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Mary Glass

From: pro.wordsmith@verizon.netSent: Saturday, October 21, 2017 4:09 PMTo: Jfisette@arlingtonva.us; kcristol@arlingtonva.us; cdorsey@arlingtonva.us; lgarvey@arlingtonva.us;

jvihstadt@arlingtonva.usCc: mschwartz@arlingtonva.us; bhelfer@arlingtonva.us; awinquist@arlingtonva.us;

dstephens@arlingtonva.us; chaynesarmn@gmail.com; chrisbng@gmail.com; norapalm@verizon.net; duke.banks@gmail.com; thomasmd64@gmail.com; rickepstein1@verizon.net; juliaseymour@att.net; gusfs63@gmail.com; Mary Glass; arlingtonnews@gmail.com; pro.wordsmith@verizon.net

Subject: Fwd: Request for Pause of Donaldson Run Stream Restoration ProjectAttachments: 9-12-17 save-donaldson-run ipetition signatures.xlsx; 9-12-17 stop-the-bulldozers ipetition

signatures.xlsx; 9-12-17 Myths About the Stream Restoration Program.docx; 9-12-17 Representative Options for Improving the Donaldson Run Stream Restoration.docx; 9-12-17 request for pause to update DR stream restoration design.pdf

October 21, 2017 RE: Restoration of Donaldson Run “Tributary B” Dear Chair Fisette and members of the Arlington County Board: I concur with citizen Mary Glass’s comments to the County Board on Sept. 12. I applaud staff’s desire to meet our commitments under our MS4 permit, the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act and the Clean Water Act. However based on a review of the scientific literature, I believe Ms. Glass’s concerns regarding the planned restoration of Donaldson Run’s Tributary B are valid, and her suggested pause to study alternatives is reasonable and should be considered. Efforts to “restore” Donaldson Run “Tributary A” in 2006 resulted in significant ecological damage, which is documented in the photos below. Rather than the widened channel’s providing a larger floodplain in which to contain and slow storm/flood water, the restoration rerouted the stream’s overflow into standing forest (where it had not previously flowed), and this area shows signs of erosion today. The measures used to reduce erosion along the stream’s bank also appear to have failed in certain spots:

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Stream flowing through the forest, not it's normal channel or floodplain, resulting in erosion and possible tree damage

Continued erosion of the stream bank/channel despite stabilization efforts (rocks)

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Mature tree cut for no apparent purpose (maybe to permit access for heavy equipment?) Other than a single, post-restoration photograph that appears to document a reduction in the sediment levels of Tributary A, staff does not seem to have undertaken any other efforts to document before-and-after conditions. Such data collection would be needed to perform a rigorous, scientifically valid analysis to determine whether Tributary A’s water quality has actually improved as a result of the 2006 restoration efforts. Documentation of Donaldson Run’s bacteria levels (2013 are the latest results I could find online) seem to confirm that the stream’s pathogen levels remained very high even after the 2006 restoration efforts for Tributary A. I can find no reports or other evidence documenting any improvement in dissolved oxygen levels or a reduction in water temperature that would permit/improve conditions necessary to sustain aquatic life. Since 2004, the established restoration protocols using heavy equipment and the clear-cutting of large swaths of trees along streams and rivers to “restore” them has been evaluated. Natural resource managers, hydrologists, geomorphologists and other scientists have come to view these disruptive and destructive measures as counter-productive and environmentally damaging. Other, less expensive, less harmful techniques can be used to achieve the same goals. Below are a few of the many assessments of the older, more aggressive stream/river restoration methods: 2017, “The Limits of Restoration: Getting to Know the True Nature of Your Stream Valley and Hopefully Keeping It Intact!” (Rod Simmons, Natural Resource Manager, City of Alexandria Dept. Recreation, Parks, and Cultural Activities, Natural Resources Division) https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/recreation/parks/The%20Limits%20of%20Restoration%20-%202017%20MAIPC-SERMA%20Conference.pdf or http://www.accotink.org/2016/StreamRestorationLimits.pdf

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2011, “River restoration: the fuzzy logic of repairing reaches to reverse catchment scale degradation” (Emily S. Bernhardt and Margaret A. Palmer, Duke University and University of Maryland) http://www.palmerlab.umd.edu/Publications/bernhardt_and_palmer_2011_Ecol%20Appl.pdf

…Their geomorphic monitoring programs led them to conclude that attempts to restore rivers through channel reconfiguration are extremely difficult because they can lead to major channel adjustments and failures of in-stream structures: ‘‘there is little evidence from the examined projects in North Carolina that reconfiguring straightened and/or incised channels along highly dynamic rivers will speed the rate of recovery’’ (Miller and Kochel 2010:1690)…. Restored urban streams in North Carolina were found to have significantly higher temperatures than unrestored urban streams as a result of removing riparian trees to facilitate restoration projects (Sudduth et al. 2011)…. Second, given that a number of studies have now found no ecological improvement from channel reconfiguration projects and, in some cases, even found evidence of increased degradation (e.g., Tullos et al. 2009), future restoration approaches should keep earth-moving activities to a minimum, particularly if they include the removal of trees. The studies by Louhi et al. (2011) and Sudduth et al. (2011) both present evidence that restoration activities themselves actually lead to degradation that is not necessarily short lived…. [R]estoration of streams and rivers should not be expected to alleviate problems generated throughout a catchment. The very problems that lead to stream degradation typically are catchment-scale problems (e.g., large amounts of impervious cover or land in agriculture). Projects that are small in scope simply cannot handle the level of impacts, and yet the vast majority of restoration projects are small and isolated.

2004, “The River Doctor — Profile: Dave Rosgen” (Dale Malakoff, AAAS/Science magazine) http://science.sciencemag.org/content/305/5686/news-summaries

… But although many applaud Rosgen's work, he's also attracted a flood of criticism. Many academic researchers question the science underpinning his approach, saying it has led to oversimplified “cookbook” restoration projects that do as much harm as good…. “There are tremendous doubts about what's being done in Rosgen's name,” says Peter Wilcock, a geomorphologist who specializes in river dynamics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. “But the people who hold the purse strings often require the use of his methods.”

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All sides agree that the debate is far from academic. At stake: billions of dollars that are expected to flow to tens of thousands of U.S. river restoration projects over the next few decades. Already, public and private groups have spent more than $10 billion on more than 30,000 U.S. projects, says Margaret Palmer, an ecologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, who is involved in a new effort to evaluate restoration efforts. “Before we go further, it would be nice to know what really works,” she says, noting that such work can cost $100,000 a kilometer or more… In a much cited example, restorationists in 1995 bulldozed a healthy streamside forest along Deep Run in Maryland in order to install several curves—then watched the several-hundred-thousand-dollar project blow out, twice, in successive years. “It's the restoration that wrecked a river reach. … The cure was worse than the disease,” says geomorphologist Sean Smith, a Johns Hopkins doctoral student who monitored the project…. Improving training, however, is only one need, says the University of Maryland's Palmer. Another is improving the evaluation of new and existing projects. “Monitoring is woefully inadequate,” she says. In a bid to improve the situation, a group led by Palmer and Emily Bernhardt of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has won funding from the National Science Foundation and others to undertake the first comprehensive national inventory and evaluation of restoration projects. Dubbed the National River Restoration Science Synthesis, it has already collected data on more than 35,000 projects. The next step: in-depth analysis of a handful of projects in order to make preliminary recommendations about what's working, what's not, and how success should be measured. A smaller study evaluating certain types of rock installations—including several championed by Rosgen—is also under way in North Carolina. “We're already finding a pretty horrendous failure rate,” says Jerry Miller of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, a co-author of one of the earliest critiques of Rosgen's Catena paper….

Conclusion I don’t doubt that staff is well intentioned in this case, but the plan to restore Donaldson Run Tributary B is outdated. Based on National Science Foundation-funded scientific research, we now know that using heavy equipment for extensive earth-moving activities and the cutting of large numbers of trees does not, in fact, “restore” streams but instead inflict additional and long-lasting damage. Proceeding with the current plan, as is, is highly unlikely to put Arlington County any closer to meeting its goals under its MS4 permit and would be a waste of precious funds. I urge you to pause this project and ask county staff to obtain expert assistance (from University of Maryland or others) to revise the restoration plan so that it can meet the stated objective. Sincerely, Suzanne Smith Sundburg 5300 8th Road North Arlington, Va. Cc: Mark Schwartz, County Manager Bryna Helfer, Asst. County Manager Aileen Winquist, Watershed Outreach Program Manager Doug Stephens, Project Manager Caroline Haynes, Chair, Park & Recreation Commission and Arlington Regional Master Naturalist Christine Ng, Chair, Environment and Energy Conservation Commission Nora Palmatier, Chair, Urban Forestry Commission Duke Banks, ACCF President

Michael Thomas/Rick Epstein, ACCF Co-chairs, Parks & Recreation Committee John Seymour, ACCF Chair, Environmental Affairs Burt Bostwick, ACCF Point of Contact, Revenues & Expenditures Mary Glass, Arlington Tree Action Group Scott Brodbeck, Editor, ARLnow.com

-----Original Message----- From: Mary Glass <mglass@mexelusa.com> To: Jay Fisette <Jfisette@arlingtonva.us> Cc: Katie Cristol <kcristol@arlingtonva.us>; John Vihstadt <Jvihstadt@arlingtonva.us>; Christian Dorsey <cdorsey@arlingtonva.us>; lgarvey <lgarvey@arlingtonva.us> Sent: Tue, Sep 12, 2017 4:48 pm Subject: Request for Pause of Donaldson Run Stream Restoration Project

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Dear Chairman Fisette, Attached please find a letter requesting a delay of construction for this project, along with supporting documentation. I look forward to your response, Thank you. Mary Glass