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Articles
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| Storm-water rules mark milestone for the District’s rivers and beyond |
VOICE writes, "
BY BEN WEINSTEIN
District and federal officials this week announced stricter rules for city storm-water management, calling the new requirements an environmental milestone that could inspire efforts to protect urban rivers everywhere.
The new standards require a mix of “green” and “gray” infrastructure measures, including planting thousands of trees, fitting new government buildings with green roofs and retrofitting drainage basins with more effective filtration controls.
“We’re talking about getting rid of rainwater in a better way than ever before,” Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator Donald Welsh said, adding that he hopes other cities in the country will follow the District’s lead.
The changes came from a lawsuit aimed at tightening Environmental Protection Agency standards for pollutants flowing into the Anacostia River. The agency negotiated with Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm, over the District’s water pollution regulations through the federal Clean Water Act. "
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According to the Anacostia Watershed Society, approximately “20,000 tons of trash and 2 billion gallons of combined sewage and storm water already enter the Anacostia River on an annual basis from sources in Maryland and the District of Columbia.”
Welsh said the new approach to storm-water filtration, which takes effect immediately, relies largely on “using nature to filter nature,” explaining that the new trees, vegetation and green roofs will mimic natural processes.
Some environmentalists said that while the changes are a good start, the provisions aren’t as aggressive as they want. “I am very pleased to see that we are looking at the right issues,” said Nancy Stoner, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Clean Water Project.
Stoner said it’s unclear how strong the rules will be and she would like to see mandatory measures adopted for all new development in the city, not just government and waterfront projects. She also pointed out the inherent limits of the regulations, explaining that most of the Anacostia’s 176-square-mile watershed falls in Maryland, where much of the pollutants originate.
“There’s a tremendous interest in doing this right,” said George Hawkins, director of the District Department of the Environment, acknowledging that while the regulations aren’t as strong as some had hoped for, the move is an important step. “There’s a revolution afoot to transform cities” into environmental leaders, he said.
The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, which argued against some of the changes, said it will take an enormous investment to replace more than 2,000 catch basins.
Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham is forming a task force to find funding to implement the new regulations after fiscal year 2008.
The regulations call for planting 13,500 new trees by 2014, converting some superfluous paved surfaces to green space, installing about 50 rain gardens (a planted depression that naturally filters and retains storm water) and 125 rain barrels (reservoirs that hold rainwater for landscaping purposes), building green roofs on all new and significantly renovated government buildings when feasible, draft legislation for tax credits or other incentives for green roofs, stepping up street sweeping to clear more debris, installing environmentally friendly catch basins for a storm-water management system and developing a new plan for pet-waste disposal.
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Posted on Dec 13, 2007 04:21am.
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