One year after a judge ordered highway engineering firm Fluor-Lane LLC to correct pollution problems at its 495 HOT Lanes construction site in Annandale, VA, previously barren slopes are now seeded with grass that catches dirt and other pollutants before they can pollute Accotink Creek. The improvements are a victory for Fairfax County taxpayers, who were on the hook for all potential pollution cleanup costs.

Potomac Riverkeeper volunteers Kris Unger and Philip Latasa monitored and reported pollution at the site for two years. After reports to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) were mostly ignored, and attempts to compel Fluor Lane to clean up pollution yielded no noticeable improvements, Kris and Philip joined with Riverkeepers Ed Merrifield and Jeff Kelble to initiate a citizen lawsuit to force the cleanup.

Citizen lawsuits are subject to a sixty-day waiting period, where the Attorney General can “over-file,” or effectively take control of the lawsuit. Within days of the group’s announcement, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cucinelli filed Virginia’s case against Fluor-Lane LLC. The subsequent agreement (a court consent decree) stipulated mandatory actions for Fluor-Lane LLC to reduce their pollution.

Fluor-Lane had been allowed to keep the site open despite 17 DCR inspections that show violations of its permit for sediment pollution. Potomac Riverkeeper is seeking volunteers to continue monitoring the site to ensure Flour-Lane continues to reduce their sediment pollution.

Sediment pollution damages fish habitats and directly smothers bottom-dwelling aquatic wildlife. Run-off from the construction had been washing through the adjacent Americana Park and polluting the creek, well-known for local trout fishing.  Sediment is also costly to remove. In 2005, Fairfax County residents spent $8 million dollars to clean the mud out of Lake Accotink the popular recreational area located downstream from the HOT Lanes project.

Kris says: “It was frustrating to have to watch two years of pollution enter Accotink Creek. I know a lot of people in the community who are happy to see the improvements at this site.”

You can check out more of Kris in the video below! And sign up to help monitor the site!

For the price of a monthly cup of coffee our members leveraged over $950,000 to protect our river last year...

It's true that your membership keeps gas in our Potomac Riverkeeper boat, our pollution hotline live, and our passionate and knowledgeable staff logging hundreds of on-the-river hours monitoring polluters on the Potomac and Shenandoah, but you might not know that your very membership also enabled Potomac Riverkeeper to leverage over $950,000 in pro-bono legal and scientific expert support last year to fight river pollution. Learn more...