Whenever it rains hard in Alexandria, VA, millions of gallons of sewage-fouled stormwater pour untreated from the city’s aged, overwhelmed sewer system into the Potomac River and its tributaries.
It’s a problem caused by centuries-old infrastructure that the city has been studying and slowly working on for decades. Under a plan endorsed by Virginia’s environmental regulators, it may take the city another 20 years or more to fix it and stop routinely polluting the Chesapeake Bay tributary.
That’s too late for environmental activists and some city residents, who say bacterial contamination from the sewage overflows — which totaled 130 million gallons last year — pose health risks for adults and children who kayak, row and otherwise recreate on the river.
[Continue Reading]The Bay Journal is a partner in the second Chesapeake Bay Summit, a discussion about key issues in the Bay restoration hosted by Maryland Public Television during Chesapeake Bay Week. This year, the Summit aired on April 27 and focused on the challenges of growth and development. Watch it here, and read the following articles related to the 2015 Summit:
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