Eco-City Alexandria Kvetches about Accelerated Potomac Cleanup

Nasty! Oronoco Bay in eco-city Alexandria.

Nasty! Oronoco Bay in eco-city Alexandria. Image credit: Greater Greater Washington.

The City of Alexandria bills itself as an “eco-city.” In 2007, it published a “green-ventory” of environmental plans, policies and programs. In 2008, the city adopted an “eco-charter.” Since then, the city has launched initiatives to tackle invasive plants, expand the regional BikeShare program, bolster transit bus service, weatherize apartments of low-income Alexandrians, design LEED-certified city buildings, install energy-efficient lighting fixtures, and replace diesel buses with hybrid-electric buses — all trendy, green priorities.

Meanwhile, the city’s aging combined sewer overflow system dumps an estimated 70 million gallons of raw sewage, waste and rainwater into the Potomac River every time it rains. The city has had years to fix the problem, which it estimates will require $386 million in local funds. Until yesterday, the plan was to pay for the sum through a gradual 500% increase in city sewer fees over the next ten years.

Now city officials are “reeling,” reports the Alexandria Times, after Governor Terry McAuliffe signed into law a bill that will compel the city to accelerate its timetable for fixing the problem by two years to 2025.

“We appreciate the governor’s earlier efforts to substitute a more reasonable deadline, and we remain fully committed to getting all four outfalls in Alexandria done, and to getting them done right,” said Mayor Allison Silberberg in response to the news. “While we are moving full steam ahead, we are very concerned that this legislation requires a deadline engineers have indicated is not feasible.”

Bacon’s bottom line: Yeah, yeah, yeah. If Alexandria really wants to consider itself an “eco-city,” its first priority should be to stop dumping human excrement into the Potomac River. Which would have a greater positive impact? Investing in save-the-world efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, which, might reduce global warming by a hundred-thousandth of a degree over the next 100 years, or stop fouling the river? I’ll hazard a guess that people living downstream would prefer the latter.

Until Alexandria gets its act together and stops polluting the Potomac, maybe it could do the rest of us a favor and spare us the “eco-city” blather.