Toxic sites along the Anacostia River.

The District's waterfront was busy this week. On Tuesday, a slew of politicians attended the ribbon cutting for Yards Park, a $42 million undertaking that boasts sprawling views of the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers.

Less than a mile northeast, a coalition of organizations—the Anacostia Watershed Society, Anacostia Watershed Citizens Advisory Committee, Anacostia Riverkeeper, D.C. Environmental Network, Groundwork Anacostia River and the Sierra Club Environmental Justice—released a much less glamorous message at the former location of Washington Gas & Light.

Six land-based sites along the Anacostia River are toxic, and "contribute to contamination of the Lower Anacostia River," according to a letter from the Environmental Protection Agency's Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin. While cleanup efforts are underway at the Washington Navy Yard, the Southeast Federal Center, and Poplar Point, three sites—Kenilworth Landfill, Pepco Benning Road, and Washington Gas & Light—could qualify for Superfund designation.

"If measures to comprehensively address these sites in a transparent and legally enforceable manner are not in effect by mid December 2010, EPA intends to address these sites using appropriate Federal authorities," states Garvin's letter. Brent Bolin, the Anacostia Watershed Society's director of advocacy, emphasized that there has been no response from Mayor Adrian Fenty or his administration.

"The EPA has made it clear that three out of six sites are worth of Superfund listing. The mayor's office has not been enthusiastic... everyone wants to see redevelopment come to [riverfront] communities. They'd like this to be quieter to make redevelopment easier," he stated at Tuesdsay's press conference.

Many officials came from the Yards Park ribbon cutting to the press conference, including Council Chairman Vincent Gray, Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells, and Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry. Those in attendance pledged their dedication to kickstart a transparent cleanup process of the Anacostia River by meeting the EPA's December 2010 deadline. The mayor did not attend.

Gray, Wells, and Barry with Brent Bolin of the Anacostia Watershed Society.

Asked about past and present mayoral responses to river cleanup efforts, Jim Collier, a former supervisor of DDOE's Water Quality Division, wrote in an e-mail, "Mayor Williams supported the restoration of the Anacostia River and made efforts to find ways to finance the programs. The last Fenty budget made large cuts in the DDOE stormwater budget..."

Anacostia Riverkeeper Dottie Yunger noted that "The administration has known all along about the toxic sites. At Poplar Point, the administration planned development instead of cleanup. The Mayor signed the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Act of 2009,  but then tried to raid its cleanup fund to pay for street sweeping in wards that do not border the Anacostia."

Given the Fenty administration's apparent disinterest in the Anacostia's condition, the Sept. 14 primary could determine whether the city meets the EPA's demands or dawdles, forcing federal involvement. An ideal response for organizations working on grassroots river cleanup would naturally be cooperation, said Bolin. "For years, D.C. has asked the feds to step up and do their part. Now they want to, and D.C. is resisting. It defies sense," he wrote in an e-mail. "It is just a weaker foundation to build the cleanup on."

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?

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—DDOT Starts Construction on 11th Street Bridge Project, Sort of; and what's up with Cathy Lanier's latest All Hands On Deck summons?

Morning all. Given all that's happening out there this week, choosing a top story of the day is a tough call, but I am going with this one: ST. Es STILL STRUGGLING—That's according to a new report completed by civil rights attorneys for the federal government and summarized by the Washington Post's Henri Cauvin. This is quite an issue. As the Post notes, the District's hospital for the mentally ill is "falling short in patient safety, nursing care and other areas covered by a court settlement intended to reform the infamous institution in Southeast Washington."

More: "Indeed, the findings reflect the steep challenges facing the District as it attempts to remake the hospital and the rest of the mental health system and to end the long-running class action suit over care of the mentally ill. From the new hospital building that is scheduled to open in March on the St. Elizabeths campus to the closure of the government's main outpatient treatment agency, the D.C. Department of Mental Health has hardly been still over the past few years.

But the pace of change has yet to satisfy the federal judge overseeing the class action suit or the Justice Department team monitoring the settlement agreement for St. Elizabeths, the only public psychiatric hospital in the city and a landmark with a long, sometimes troubled history."

After the jump: More on St. Es; what's up with the D.C. snow cleanup budget for the rest of the winter?; EPA talks tough on C-Bay pollution; can't someone generate a blog post at D.C. Wire?; and a little bit more.

One of the report's major concerns is a gang rape that occurred at St. Es in July. According to the report, the event wasn't even mentioned in "routine treatment reviews of three of the four alleged attackers. But while the documents failed to note the rape allegation, one of the alleged assailant's documents recommended, without explanation, that the patient be observed for 'sexually inappropriate behavior.'"

The bigger picture here is that the city, under the direction of Attorney General Peter Nickles, is seeking to pull St. Es out of the governance arrangement under which it currently operates—that is, with oversight from the courts and the Justice Department. No wonder that Nickles told the Post that the reform effort at St. Es "reflects real progress and a strong commitment to improving care." Examiner on same.

Older drivers are out there.

WARNING FROM THE FEDS TO CHES-BAY WATERSHED STATES: CURB POLLUTION OR ELSE! In years past, the EPA hasn't been too terribly tough on states around here that contribute to pollution in the glorious Chesapeake Bay. Now that's changing, according to Post reporter David Fahrenthold. Here's what could the feds could do if these states—and the nonstate District of Columbia—don't heed their watersheddy duties, according to the Post account: 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."

I'll bet these watershed states are quaking now! Examiner on same.

HOW MANY SEAT INCHES DO YOU NEED? That's the question at which Metro Columnist Courtland Milloy tilts. He laments that he can't get comfy on flights and he's not fat, either. Airlines assume 18 inches if good enough for a seat to accommodate the average American, whereas movie theaters and other industries are realizing that 22 is a better bet. Milloy says he measures 18 inches and still couldn't deal with his seat on the way home from Houston.

Better stock up on those quarters. That's the message from WaPo staff writer Nikita Stewart's piece on how area budget crises are going to affect parking and other activities around the region. The skinny for D.C.ites: "The District's fiscal year began Oct. 1 and brought increases in sales, cigarette and gas taxes. But there's more to come Friday, with the bag fee [five cents per plastic bag]. And by mid-January, the city will complete the conversion of 14,749 parking spaces to charge $2 an hour." Let LLD translate that for you: If you just want to make a quick stop to get a cup of coffee, you'd better scrounge up two quarters, at least. Because you're going to need 15 minutes for that ritual, especially in light of how many specialty coffee drinks are ordered these days. And 15 minutes, under these new rules, will cost you 50 cents. And don't think for a minute that you can duck in and get back out without detection by a parking goon: They're everywhere! Stewart gets some nice quote from Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans: "Nationally, people are fed up with the government nickeling and diming consumers. That's what we're doing. You can call 'em fees. They're all taxes. If it's a duck or a chicken, it's all a bird. ... Our challenge going forward is, with flat revenues, what are we going to do?"

More on the bag fee from the WaPo edit board: "The District is still days away from a new tax on plastic and paper bags, and the complaining has already started. That's understandable given the fundamental change in habit that people are being asked to make. Nonetheless, the new law is a worthy effort aimed at reducing local litter and cleaning up polluted waterways. Not only should it be vigorously enforced, but we also hope it spurs neighboring Virginia and Maryland to follow suit."

And letter writers to WaPo keep alive the great debate over the actions of D.C. Police officer Michael Baylor, he who drew a gun at a snowball fight at the corner of 14th and U Streets NW on Dec. 19. One Gerald E. Sheldon of Rockville responds to a previous letter writer who defended Baylor because he knew of someone who lost an eye during a snowball fight. Writes Sheldon: "There is not much danger to the driver after he stops his vehicle and is still inside his car. I suspect very little in the way of injuries due to thrown snowballs is inflicted on people inside Hummers. Once the car has come to a stop, the driver's exiting the vehicle and escalating the situation by drawing a gun is what causes danger, such as in the situation at 14th and U." And one Vincent M. Vacca of D.C.: "In all three Dec. 26 letters about the D.C. snowball fight and snowstorm, I noted a feeling of, if not forgiveness, then perhaps understanding of off-duty Detective Michael Baylor's pulling out his gun after his Hummer was pelted with snowballs. Is it that Mr. Baylor doesn't subscribe to the admonition that law enforcers never unsheathe a weapon unless they intend to use it?"

D.C. Wire STILL IDLE! Come on, this is getting embarrassing. I mean, it still features that Dec. 23 item on Nickles commenting on Fenty's security detail. Yeah, we all know this is dead week, but can't you just fake it or something. Yesterday, we here at LLD offered a few ideas on refreshing the blog, and nothing happens. Hasn't anyone else noticed that there's just no activity on this crucial blog? This is what it says on D.C. Wire's "about" page: "The D.C. Wire is live! Washington Post reporters will take you to the heart of the District's political life, from neighborhoods to the D.C. Council to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's bullpen." Please, D.C. Wire contributors, make all those words resonate. Get on the phone right now, and call a source. Just update this blog, today. The way I'm counting, you guys have six staffers on this blog. You can't all be skiiing this week. We'll check in with you tomorrow.

Examiner columnist Harry Jaffe makes a strong statement in favor of increasing penalties for PCP-related crimes. Using two anecdotes of possibly PCP-related mayhem, Jaffe says that the bill of Phil Mendelson to up penalties for PCP possession is inadequate. "Mendelson has introduced legislation to make PCP possession a felony, and to suggest jail time of 'not more than five years.' Mendelson makes a good start, but as often happens with this city council, he doesn't go far enough. Rather than 'not more than,' the language should read 'a minimum' of five years. We know that PCP causes random mayhem, violence and homicide. Let's take people who use it — and make it — off our streets."

And Examiner reporter Kytja Weir has this little nugget in a piece about snow removal and budgetary difficulties: "The snow budgets could be tapped again this week. The National Weather Service is forecasting light snow or freezing rain from overnight Wednesday into Friday. The District said Tuesday it was preparing to battle slick roads when revelers descended on the city for New Year's Eve. The city has spent $4 million of its $6.2 million snow removal budget, said District Department of Transportation spokeswoman Karyn Le Blanc." WaBizJo on same.

Ben Conery and David C. Lipscomb of the Washington Times get out of the gate with the first year-end crime roundup. And the data looks good, as we've been expecting: "The year is drawing to a close with homicides in the District at a 45-year low, reflecting a national trend that law enforcement officials are attributing to multipronged crime-prevention strategies that include advances in communication and coordination. With just two days left in the year, according to preliminary numbers from the police department, the District has had 138 homicides compared with 184 at the same time last year, setting up the city to record the lowest number of homicides since 1964, when 132 were reported killed. Metropolitan Police Department officials attribute the decline to a "perfect storm" of crime-fighting strategies, including a new culture of communication within the police department."

LLD's apologies to NBC4's Tom Sherwood, for failing to link to his excellent billboard-removal story of earlier this week. As is often the case, Sherwood comes up with angles and facts that aren't in other accounts.

Police have ID'd the pedestrian killed at the intersection of 16th and Park Road on Monday morning. Also: Man arrested for 1998 murder in Northeast.

Fenty Today: 2:30 pm, Remarks: Uniform Grantmaking Procedures Announcement. Location: 441 4th Street, NW

Just in time for holiday cookouts, the Washington Post has a story about uproar over watering down the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s organic label.

It chronicles questions about the purity of the USDA Organic stamp that can be found on everything from t-shirts, cosmetics and pet food to the hamburgers and corn on the cob enjoyed at the typical All-American Independence Day bash. The Post story inquires: Has the country's preeminent organic label become tainted by the influences of factory farmers and food processing giants? Do products bearing the stamp no longer meet national standards? 

Pressing as those questions may be they are hardly the only controversies surrounding “healthy” and “green” claims used to sell products that have swept into our supermarkets and discount stores in the last couple of years.

TerraChoice, an environmental marketing firm, has published a review of 2,219 consumer product claims. It found that 98 percent of the items had false or misleading advertisements on their labels. 

The Consumers Union is also hard at work debunking falsely “green” advertising. Its Eco-Labels Center is a clearinghouse of more and less “meaningful” labels and standards. Decisions are based on a few things: Are the claims verified? Is the information consistent and available to the public? Are the labels free of influence by the companies hawking the merchandize?

"You can have good labels and standards that are not independent. But they tend to have more bias and cater more to the lowest common denominator. And, third-party verification means nothing when the label is made by a trade association,” Consumers Union senior scientist Urvashi Rangan, told me this spring for an article in ArchitectureWeek about the National Association of Home Builders new greenwashing green building labels.

While it may not seem exactly shocking to learn industry groups sometimes fudge the facts to sell more goods, a surprising number of greenwashing scandals involve the very government agencies charged with protecting the public.

The Federal Trade Commission “crackdown” on greenwashing has been less than robust. Since the FTC launched its green advertising overhaul last year, pitifully few companies have been called on the carpet. Even the Environmental Leader, a “green business” website, reacted with a Jun. 20 editorial that screamed: FTC on Greenwashing: Is That All There Is? And, EL is a publication that never saw a green business initiative it didn’t like.

Today’s Post story centers on the unilateral decision of one USDA bureaucrat to lift a ban on synthetic additives in “organic” baby food. The same official issued 2004 directives allowing farmers to sometimes use pesticides on organic crops and feed non-organic fish meal to organic livestock. Both of the 2004 decisions caused maelstroms and were later overturned, as the Post rehashes today.

Created in 2002, the USDA Organic label was intended to put an end to such controversies by establishing firm rules for what could be sold as “organic.” But, there are big bucks in the balance – the market has grown to about $24 billion a year. The label has become a battlefield pitting the farmers and purist consumers, who pioneered the organics market, against corporate giants like Kraft Foods, Campbell Soup and Dean Foods that are drawn to the double-digit growth rates and premium prices.

Even the Environmental Protection Agency has been implicated in greenwashing. Until the new administration pulled the plug, the EPA ran a special program that rewarded hundreds of companies with fewer inspections and laxer hazardous waste disposal requirements. Participants were portrayed as having impressive pollution-busting policies. But they included some of the biggest polluters in the country; companies that had paid millions of dollars in EPA fines.

This goes on mostly in Appalachia, so you may be wondering what it has to do with the District. While D.C. doesn’t have any coalmines or coal-fired power plants, the city relies on electricity from coal produced in other states, according to American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a trade association.

In my less than comprehensive Internet search, I have failed to unearth, so to speak, the exact amount of D.C.’s electricity that is fueled by mountaintop removal coal. (Does anyone know? Please share.) Suffice it to say, however, that if we go on this way S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford is going to have to come up with a different excuse next time he rendezvous with his Argentine paramour because the Appalachian Trail will be an even less viable excuse.

This brings me to my point: Activists fighting to end mountaintop removal and miners looking to keep the practice alive are set to face off on the Hill any minute now. The Senate Environment and Public Work Committee’s Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife is holding a hearing this afternoon that environmentalists and Appalachian activists hope will mark the beginning of the end of mountaintop removal.  Both sides have descended on D.C. by the busload. According to my sources, the first skirmish was over seating in the hearing room. But you don’t have to leave the comfort of your Internet connection because all the action will be webcast, live blogged and twittered.

For years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has endorsed recycling old tires into cushiony playground surfaces like the one slated to go under the “play rocks” in Shaw's planned Tenth Street Park.

Now, it turns out, the agency is having second thoughts, given that tires contain arsenic, cadmium, chromium, mercury and other chemicals known to cause cancer.

Ooops—this could uproot a key component of our country's built environment. Heck, even the Obamas had this kind of surfacing installed under the spanking new jungle gym at the White House a few months back. There is also mounting concern, however, that it’s not such a great idea to let the kiddies play with so many carcinogens – not to mention latex, which causes allergic reactions in some people.

Though late to this debate, the EPA last year quietly launched its own study into the potential health risks associated with the shredded tires, known in the biz as “tire crumb.” That was months before the Obama kids got their new playground. But I guess the president didn’t get the memo. Apparently, hardly anyone did.

The Associated Press first revealed the EPA’s qualms last week.

The same day, the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, slammed the agency for failing to act in the public’s interest and released internal EPA memos in which agency scientists warned of the risks.

“Kids roll around in this stuff, put it into their mouths and rub it into their skin and hair. Despite the growing concerns of its own scientists, EPA has issued no public statement of caution and still promotes tire crumbs in playgrounds,” Jeff Ruch, PEER’s executive director, says in a press release that you can find, along with the internal EPA memos, here.

The Environmental News Agency has also weighed in with some backstory details.

But what about the Tenth Street Park, which is scheduled to break ground June 15th, and all those playgrounds around town already paved in tire crumb?

Photo courtesy of gemsling, Creative Commons Attribution License