Virginia Senators Address Four Mile Run on Capitol Hill

Virginia’s Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine Wednesday offered an amendment to an environmental bill that will promote efforts to restore Four Mile Run as a recreational resource.

The senators amended the Water Resources Development Act, which passed the Senate Wednesday by a vote of 83-14.

They offered two other amendments to the measure—one dealing with a marine terminal on Craney Island and the other to increase authorized funding for oyster restoration.

“… I am pleased we…were successful in updating an outdated regulation that prevented the Four Mile Run project from moving forward into a recreational and ecological resource for Northern Virginia,” Warner said in a statement.

“This bill will advance a project of critical importance for the Virginia Port Authority, improve oyster restoration and fix one of the barriers to restoring a Northern Virginia trail,” said Kaine. “The bipartisan support for this bill and these projects should encourage us to find common ground on the upcoming challenges we face like passing comprehensive immigration reform.”

In a news release, the senators explain:

The Four Mile Run amendment makes a technical fix to Northern Virginia’s Four Mile Run flood protection project authorization. The Four Mile Run is a hidden asset for the region that, running from Falls Church through Arlington County and into Alexandria, was once a center of recreation and commerce until a flood control project in the 1970s made it less attractive for those purposes. Since 2003, Arlington County and the City of Alexandria have been working with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to restore the Four Mile Run for recreational use.  The amendment updates the flow rate for the project from a standard of 27,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) set in 1974 to a more appropriate level of 18,000 cfs that would provide 100-year flood plain protection while permitting the Four Mile Run restoration project to move forward.

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