Arlington County will kick off the New Year with the next phase of engagement on its forthcoming plan to manage its deer population.
A study found two years ago that Arlington’s deer population exceeds healthy levels, with the county’s forested areas home to about 20 and 39 deer per square. About 1.5 years ago, the Dept. of Parks and Recreation began considering a management plan in response.
(Updated at 9:55 a.m.) Arlington residents can safely dispose of their old batteries, printer ink cartridges and other hazardous materials at Wakefield High School this Saturday.
The popular, biannual Arlington Environmental Collection and Recycling (E-CARE) event is set to take place at the high school, located at 1325 S. Dinwiddie Street, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., “rain or shine,” according to a county press release.
A proposed senior living facility on S. Glebe Road is teed up for Arlington County Board approval this Saturday.
Sunrise Senior Living proposes redeveloping a church in the Alcova Heights neighborhood with a 4-story, 99-unit building with 120 bedrooms and 53 parking spaces.
Reconstruction of Sparrow Pond is currently underway.
Last Thursday, part of the Four Mile Run Trail closed while a new pipe from Four Mile Run up to Sparrow Pond is built. A detour is in place for the 6-7 weeks this work is expected to take place.
(Updated at 9:30 a.m. on 8/23/23) Arlington County’s efforts to electrify transit just jolted forward.
Arlington’s transit system, ART, is getting its first batch of battery electric buses, or BEB, as it pursues carbon neutrality by 2050, according to a press release. The vehicles will be deployed in late 2024 after work wraps up on the new Operations and Maintenance Facility on Shirlington Road.
Hunting and sterilizing deer and fencing off parks are options Arlington County could pursue to cull its reportedly oversized, and hungry, deer population.
Over the last two years, consultants estimated Arlington has a herd of whitetail deer numbering 290 and, in some areas, the concentration exceeded “healthy” levels.
This spring, Arlington County began buying up properties in the Waverly Hills area to combat flooding.
Already, despite some concerns about how the program would work, three residents have agreed to sell their homes. The county will tear them down and replant the land so water has a place to flow during large rain storms.
EcoAction Arlington just got a $60,000 boost from the Arlington branch of the NAACP and the Mormon church in its efforts to plant trees in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Last year, the environmental advocacy group announced its plan to plant trees in 10 neighborhoods where the canopy is thinner than elsewhere — areas generally less wealthy and more diverse than Arlington’s leafier enclaves. The 2022 announcement coincided with a $50,000 donation from Amazon.
Arlington’s recycling rate is trending up — but there is still a ways to go to reach the county’s goal of diverting nearly all trash from incinerators and landfills by 2038.
In 2021, the recycling rate, which now includes the county’s new food scrap collection program, was 52.4%, according to Solid Waste Bureau Chief Erik Grabowsky. Last year’s rate is projected to be 54%.
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When a member of Arlington County’s climate change committee took the dais earlier this month, she told the Planning Commission that she had good and bad news.
As work continues on a new Arlington Transit bus facility in Green Valley, Arlington is taking steps to make it work for electric buses.
Electrifying buses is part of the county’s goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. To reach that goal, it needs to buy battery-powered electric buses and have a place to charge them.
Arlington has ranked among the 15 most “eco-forward cities and towns” in the nation.
Specifically, Arlington is No. 5, behind No. 1 Somerville, Mass. and No. 3 Jersey City, N.J. (The latter being, arguably, Arlington’s New York metro area doppelgänger and long-time rival in various rankings.)
