Countywide

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday (July 14) honored the 37-year service of retiring Fairfax Water General Manager Jamie Bain Hedges.

“We have a luxury in Fairfax County of having clean, accessible water,” Board Chair Jeff McKay said during a ceremony honoring Hedges.


News

Fairfax County’s public works department can now move forward with a new wastewater pump station to replace a more than 50-year-old one near Alexandria.

At its meeting last Wednesday (June 24), the Fairfax County Planning Commission unanimously approved plans for the Jones Point Pump Station upgrade project.


Countywide

Fairfax Water is on track to fully eliminate the last lead pipes from its network in advance of a 2027 federal deadline.

“We’ll have them replaced by the end of the year,” Fairfax Water general manager Jamie Bain Hedges said at a meeting yesterday (Tuesday) between the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and water authority board members.


News

Vienna residents can expect to pay more in property taxes and water and sewer fees in the upcoming fiscal year, but their bills won’t be quite as high as they would’ve been under the town’s initially proposed budget.

The Vienna Town Council adopted a fiscal year 2027 budget yesterday that reduces the local real estate tax rate by a half-cent, from 19.5 cents to 19 cents per $100 of assessed value, while maintaining existing service and staffing levels, according to Director of Finance Steven Barlow.


News

The Town of Herndon is planning to maintain its current tax rates in the new fiscal year, but residents should still brace for increases in their property tax, water and trash bills.

Town Manager Dan Hoffman officially submitted a proposed fiscal year 2027 budget to the Herndon Town Council yesterday (Wednesday) that holds local real estate, lodging and meals taxes at their existing rates of 27 cents per $100 of assessed value, 6% and 4.5%, respectively.


News

The fallout from the January sewer collapse that dumped over 200 million gallons of wastewater into the Potomac River continues to pile up, bringing a new lawsuit and a report that suggests the river might still be getting contaminated.

A Great Falls resident filed a class action lawsuit against DC Water on Friday (March 6) in the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, calling for the utility to compensate himself and other individuals “whose property interests in and use and enjoyment of the Potomac River … have been impaired by [the] Defendant’s conduct.”


News

Though DC Water has lifted its advisory warning against recreational activities on the Potomac River, Virginia health officials are remaining cautious after millions of gallons of raw sewage spilled into the water earlier this year.

The Virginia Department of Health announced yesterday (Thursday) that it has lifted a recreational water advisory for the river from Chain Bridge (Glebe Road) in Arlington to the Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge in King George County, but it remains in place for a 4.7-mile stretch upstream from Chain Bridge to the American Legion Bridge (I-495) in Fairfax County.


News

After an extra one-day delay due to Sunday’s snowfall, the Town of Vienna will begin construction today (Tuesday) on a stormwater project that’s more than a decade in the making.

To address ongoing flooding challenges, the town is replacing an underground culvert along Nutley Street near Marshall Road SW, a process expected to unfold in five phases over nearly a year.


Countywide

Please stop flushing wipes down the toilet, even if they’re labeled “flushable,” Fairfax County said in a recent message to community members.

The county’s Department of Public Works and Environmental Services urged residents late last week to avoid flushing anything other than toilet paper after a mass of non-disposable wipes clogged a regional sewer pipeline, exacerbating overflows into the Potomac River.


News

Scott’s Run Nature Preserve will be off limits to visitors for a third consecutive spring to allow more sewer upgrades.

The park at 7400 Georgetown Pike in McLean is scheduled to close on Monday, Feb. 16 for an “urgent” project to rehabilitate a siphon facility that carries wastewater across the Potomac River to D.C. Water’s Potomac Interceptor in Maryland, according to the Fairfax County Park Authority.


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