Stream Buffer Plantings
The Sangha’s first stream-buffer project dates from 2002, when we began work at Wilburdale Park, in the Annandale section of Fairfax County, Virginia. Wilburdale is a small, mostly forested park that encloses a portion of Backlick Run, a major stream in the Cameron Run drainage. At Wilburdale, as at many other parks, we are working to control invasive alien plants and reestablish appropriate native species. Our planting stock comes from local, wild-collected (“local-ecotype”) seed grown out at our Wild Plant Nursery. For more information on our work at Wilburdale, see the Special Places page. Our early experiences at Wilburdale are also described in our booklet, Reconnecting Forests and Streams, which we published in 2005.
Fairfax County’s Buffer Program
In 2005, Fairfax County launched a county-wide initiative to restore stream buffer. At roughly 400 square miles, Fairfax County is one of the largest jurisdictions in the DC area. Much of the county is heavily developed, and suburbia has not been kind to the streams. A 2004 assessment concluded that only 20 percent of the county’s streams were in “good” or “excellent” condition. That’s down from 23 percent in a previous survey, done in 1999. At the other end of the scale, 63 percent of the streams were in “poor” or “very poor” condition in 2004—up very substantially from 45 percent in 1999.
The County’s buffer project ran from January 2005 through April 2009. The project recruited large numbers of volunteers to plant a wide range of native, riparian trees, shrubs, and herbs (nonwoody plants) on buffer-deficient riparian sites. Nearly all of these sites are on land owned by the Fairfax County Park Authority. In addition to planting, volunteers also worked to control invasive alien vegetation on some sites. The program was run by the Stormwater Planning Division of the Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services. The Earth Sangha implemented the program; we did most of the planting design, logistics, volunteer outreach, event supervision, and maintenance of the plantings. As the program progressed, an increasing proportion of the planting stock came from our own nursery. (Because our nursery stock is local-ecotype, its use improved the biological value of the program.)
Funding for the program ran out in spring 2009. (In 2008, the County’s Stormwater Planning Division had begun work on a Request for Proposals to extend the program under a new contract, but this idea was eventually abandoned in the wake of the economic downturn.) By the time the program ended, about 10,000 plants, representing over 80 species, had been planted on about 30 sites covering over 18 acres, along more than 2 miles of stream bank. Over 1,500 volunteers had participated. Many of the Fairfax County buffer sites are included in our DC-Area Field-Site Map; you can see some of our work on these sites by viewing the stream-buffer slide shows listed in the links panel of the main Stream-Buffer page.
Since nearly all of the program sites are on County parkland, the Sangha has been working with the Fairfax County Park Authority to maintain, improve, and expand the plantings.
Beyond Fairfax County
Our buffer effort is also reaching some lands owned by other agencies and jurisdictions. We are collaborating with the Bureau of Land Management to restore buffer along Thompson Creek, in the BLM’s Meadowood Recreation Area. Meadowood is on the Mason Neck Peninsula in southern Fairfax County. For more information on our work there, see the Meadowood page. In Arlington County, we are collaborating with the National Park Service at the Roaches Run Wildfowl Sanctuary, to restore native riparian plants along the shore of the Sanctuary’s tidal pond. And in 2010, we collaborated with Trout Unlimited to restore buffer to a couple of sites along the Thornton River, in Rappahannock County, Virginia.
Where to Find More Information
For an explanation of how stream-buffer functions, read the About Stream Buffers page. For more coverage of the Sangha’s stream-buffer activities, look at the resources listed in the links panel of the main Stream-Buffer page. For recent activities, check the Stream-Buffer News.