Last week, the City of Fairfax leapt to the forefront of environmental innovation, receiving a federal grant to help protect and conserve one of the region's most important bodies of water, the Chesapeake Bay.

The City of Fairfax, in partnership with Virginia Tech's College of Engineering, received a $318,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund to implement an innovative sediment control program at Ashby Pond.

Through retrofitting, officials hope to eliminate certain nutrients from the pond that can cause harm to the Chesapeake Bay, creating massive amounts of algae that deprive plants and fish of oxygen.

"There was a big push to look for projects that would reduce the runoff from city streets and lawns," said Amanda Bassow, director of Chesapeake Programs at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. "This is a very inexpensive way to control sediment."

According to Dr. David Sample, assistant professor at Virginia Tech's Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Laboratory in Manassas and project leader for the university, the project calls for the installation of "floating water treatments," plants that float on the surface of the water with a network of hanging roots below.

The roots will then collect excess nitrogen and phosphorus, preventing it from passing through the pond and into the Chesapeake Bay via Daniels Run and Accontink Stream. Additional plants will be installed around the perimeter of the pond as well.

Sample said that the plants are needed to collect the nitrogen and phosphorus because when they get to the Chesapeake Bay, the nutrients create massive amounts of algae. When the algae die, the decomposition creates an anoxic condition, meaning that dissolved oxygen is depleted and aquatic wildlife can be affected.

"Phosphorus and nitrogen are the main nutrients of concern in the watershed," Sample said. "Excess phosphorus is carried downstream and into the Chesapeake Bay. In the Chesapeake Bay, it assimilates, but it creates undesirable forms of algae and excess quantities upset the balance of the system."

According to Adrian Fremont, special projects manager for the city's Department of Public Works, this project is many years in the making. Fremont said that the city bought the open space where the pond is about 20 years ago, and that the pond was built by damming a part of Daniels Run. In July 2005, the city performed a feasibility study, which they received grant money for, and found that there was a need to not only control sediment, but also to simply dredge the pond.

Upon learning that Virginia Tech had an urban storm water management research program in Northern Virginia, the city reached out to the university to form a partnership that could not only create a project to combat sediment buildup, but also receive a grant to fund it as well.

The two parties then teamed to prepare a research proposal for the Fish and Wildlife Foundation's Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund's Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction program, which outlined the problem, stated how they plan to fix it, and how they would use the grant money. The initial step was submitting a five-page pre-proposal which was returned to them with suggestions for improvement, followed by the submission of a revised, 10-page full proposal.

"We received 84 pre-proposals, which we whittled down to 40 proposals, and a committee ran a peer review," Bassow said. "[We chose it because] it has great potential. If it works, we can do it in any pond. It has real appeal as something that is transferable."

Sample said that he and the university will maintain and monitor the pond for 18 months, which will consist of regularly testing the water quality. Sample said that it is important to test the water before and after storm events to see how much phosphorus is being absorbed so that the floating water treatment's efficacy can be ensured.

Sample said that if the project proves successful, he can give the city direction on how to maintain the Ashby Pond and in addition, how to retrofit other bodies of water with sediment control measures. On his end, Sample said that as academics, his group would publish their research findings and are also required to submit a report to the Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

"I think that it is an excellent opportunity to work with Virginia Tech," Fremont said. "We're excited to be a part of the project."