County plan to take McLean house for wastewater station surprises residents | FFXnow

A project to build a wastewater pump station project for McLean and eastern Tysons got off to an inauspicious start last week when a lack of community outreach forced the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to postpone a scheduled public hearing.

The board authorized the hearing in September to get testimony on whether the county should exercise its eminent domain powers to acquire the land rights to a residential property at 1310 Scotts Run Road in McLean — the site chosen for the future pump station.

However, Dranesville District Supervisor Jimmy Bierman announced during the board’s meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 8 that the hearing will be deferred after an attorney involved in the case brought up unspecified issues the previous night.

“The attorney in this case submitted something yesterday which, in his own words, referred back to a discussion on April 15 with no discussion of what had happened over the last six months,” Bierman said. “Why he waited to send something in until 32 hours before the hearing is beyond me, but such shenanigans are not appreciated.”

There were approximately 14 people signed up to testify at the hearing that afternoon, Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay noted.

Confirming that the hearing will now be held on Nov. 19, Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services (DPWES) spokesperson Sharon North says the decision to defer was made to give staff more time to negotiate with the affected property owner and communicate with the surrounding neighborhood.

“Other than the advertisement of the public notice of the hearing that was performed, adequate advance outreach to neighbors was not conducted,” she told FFXnow. “Because of the sensitive nature of this real estate transaction, DPWES staff will perform outreach to the neighborhood.”

To enhance the sewer system’s capacity in an increasingly populated and developed area, the $122 million Tysons East Pump Station project will provide a new pump station at 1310 Scotts Run Road that can process 10 million gallons of wastewater per day as well as a new force main and a gravity sewer, according to DPWES.

The force main, a pipe that will carry the sewage, will be located on Scotts Run Road around Lewinsville Road and Tyco Road, North says.

The project’s location was determined by an engineering report that evaluated 10 options based on the pump station’s design requirements, population density, environmental issues, operational considerations, cost and other criteria.

“The parcel at 1310 Scotts Run Road is the only viable location for the new pump station to meet the hydraulic needs of the sanitary sewer system expansion,” North said. “The County has been attempting to negotiate a real estate transaction with the owner of that parcel.”

Though North noted that the project hasn’t reached the design phase yet, news of its existence caught many local residents off guard. It’s not listed on the DPWES website or in the county’s capital improvement program (CIP), which addresses public facility improvements, including wastewater management.

Per a county staff summary, the project is included in the fiscal years 2025-2029 CIP under a countywide Gravity Sewer Capacity Improvements initiative, an ongoing, “proactive” push to increase the capacity of the county’s sewer lines that’s estimated to require $388.6 million through fiscal year 2034.

“The neighborhood is understandably concerned and upset due to the lack of information about the proposed acquisition,” a resident who lives across from the targeted pump station site told FFXnow.

North says DPWES staff will engage with the community about the project prior to the rescheduled public hearing, which is necessary for the Board of Supervisors to give staff the authority to acquire the Scotts Run parcel if they’re unable to reach an “imminent” agreement with the property owner.

Design work won’t begin until after the site is purchased. At that stage, staff will also develop a potential construction schedule that considers the CIP budget and “the rate of development in the project’s sewerage tributary area,” according to DPWES.

“There will be opportunities for the neighborhood to provide input on the design of the facility in the future as the design work continues, including a public hearing on the Public Facilities 2232 Review that will be required for this project,” North said.

Similar sewer improvements for the Tysons West area are further along after getting approved by the Fairfax County Planning Commission last October. In that case, the new, higher-capacity pump station will replace an existing facility at 8608 Leesburg Pike.

Construction on the Tysons West pump station is now underway, and the design of a gravity sewer and force main pipeline “is in progress,” DPWES said in a Sept. 18 update on the project’s webpage.

Angela Woolsey is the site editor for FFXnow. A graduate of George Mason University, she worked as a general assignment reporter for the Fairfax County Times before joining Local News Now as the Tysons Reporter editor in 2020.