It’s business as usual for streams, like us, to be facing a lot of stress; from new developments, changes in climate, introduction of chemicals, extraction for drinking water/ irrigation, the list of stressors seems endless and dire. Good news can be found at a local, Fairfax County stream, Old Courthouse Spring Branch (Spring Branch) in Difficult Run Watershed. This stream is near Tysons Corner, right off of Leesburge Pike. If you’ve ever taken a walk at Ragland Road Park, or even been around Best Buy in Tysons, you’ve been along this stream!
Old Courthouse Spring Branch is looking good! Why, you may ask? Old Courthouse Spring Branch’s stream restoration is complete; this means the stream is new and improved with upgrades. The restoration area has engineering solutions including big boulders to protect the stream from erosion and woven blankets keep things stable by stopping land from washing away during floods. All these improvements serve various purposes, but overall SLOW DOWN and stabilize the stream. [Fun fact, streams with rocky bends and additional vegetation slow water down and reduce destructive and dangerous flows.]
Spring Branch’s meandering bends and yellow blooms this fall added a glowing haze around the once degraded stream bed. As of a few years ago, however, walking along this stream was not an enjoyable or very pleasant experience. Meandering by the stream you may have wondered if the stream was actually a dumpster (Photo 1a&b). Litter in all its ugly glory was the star of the show at Old Courthouse Spring Branch. The stark transformation from dumpster to dreamy made us ask the question, “where the litter that previously afflicted the stream go?” Changing how water moves through a stream wouldn’t necessarily change the amount of a pollutant, like plastic, in a stream. But plastics now move differently and we wondered how they now moved and where litter is now at? Pollution doesn’t disappear from restoration, so we put on our boots and bustled down Spring Branch.
Hiking along the stream bed, we found the picture perfect upgrades to the stream do not completely solve all Spring Branch’s problems. Alleviate some stress in the stream? YES! But to solve stream stress? Nope. The stream’s slower flows are still moving litter, most notably plastics, and dropping them off at different pit stops (Photos 2-4). Improvements have, however, decreased the amount of litter being trapped in certain spots in the stream. For example, we have side by side pictures of the Spring Branch in 2017 and 2021 below (before and after restoration, respectively). We see less litter is being trapped in the log jam along the stream.
What’s more, with the stream’s upgrades other changes downstream are happening. During restoration in April, we found a water snake hanging out under stream debris that had built up from flooding. Today, almost 6 months later, we see more debris has built up and now traps more litter.
Old Courthouse Spring Branch’s glow up is complete, but the perfect, unicorn solution has yet to be found to solve all its stress. Next time you’re in the area, consider checking out the newly restored stream and let us know what you think!
