Livable Neighborhood Water Stewardship Program

Creating a Water-Friendly Lifestyle
The Livable Neighborhood Water Stewardship Program
educates residents on how to protect local streams.
The program involves neighborhood teams of five to
eight households that meet for a four-meeting series.
As of January 2007, 18 City of Falls Church teams have
completed the program, and additional teams are
forming now. This program is being done in partnership
with Arlington County, Arlingtonians for a Clean
Environment, the City of Alexandria, and the
Empowerment Institute. For more information on how to
form a team in your own neighborhood, contact Kathy
Allan, City of Falls Church Environmental Programs
Specialist, at 703.248.5176.

Every Neighborhood is Part of a Watershed!
A watershed is an area drained by a particular body of
water. Everybody lives in a watershed. For example,
the James Thurber Court neighborhood is in the
Osbourne Branch watershed, within the Four Mile Run
watershed, within the Potomac River watershed, which
is in turn within the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Following is an example of the stormwater cycle for
James Thurber Court: Everything that runs down the
street into the storm drains is dumped directly –
untreated - into the Osbourne Branch which is now
completely piped underground. This stream is spring-
fed and ever-flowing (also called "perennial"). From
there, the street’s runoff flows into Four Mile Run at the
intersection of Little Falls Street and the W&OD Bike
Trail (near the fire station). Four Mile Run flows next to
the fire station, across Lee Highway, past Gresham
Place townhouses, and then into Arlington County.
From here it empties into the Potomac River at
Arlandria. Aside from litter and pollutants, the sheer
amount of water runoff into the streams rips apart the
stream’s banks and makes it nearly impossible for
aquatic life to survive.

What About our Drinking Water?
In Falls Church City, all of our drinking water is pumped
out of the Potomac River at the Dalecarlia Water
Treatment Facility. Here it is heavily treated with many
chemicals, including Chloramine. This water is lethal to
fish and other aquatic life (you cannot use your tap
water in an aquarium). After we use the water in our
households, the water is again treated with chemicals,
this time at the Arlandria Wastewater Treatment Plant
(Four Mile Run watershed) or Cameron Run Wastewater
Treatment Plan (Tripps Run watershed) and dumped
back into Four Mile Run, Cameron Run, or the Potomac
River. So, every time we use water, it affects more
than just our water bill! More river water must be
removed from its natural course, chemically treated,
and then dumped – with all those new chemicals – back
into our waterways. There is also an enormous amount
of energy used by the facilities in this process!

How Does the Livable Neighborhood
Program Help our Local Waterways
and Drinking Water Supply?
This program gets neighbors together to learn how to
conserve water at the household level, and learn what
actions we can take on our own properties to reduce
runoff and pollution of our local waterways. If the water
is cleaner and safer when it leaves our neighborhood, it
will be cleaner and safer when it comes back to us as
drinking water! The program is designed to bring
neighbors together for help and support, as well as
build strong neighborhoods. As of Fall 2004, 8
neighborhoods have participated in the program, but
the City eventually wants to have every neighborhood
in the City participate.

What Would I Have to do as a
Livable Neighborhood Team Member?
Over the course of four meetings, teams discuss water
quality, water conservation, and ways we can further
help our community’s waterways. The workbooks has
seven to fourteen actions per section; between
meetings your household tries to accomplish one or
more of these actions. Then at each meeting, we
gather to discuss what we did and how well it worked.

Here are Some
Quotes from team leaders:
“Our team consisted of residents from a condominium
complex. We all really enjoyed the program and
thought it was very worthwhile. We got to know each
other while learning about things we could do right now
to have a positive impact on our watershed. As the
head of the Grounds Keeping Committee, I was able to
instruct the grounds keeping crew to discontinue using
pesticides and herbicides, start composting, and cut the
grass higher.”
(Sandy Tarpinian, Team Leader #1)

“We enjoyed getting to know each other better. We all
had a strong appreciation for the individualized nature
of the program, which encouraged us to choose the
actions each of us wanted. We found the workbook
easy to use. It made it easy to take the actions
because they were laid out step-by-step.”
(Laurie Huber, Team Leader #2)

...and Some Anecdotes
from the Program (August 2004):
One of the activities initiated by the Oak Haven
Neighborhood Team was the “walk-about,” in which we
spent time at a couple of meetings walking around
team members’ yards to talk about their specific water
issues (e.g., chronically wet spots in the yard, excessive
roof runoff next to the house, flooded basements,
etc.). We went only to those yards where the team
member had volunteered to have us do a walk-about.
A member of the community who is very knowledgeable
about watershed issues attended these sessions to
make suggestions. However, in order to make the walk-
about a stand-alone activity, we developed a list of
questions to guide teams who are doing a walk-
about.   The two succeeding teams that met in Falls
Church this spring (James Thurber Court and Welcome
Drive) also participated in walk-abouts. This activity
was a lot of fun and extremely educational for everyone.

The Oak Haven Neighborhood Team had their final team
meeting just at the time of City Council elections. They
decided to invite the City Council candidates to a coffee
at one of the team member’s homes to talk with
neighbors about water-related issues. All six City
Council candidates accepted the invitation and engaged
in a two-hour discussion with neighbors, most of whom
were team members.

One of our teams was led by a mother and her
daughter. The 13-year-old daughter has been an
active member of the local school environmental club,
and she needed a leadership activity to qualify for a Girl
Scout award. The team members were very receptive
to her participation, and she was well-prepared during
the meeting that she led.

A member of the James Thurber Court team contacted
me (the coach) several weeks following our final team
meeting to tell me she had just received her quarterly
water bill and was very excited, since her daily water
usage had been cut by half. She attributed this to her
participation on the team and what she had learned as
a result.   She plans to share this experience with her
neighbors through her team’s new water stewardship
newsletter.