Volunteers clean up Americana Drive while long-term solutions are explored
More than 50 people removed trash, furniture, and construction debris from American Drive in Annandale on Veterans Day, reports Amy Gould, who has been organizing cleanup events along that roadway for years.
Gould estimates the group collected 3.5 tons of material, including 100 bags of trash. They picked up 19 tires, six mattresses, two bed frames, two toilets, two 10-foot lengths of steel pipe, one bathroom sink, one dishwasher, 10 gallons of paint, a half-dozen rolls of carpet and padding, much lumber, and many chunks of concrete.
The Friends of Accotink Creek pitched in, as did volunteers from FACETS, Braddock Supervisor James Walkinshaw’s office, and the Fairfax County Solid Waste Management department. VDOT and the police department helped with traffic control, and the Vistas Apartments opened its business office as a comfort station for volunteers.
Much of the construction debris was left by building contractors who don’t have reasonable alternatives for dumping it somewhere else, Gould says.
They would otherwise have to drive to the I-95 Landfill Complex on Furnace Road in Lorton or the I-66 Transfer Station on W. Ox Road in Fairfax. The tipping fee is $72 per ton or a minimum $37 fee for a small load, $41 for a medium load, and $74 for a large load.
The privately owned Merrifield Transfer Station on Dorr Road in Fairfax is closer but only accepts “tipping trucks,” like dump trucks, which small contractors aren’t likely to have.
“It’s a system that doesn’t work,” Gould says. She believes developers, not contractors and subcontractors, should pay for trash disposal.
Many of these commercial trucks are parked on the curb along the side of Americana Drive closest to the beltway. As a result, the trucks are churning up the soil and polluting Accotink Creek.
She doesn’t blame the truck owners; “they are just trying to protect the one asset they own.”
The owner of a truck parked on the curb told Annandale Today he parks there because the community where he lives on Americana Drive doesn’t allow trucks in its lot.
The trees in the easement were cleared to put up the sound walls when the beltway was widened to accommodate the express lanes. The tree perimeter was moved from three feet to 10 feet back from the curb. Before that, the density of the trees didn’t allow for dumping or parking above the curb. This was the game changer for Americana Drive, Gould says.
She says VDOT cut down the trees so they wouldn’t have to maintain them. If the community wants to plant trees in the VDOT right-of-way, she says, they would have to comply with VDOT’s in-perpetuity clause that requires them to maintain the trees forever.
Trucks parked on the curb have also damaged storm drains, adding to the runoff. Gould would like VDOT to install bollards to protect the storm drains.
She says the county won’t ticket vehicles parked above the curb because VDOT doesn’t have a sign prohibiting it.
When she suggested allowing 45-degree parking on the other side of Americana Drive, VDOT refused to consider it. For VDOT, “it’s just easier to say no,” she says.
Gould says organizing the Americana Drive cleanups and exploring long-term solutions “has been a real ordeal and an eye-opener.”
A point of clarification… I think that developers, contractors and subcontractors should pay fees at the permit process for the construction debris that could result from their projects. I think laborers are bearing the burden of the system. But I do think there should be a closer location for them to bring it when they have it.
I’m not clear on how these contractors doing all this dumping don’t have a reasonable alternative? So they have to go to the landfill and (for god’s sake!) pay a fee to dump it legally? Are they not making money off these jobs? How is it understandable for them to save $35 by blatantly and illegally dumping it on the side of the road?
Forgive me if I’m just not understanding here. I just see people being lazy and showing complete disrespect towards the community and the ecology to save a few dollars. I won’t even go into the destruction of infrastructure.
I’m probably way off base here, but wouldn’t enforcing statutes against illegal dumping and fining them to have the waste removed be a more reasonable outcome?
We have tried. We can’t get anyone interested in enforcement on this dumping issue. We tried donating cameras to the police so they could catch them, we were accused of bribing them. The police don’t like enforcing anything on a state easement unless there is signage. The 1 no dumping sign is now the target of the dumping. Then we told them most of the dumping happens around 3 and they are covering schools at that time. We asked DEQ if they could enforce it and they said they would need to see it happen. VDOT won’t let us post cameras in their easement. Dominion which also has an easement doesn’t want to be involved in this. The closest office of DEQ is in Warrenton. We’ve tried since 2017 to get someone to enforce. This state and county are set up for everyone to always do the right thing. When that doesn’t happen we are left with this. At this point I just think frontloading the cost and allowing them to bring their days work to the transfer station would be preferrable to them dumping on 1.5 miles of roadway and into Accotink Creek. If only…
Perhaps it’s time for Ellie to pay a visit to the police chief and have an interview concerning FCPD’s stated stance on the issue? If they won’t agree, then perhaps our newly elected supervisor?
The crux of the problem is jurisdictional. The entire side by the soundwalls is VDOT easement. That makes enforcing anything on it VDOT responsibility. VDOT builds roads and really doesn’t care about this community. County agencies say it’s VDOT responsibility. Americana Drive no longer works the way it was supposed to when it was built. There is overcrowding with many more people owning cars than used to. Everyone points to everyone else and nothing gets done. It is like Pandor’s Box, layer after layer of problems. And so we do nothing. Our next clean up event will be President’s Day.
The police should set up a raid, where they wait for a bunch of those contractors to show up and attempt to dump. These vile polluters should be arrested, taken to jail, their vehicles impounded, and multiple charges pressed. Set up a patrol car to wait for them over a week to catch more of them. After that, the patrol car should come by for a few hours randomly on different days once or twice a week for a few months.
If you cannot afford to dispose of your waste, you cannot be in the construction businesses. Do these people have the proper licenses to operate? If so, they should lose them. If not, that’s another charge. Either way, they should be fined into oblivion. And criminal charges should be filed. This entire enforcement action should be widely covered by the media.
And when it starts happening again, the enforcement needs to follow it. These people need to be convicted of felonies.
If you cannot afford to dispose of your waste, you cannot be in the construction businesses. This says it all.
Agreed.
It’s all those cheap contractors that have popped up in the last few years. I own a junk removal business and a construction company locally and we constantly get underbid by companies bidding ridiculously low prices that aren’t profitable unless you are dumping illegally/ have no insurance. Most of the time customers go to the cheapest guy and don’t care where their junk goes. Go look on next door or Facebook groups all those guys advertising pickup up a full pickup truck bed load for 30-60$ when the landfill commercial minimum is 29$. Where is the profit? They are obviously dumping illegally. Nobody checks these businesses and most of them aren’t even registered.