A Penny For Your Thoughts

The air seems strangely quiet now, as the Brood X cicada phenomenon fades for another 17 years. After a month of high-pitched mating calls, all that is left are spent cicadas littering the ground and brown tips on many trees where the female cicadas laid their eggs. In a few weeks, those eggs will hatch and the larvae will take a leap of faith from the tree top to the ground, burrowing down a couple of feet to await their trans-formation in 17 years. Both Judy Okay of the Virginia State Department of Forestry and Mike Knapp, Fairfax County Urban Forester, assure that the brown tips, called flagging, will not affect the trees’ health. In fact, the natural pruning effect often is beneficial to the tree.

Maintaining and improving tree cover in Fairfax County is part of a proposed “Environmental Excellence” 20-year vision plan, which was approved by the Board of Supervisors’ Environment Committee on Monday. The vision plan will be presented to the full Board for approval at next Monday’s Board meeting. The plan centers on two principles: 1) conservation of our limited natural resources must be interwoven into all government decisions, and 2) we must be committed to provide the necessary resources to protect our environment. Crafted by then-Providence District Supervisor Gerry Connolly and a group of citizens during his campaign for chairman, the plan is organized into six areas including growth and land use, air quality and transportation, water quality, solid waste, parks/trails/open space, and environmental stewardship.

Fairfax County already is a leader on environmental issues, both regionally and nationally. Our Comprehensive Plan and the Zoning Ordinance, as well as the county budget, reflect new approaches to environmental issues. Examples are the ongoing mapping of the county’s 30 watersheds, mixed-use development that combines housing, shopping, and employment opportunities for residents in one area, the new Chesapeake Bay regulations, the 2004-2024 Solid Waste Management Plan recently passed by the Board, and the addition of more than 2000 acres to Fairfax County parkland in recent years. The proposed 20-year vision plan will provide more guidance for Board members, county staff, and the community when making decisions that have environmental impacts.

None of this will happen overnight. Some legislative changes may be necessary to accomplish the vision goals. Sometimes it may mean changing the way staff decisions are made or implemented, and some of the plan will need strong community support to succeed. If we can take the appropriate steps now to put the vision into place, our children will be able to look back and see that the Fairfax County of 2024 was the beneficiary of some very important Board actions taken in 2004.