Repairs under way to address sewage spills, Lake Barcroft residents assured

Testing has shown “normal levels of bacteria well below the commonwealth’s
threshold for lake activity,” reports de Seve in an email sent to Lake Barcroft
residents July 8.

One resident had earlier reported seeing from her boat “a plume of
something nasty-looking” flowing from the pumping station on Sleepy Hollow Road
into the lake near the women’s garden.

“There is no evidence a small ‘plume’ of darker water
spotted by kayakers near Holmes Run has anything to do with a sewer discharge
and was not visible to WID staff who investigated,” de Seve states.

During a June 26 meeting, hosted by Mason Supervisor Penny Gross, many Lake Barcroft residents expressed frustration with the way Fairfax County officials were handling the sewage spills, which happened during an ongoing project to re-line a sewer force main under Sleepy Hollow Road, resulting in stormwater overwhelming a pumping station on Holmes Run.

County officials assured residents at the meeting that work
on fixing the pumping station would be done 24/7 and the project would be finished by July
7. “Not only have workers not been there 24/7, the job is nowhere close to being
finished,” the resident says. “It looks to me like nothing much is happening.”

“Actually, the scope of the work has expanded, adding more
stability to sewer line joints and giving the lake an extra measure of
protection.” De Seve responded in the July 8 email. At the request of county engineers,
he said, “a second engineering firm, CH2M Hill, reviewed the re-engineering of
the failed pipe joint after the final spill (as suggested in the community
meeting). Thus, the delay adds safety and does not signal a new problem nor any
failure on the part of Dewberry, the firm that did the re-engineering.”

A tentative schedule now calls for the work on the pumping
station to be completed and the pit to be filled in by July 17. The temporary sewer
line should be removed and the site cleaned up on July 21.

“While any sewer spill is serious and may temporarily
curtail use of the lake, please keep in mind that the recent spills, though
carrying bacteria, were almost entirely water—the  largest contained over 85 percent stormwater,”
de Seve states. “In the weeks since the spills, the flow of new water has
diluted and removed whatever sewer bacteria remained.”