What is the Water Stewardship Program?

The Livable Neighborhoods Water Stewardship Program is empowering a network of neighborhoods throughout our watershed to create fishable, swimmable streams by developing watershed-friendly properties and making lifestyle changes to benefit water quality.

This neighborhood-based program creates teams that work on simple household actions to improve the health of our local streams, the Potomac River, and the Chesapeake Bay. Training for neighborhood team leaders is offered to residents of the Northern Virginia jurisdictions of the City of Alexandria, Arlington County, Fairfax County, and the City of Falls Church.

More than forty neighborhood teams in Northern Virginia have completed the program since 2003. Teams have committed to an average of eight new watershed-friendly actions per household. On average, teams were able to save approximately 100,000 gallons of water per year by taking these actions. Nitrogen and phosporus pollution have been decreased and the amount of stormwater flushing into our waterways has been reduced.

Who offers the program?

Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment (ACE), a community nonprofit working to create sustainable communities, is leading the Livable Neighborhoods Water Stewardship Program in partnership with Arlington County, the City of Alexandria, the City of Falls Church, Fairfax County, and the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District.

The following groups are working in partnership with the Water Stewardship Program:

• Arlington/Alexandria Master Gardeners
• Arlington Dogs
• Fairfax Master Naturalists
• Neighborhood Ecological Stewardship Training
• Northern Virginia Regional Commission
• Virginia Cooperative Extension
• Wisdom Works

How can you participate?

Call 703-228-6406 or e-mail volunteer@arlingtonenvironment.org to learn more and to find out how to register for the next training.

More information:

• Taking Local Action to Protect Water
• Program brochure