Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category
Thinking “outside the box” to save money: can we reduce costs of school administration?
In the old days, schools were local institutions. Different communities had different priorities for education. The classic stereotype is that farm regions educated kids to be farm workers, while urban areas emphasized different skills so kids could work in factories.
In practical terms, communities taxed themselves to fund the amount and quality of education they considered appropriate for their community. Some places placed a high priority on education, while other counties/cities kept taxes low and minimized the costs of public schools. (In the bad ol’ days of separate-but-unequal segregation, communities made very different investments in public schools for the white vs. non-white population.)
Manassas and Manassas Park became independent cities in1975, in part to avoid having to pay property taxes to finance a surge of school building in eastern Prince William County. Instead, those two cities created separate school systems. Since 1975, residents of the two cities stopped subsidizing the expansion of county schools and have directed their property taxes towards educating their own children.
Maybe it’s time to reconsider this arrangement.
Read the rest of this entry »
EPA on Chesapeake Bay cleanup: talk like Reagan, walk like Teddy Roosevelt
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is on an end-of-year tour of Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions, alerting everyone that this time they are serious about saving the Bay. They passed through Northern Virginia on December 14, briefing government officials in the afternoon and holding a public session in the evening at Falls Church.
A series of state/Federal commitments since 1983 have suggested we would save the bay by 2000, then by 2010… The latest proposal is to require that all the necessary action items to clean up the water must be in operation by 2025.
Why should we believe this time that anything is different? Will EPA under Obama be any different than EPA under the Bushes, Clinton, or Reagan? Are Federal threats of “consequences,” if states fail to curb pollution, for real?
Park Authority defers Wiita Tract vote, requests Jan. 13 update
The Park Authority Board considered three proposals for recreation uses at the Wiita Tract at their December 9 Park Authority Board meeting. Executive Director Jay Ellington presented three maps showing the recreation choices recommended by staff.
All the options showed a soccer stadium and soccer fields. The only difference between the three plans was the number of soccer fields, which ranged from three to seven (plus the soccer stadium).
Natural features were notably absent from the maps. Did the Park Authority complete an environmental assessment? In the lessons learned category, planning the location of ball fields before looking to see what’s there has caused problems at Silver Lake, where the 11th hour discovery of globally rare natural areas is making their preservation very difficult. Read the rest of this entry »
Lake Manassas – Public access in 2010?
The Manassas City Council will discuss opportunities to allow public access to Lake Manassas during a special work session on Monday, December 7, 5:30 p.m., at City Hall the Public Works building, 8500 Public Works Drive, Manassas 20110, directions.
Government staff and the Virginia Dept. of Game & Inland Fisheries have been working on a proposal to open Lake Manassas for public fishing, boating (no gas engines) and the quiet enjoyment of the scenic landscape.
Under the current proposal, Game & Inland Fisheries would assume responsibilities for managing surveys, stocking the lake and law enforcement. They would also construct a low-impact gravel parking lot, boat ramp and finger pier for launching and retrieving boats.
The City of Manassas has two options. Under the first scenario, public access to Lake Manassas would be unrestricted, open without registration or fees (except your fishing license). This open-access approach is successful at other Virginia reservoirs, including the Occoquan Reservoir in Prince William, Beaverdam Creek Reservoir in Loudoun, the Abel and Smith Reservoirs in Stafford, Mountain Run and Lake Pelham Reservoirs in Culpeper. Read the rest of this entry »
Will the Feds contribute $$$ to the Chesapeake Bay clean-up?
In an ideal world, Congress would cut Federal funding and balance the budget. Holding your breath?
Until then, Northern Virginia could be outrageously righteous, and decline new Federal funding for various initiatives. In the economic battles with other regions of the state and nation, we could declare unilateral disarmament.
The alternative is to push for “our share” of the Federal budget, and to use it wisely. One of the best opportunities: H.R. 3852, the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2009.
It reauthorizes the Chesapeake Bay Program, and establishes a legislative mandate for the Executive Branch’s commitment to enforce the Clean Water Act (finally). The bill focuses corrective actions on stormwater runoff, as well as wastewater treatment plants and agricultural pollution – and authorizes $1.5 billion in new grants.
Hey, if we’re gonna spend ourselves into massive inflation, let’s buy something worthwhile: a Chesapeake Bay that is fishable, swimmable, and fully supports aquatic life.
Regional Activity Centers
The Region Forward: Greater Washington 2050 draft says
“Over the next 40 years the region is expected to grow, adding nearly two million more people. The majority of this growth will be located in emerging and existing Regional Activity Centers scattered throughout the region. These Activity Centers will be home to desirable, compact neighborhoods with parks and mixed-use development, such as shops, workplaces, and other destinations where people live, work and play. Each Activity Center will be connected by transit…“
The target is “Beginning in 2012, the region will capture 75% of new commercial construction square feet and 50% of new households in Regional Activity Centers every year.“
Oh really? Prince William County might meet that 2012 target in the plan, but only if it starts directing growth and investing in transit services at specific Regional Activity Centers. We need to change what we’ve done for the last 50 years, if we expect something different than “more sprawl.” If we continue business as usual in Prince William, developers will continue to build everywhere, even pushing subdivisions such as Avendale into the county’s defined Rural Area.
As the Region Forward: Greater Washington 2050 draft declares at the end, “business as usual on our part will not be enough to achieve these goals.“
A Thanksgiving recipe
Cocaine and estrogen from birth control pills are not eliminated by sewage treatment. We are dosing the fish and other critters in Bull Run and Neabsco Creek with all sorts of drugs. Male bass sampled in the upper Potomac River are producing eggs, demonstrating that the pollutants are affecting wildlife.
Now it turns out that we can identify the holidays by when we see an increase in the residue of spices and flavorings in our wastewater.
“[T]hyme and sage spike during Thanksgiving, cinnamon surges all winter, chocolate and vanilla show up during weekends (presumably from party-related goodies), and waffle-cone and caramel-corn remnants skyrocket around the Fourth of July,” according to a new study described at National Geographic News.
Ever ask a cook for a recipe, or inquire about ingredients for an unfamiliar dish at a restaurant? Knowing how something is made adds a little extra “something.”
Comparable knowledge can be a useful thing when looking at the Occoquan Reservoir (downstream from the regional sewage treatment plant near Centreville) and the Potomac River (downstream from the Dale City and Mooney treatment plants on Neabsco Creek, and numerous other wastewater facilities at Lorton, Alexandria, and all the way upstream to Staunton).
Do the math before the Chesapeake Bay TMDL Meeting in Northern Virginia – December 14
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is holding public meetings on its development of the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the Chesapeake Bay.
EPA is on the “get ‘er done” track, after years of dilly-dallying. There’s a new sheriff in town, with Obama’s EPA. By a consent decree with a Federal court, the TMDL will be finalized no later than May 1, 2011. (EPA is shooting for December, 2010.)
A draft TMDL and accompanying draft implementation plans are scheduled to be prepared by August 2010. Allocations of nitrogen and phosphorous levels have already been identified for the Potomac River. At the moment, those allocations are non-binding.
Look at the numbers in an article in the Bay Journal of the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. It’s already obvious that Prince William County and other pollution contributors will have to cut (reduce, lower, shrink…) current levels of pollution.
If we expect to add another 120,000 more people by 2025… we gotta reduce pollution/per capita. Significantly. We can’t continue business as usual and meet the Federal mandate. Prince William can grow, but we gotta build differently to accommodate projected growth.
Mark your calendar – the Northern Virginia meeting will be on December 14, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Falls Church High School, Little Theater, 7521 Jaguar Trail, Falls Church, VA 22042.
Will the supervisors imitate ostriches? Will the pavers pay, or will the taxpayers get stuck with the bill?
The Federal Clean Water Act limits pollution from”point sources” such as sewage plants and factories. The 19 point sources in Prince William County with Virginia Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits, including the wastewater treatment plants and the Possum Point Power Station, meet the requirements of the law.
In addition to point sources, the law limits pollution from “non-point” sources – primarily stormwater runoff from agricultural fields and the impervious surfaces of cities and suburbs. The remaining farmers and the horse owners in Prince William are using state/Federal grants to fence pastures away from creeks, moving animals and their manure away from the water.
Soon, it will be time to control the stormwater from development, old and new.
The EPA and a Federal court have mandated that polluters of the Chesapeake Bay must clean up their act. Now it’s time for Prince William officials to demonstrate if they are ostriches with their head in the sand, or are looking down the road to minimize future taxes on local voters.
Don’t blame the farmers. You should blame…
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Fact Sheet on Chesapeake Bay Water Quality, “runoff from urban and suburban lands is the one source of pollution that is increasing.”
With the help of the Cooperative Extension program and with state/Federal grants, many of Prince William’s farmers and horse owners are implementing Best Management Practices to minimize water pollution. We have a long way to go before we reduce nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment enough to meet Federal Clean Water Act standards, but the farmers are moving in the right direction.
As for the home builders and developers in Prince William… well, that’s a different story.
