesday (July 10) — remnants of Hurricane Beryl, which has devastated other parts of the U.S. and the Caribbean.
With climate change exacerbating storms and other extreme weather, Fairfax County has created a new grant program that will reimburse residents who shore up their home against flooding.
