Fairfax County community may get own flood levee

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The Fairfax County community of Belle Haven, which was ravaged by Hurricane Isabel in 2003, is vulnerable enough to frequent flooding to qualify for millions of dollars worth of federal protection, according to early findings by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The corps told the riverside residents near Alexandria this week that they meet cost-benefit standards for federal funding to build a $13 million combination levee and flood wall. More than 200 buildings there were damaged when the hurricane struck, said corps Project Manager Stacey Underwood.

But the agency also has found, now more firmly than earlier data suggested, that protections for a more recent flood in the nearby working-class neighborhoods of Huntington won’t meet the same standard for federal dollars. The community was inundated in June 2006 by a wall of fetid water from Cameron Run, displacing residents and causing millions in damage.

Huntington residents sought dredging for the waterway and a flood wall at what the corps found was a cost of $24 million.

The difference between the two situations, Underwood said, is not only the total cost, but that Belle Haven sits in an area that floods more frequently and contains more buildings of higher value.

“Part of it is the frequency of flooding, part of it is the number and value of the structures,” Underwood said.

The Belle Haven flood wall-levee would stretch along Belle Haven Road and down Belle View Boulevard at a length of 6,600 feet.

Rep. James Moran, a Democrat whose district encompasses both Belle Haven and Huntington, is seeking the full $13 million for the project, said spokesman Austin Durrer.

The next step is for Fairfax County to fund a large part of the design work, said corps spokesman Chris Augsburger.

But even that could be difficult amid a grim county revenue forecast for the next fiscal year that has stymied nearly all new spending proposals. Funding a design for Belle Haven flood protections likely would compete with a bevy of other pressing needs across Fairfax.

Mount Vernon District Supervisor Gerald Hyland could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

wflook@dcexaminer.com

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