Northern Virginia Regional Office, Woodbridge
Community involvement summary
The Northern Virginia Regional Office seeks to establish priority environmental issues, improve communication processes, and develop partnerships with agencies and community groups. Key issues include air quality and nonattainment, loss of wetland habitat due to increasing development, “total maximum daily load” outreach, impaired waters and impacts on Chesapeake Bay, active and inactive solid waste facility issues, and environmental education. A TMDL is the amount of pollution a water body can assimilate and still meet state water quality standards.
The regional office’s community involvement plan includes meeting quarterly with District of Columbia-area local governments, promoting the Environmental Excellence program, developing a “rapid response communication and outreach team” to address community concerns, and piloting a project with the city of Alexandria to share permit application information for early involvement.
The region also will track and measure permit timeliness, hold wetlands focused meetings with homebuilders/developers and homeowner associations, coordinate with the DEQ Small Business Assistance Program to improve air quality in auto body shops, and collaborate with local planning commissions on large-impact developments requiring wetlands permits.
To reach schools and local governments, the regional office will prepare presentations on environmental education and a broad overview of DEQ agency responsibilities for staff to deliver.