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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—-“Dead-blogging” the D.C. Council; The Washington Times Layoffs—-How They Went Down; Scenes from BlackFinn’s DC Real World Premiere Party.

Morning all. And by “all,” I mean all roughly 600,000 of you. Yes, the big news of the day is the expanding D.C. population. It’s big enough news that it made the front page of the Washington Post this morning, not that that’s such a great feat on Dead Week. Let’s go with an excerpt from the Post account: “Recently released Census Bureau statistics show that the city is just a few hundred residents shy of the [600,000] mark, with an estimated population of 599,657 as of July 1. That reflects a gain of almost 9,600 over the previous year. In part because of the recession and the housing collapse, it is also the first time in decades that the city has not had a net loss of residents moving to the suburbs or elsewhere in the United States. Until this year, virtually all population growth in the District was attributable to immigrants arriving from other countries.”

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has skedded a presser for 11:00 am to boast of the milestone. What LLD is eager to check out is whether Fenty invites former Mayor Anthony A. Williams to bask in some of the glory. One of the signature initiatives of the Williams administration was to repopulate the city. He set a goal of 100,000 new residents. Examiner on same.

After the jump: Advocates slam EPA for toothlessness on ChesBay; D.C. Wire refreshes; Bob Smith dies; Nickles gets to decide what his legacy is?; and a bit more.

EPA TOOTHLESS? OK, in a previous edition of LLD, I aggregated a WaPo story on the threats made by the EPA to states that were found to have done nothing to halt pollution of the ChesBay. The item highlighted these threats from the EPA against do-nothing states: 1) “Object to state-issued permits for new sources of pollution, such as factories, sewage-treatment plants or suburban storm sewers.” 2) “Require states to offset pollution in one area by cutting it in another. If a state can’t find ways to curb pollution from farms, for instance, the EPA could require stricter cuts from sewage-treatment plants.” 3) “Take tighter control of federal money that goes to states for antipollution programs, to make sure it is used to solve outstanding problems.”

Ohhh, LLD remarked, we bet these threats have the states quaking in their boots!

Well, the EPA threats sounded lame to LLD, and they sounded lame to enviro groups as well, which brings up today’s story on the matter. In a piece titled “Chesapeake Advocates Call EPA Plan Too Weak,” reporter David Fahrenthold gets this quote from an advocate: “Where are we? Repeated violations. No sanctions. No actions. We’re saying . . . that enough is enough. The politics of postponement have to stop now.”

This is crunch time for local charities, according to WaPo.

Fabulous work by Matt Schudel and T. Rees Shapiro in capturing the life of deceased local developer and Crystal City forefather Bob Smith. Here’s where the money lies: “[I]t was as a visionary builder that Mr. Smith left his greatest mark on Washington. He first began working with his father as a teenager and went against his advice when he saw possibilities lurking beyond the Potomac River in Arlington. When Mr. Smith first surveyed the area in 1961, it was a dilapidated, somewhat desolate neighborhood far removed from the District’s corridors of power. ‘It was a conglomeration of places that sold junk, used tires, a drive-in movie theater, a run-down ice skating rink, second-hand materials — it was very unattractive,’ he told The Washington Post in 1996. ‘I did see that there was an airport, there was the Pentagon, and that driving to D.C. was a pretty short distance.'”

Are District leaders a bunch of penny-pinchers when it comes to snow removal? That appears to be the point of a WaPo piece this morning by reporter Ashley Halsey. The lede of the piece glorifies the snow-removal efforts of Petoskey, Mich.: “One December day in a small town very far from Washington, a heck of a lot of snow began to fall. After three days, it was four feet deep. After five days, it was six feet deep. And after one week, the snow was as deep as Shaquille O’Neal is tall. Then the snow stopped, sidewalks were shoveled, streets were plowed and all in Petoskey, Mich., went about their business. Four days later, when winter vacation ended, the schools reopened on schedule.”

But here’s the key thing: Petoskey spends upwards of $11,000 per mile per year on snow removal. The District clocks in at $5,636. So you get what you pay for, is the idea.

The blind man who was hit by a Metro train on Sunday morning has succumbed to his injuries.

Wilson Building reporters, please get used to this term: “City-wide Grants Manual and Sourcebook.” That’s the accountability bible that the administration of Adrian M. Fenty released yesterday to set standards for tracking grants to nonprofits. According to WaPo account by Tim Craig: “The new rule book, ‘City-wide Grants Manual and Sourcebook,’ marks the first time that the city has a uniform policy for how grant monies are doled out and comes at a time when some city agencies and officials have been criticized for failing to detect fraud, waste and abuse by some grant recipients. ‘This will be my lasting legacy because long after I am gone, the District will have rules for dealing with one-quarter of its budget,’ said [D.C. Attorney General Peter] Nickles, who spent the past six months working with the Office of Partnerships and Grants to develop the guidelines.”

LLD’s rejoinder to Nickles: Sorry, Mr. AG, but legacies don’t work that way. You don’t get to decide what is is; others do.

WaPo edit board asks for “careful” investigation of Gilbert Arenas‘ loaded locker.

TOTALLY AWESOME! D.C. Wire has finally updated itself. And it’s a good one, too. Nikita Stewart has done a fine job of advising city residents on how to avoid the bag tax. Now, we here at LLD don’t want to claim any credit for getting that item up on D.C. Wire, but it has been a crusade here all week long.

Allegation: $500,000 in theft from church!

WashTimes does piece on Ballou Senior High School’s basketball team. Could this piece be among the last such stories we ever see from the WashTimes?