The Washington Nationals baseball team has a brand-new stadium to play in. Interestingly, the new digs provides a perfect backdrop for a story on the Anacostia river and watershed. I heard about the NPR Anacostia Story today and decided to look into it a bit, and that’s where I found the following story, written by David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post. He does an excellent job of covering the river, its tributaries, and the way it affects those living in the area. To summarize, the river is dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty! It’s plagued with trash, PCBs and sewage, the latter additive being a perfume baseball fans will have to live with, for now. The city wants to develop the area into something more commercial, with shops and I imagine dining and so forth, as has been done in other waterfront-reclamation projects. The update to the stadium project is that, while less green than desired, they did make certain that sewage from the park will not flow into the Anacostia during storms. There are a decent number of people interested in the watershed’s rehabilitation, both private and commercial, but it will be a big task, and it touches on our wrong-headed approach to managing the land around us. We must find a way to pave less in order to allow rainwater to seep into the ground the way it is supposed to, not go rushing down paved streets, blasting its way into storm systems which often cannot handle the increased capacity during heavy rains. It’s engineering of the past, and we know better now. Projects exist out there where permeable pavement exists, and where rooftop gardens are encouraged, and they need to be further developed to handle these issues. Of course, Americans need to change their relationship with their lawns, and their herbicides and pesticides. Lastly, we need to stop throwing garbage, like old tires, car bumpers, shopping carts and plastic bags in our water supplies. I mean, really, what kind of animal trashes their own territory, but knows better?

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