Environment, Parks and Trails Committee Update

You are invited to the next committee meeting featuring Kirk Smith, George Mason University presenting a potential plan to reintroduce Brook Trout into Nichols Run and how GFCA might support that. This meeting is on Sepember, 9th from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Great Falls Library.

The specific goals for 2010-2011 will be defined by the members of the task teams. Dates for projects will be forth coming. Currently initiatives and active task teams include:

• Deer and Lyme Disease – Goal is to take a lead on the public outreach to promote a general understanding of the health issues and the environmental effects on all the rest of nature from the current increased population of deer; then to facilitate the development of a strategy.
  

• Cool Community Outreach and Implementation – Key goals is to raise awareness of our carbon footprint and to promote carbon reduction and cleaner air; help develop a pilot program for Fairfax County. To be part of the Great Falls "Cool Community" click here . . .

• Community Habitat – the annual maintenance of our National Wildlife Federation Certification – Team strives to add to about 220 households currently certified. This is educational and fun for families. If you would like some assistance, a NWF certified Habitat Steward will be happy to visit your property and help you identify the sources of “Food, Water, Shelter, and Places to Raise Young” that qualify your property for certification.

• Trees – Preserving Heritage Trees and other significant tree assets. Currently working with Fairfax County Park Authority to preserve oaks while they implement new picnic pavilion at Riverbend Park.
  

• Annual Stream Clean-ups in Conjunction with the Alice Ferguson Foundation – ongoing program to ensure clean streams, like Difficult Run and other local tributaries
  

• Riparian Buffers Focus - Currently targeting an invasive plant removal at Turner Farm

The Environment, Parks and Trails Committee works cooperatively with Great Falls Trail Blazers on the trails network. For Parks, the following serve as liaisons; Jacque Olin for Turner Farm Observatory; Bob Lundegard for Colvin Run Mill; Serena Wilson, Pres. Of Friends of Riverbend Park; Robin Rentsch for Turner Farm Equestrian Center.

If you live along one of our planned trails and are interested in providing a trail easement, please contact us at greatfallstrailblazers@yahoo.com.  See the How To Help section of our website for more information.

LYME DISEASE
GFCA invited Fairfax County Wildlife Biologist, Vicky Monroe, to speak to members at the June 8th meeting to raise awareness of the dangers, and steps to control the rising incidence, of Lyme disease in Virginia. Ms. Monroe was recently appointed to the County’s Police Department to head a task force to research and determine measures to control Lyme disease in Virginia.

Addressing a full-house gathering of GFCA members and Great Falls residents, Monroe explained Fairfax County’s pilot program to test the effectiveness of "four poster deer treatment stations," which rub feeding deer with tick-killing chemicals. “The ticks pick up the Lyme-causing bacterium (borrelia burgdorferi, named for the doctor who discovered it in 1981) from white-footed mice, and then breed on deer. The disease is passed on to the humans the ticks bite,” Monroe said. The first notable outbreak was in Lyme, Connecticut, in 1975, and it has spread along the East Coast ever since.

Check the GFCA website for future programs on this topic. For more information on Lyme control in Virginia, please call Vicky Monroe at 703-324-0240.

Co-Chairs:
Stella Koch	smkoch@aol.com
Robin Rentsch	robrentsch@cox.net

 

 

 

 

 

Current News and Activities