The Bay Starts Here

I am not a tree-hugger, especially when it comes to silly and unjustifiable laws like the Montgomery County (MD) bag tax. In eleven years living in this county, I never allowed one of those plastic grocery bags to hit the street. Instead, I recycled them as small trash bags, which freed me of the need to buy such bags.

Now I recycle grocery bags for use as grocery carriers because I refuse to pay five cents to use a new one. But now I buy small trash bags. Thus, my use of plastic has gone up thanks to the well-intended yet idiotic bag tax.. Since I'm inconvenienced to solve a problem I did not cause, I'm now less inclined to support environmental causes than before.

Sometimes those conservative Republicans have a point, but I digress. While I am not a tree-hugger, I am a boat lover. I do pay attention to clean water issues.

While walking Joe the Wonder Dog along Sligo Creek I found this interesting flyer on the topic by The Friends of Sligo Creek. I did not see the text posted on their site or anywhere else. It's a message worth reading, so here it is on Boating Fever.

"The Bay Starts Here ... says a sticker on one of the toilet tanks at the Brookside Nature Center in Wheaton -- telling one part of the story.

"Most of the water coming to the faucets and toilets of the Sligo Creek watershed is taken from the Potomac River above Great Falls, then processed and piped to our homes; about 10% comes from the Patuxent River to our east.

"Everything that goes down the kitchen sink or toilet flows -- following gravity -- to lateral pipes under the street in front of the house and then through trunk mains laid within the streambed of Sligo Creek. Leaks in these pipes mean raw sewage contaminating our creek.

"Sligo wastewater is piped on southward through Prince Georges County, joining other watersheds' waste, and then through a 23-foot diameter pipe underneath the Anacostia River, ending at Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant in southeast Washington.  The filtered and treated liquid of Sligo Creek is returned there to the Potomac River. Then it flows to the Bay."

The flyer goes on to tell of a meeting about the Washington Suburban Sanitation Commission (WSSC), the water and sewer authority, that is running a project to repair the sewer lines under Sligo Creek.

Maybe this is of interest only to me. But, it's worth knowing that clean treated water comes out the other end of the pipe to waters where we boat.

Chesapeake Bay Magazine features story on the Anacostia River, birthplace of the Potomac River Power Squadron.

When was the last time the Anacostia River got any good press?

I'm a native Washingtonian and I can't recall any. Even the positive story in Chesapeake Bay Magazine, that I am about to refer to you, goes by the headline The Bad and the Beautiful. The subhead tells the full story, however. "Washington's hard-luck Anacostia River may be the city's ace in the hole." (February 2012 issue, pp 22- 27, continued on pp 48-49)

The Anacostia is still muddy, still polluted, still infested with litter and I wouldn't eat anything caught in those waters, but the river is about to get the mother of all face lifts along with the nearby Washington Channel.

The projects are already underway, kicked off by the District of Columbia's heavy and much fought-over investment National's Park, the baseball stadium.

The magazine story touches on that, goes into the District's Southwest waterfront project for the nearby Washington channel and has waxes eloquent about features about the river of interest to small craft boaters. Yes, Anacostia still features wildlife areas. The Kenilworth Gardens, contains the sole remaining marsh that was the dominant feature of the area when George Washington picked the place as the nation's capital.

The area is important to the Potomac River Power Squadron. It was born there in 1915 when Dr. A.B. Bennett, then cruise captain of the Corinthian Yacht Club, convinced members of his club and the nearby Capital Yacht Club to join the power squadron movement.

The Corinthian was based on St. James Creek on the Anacostia. The have since moved downriver, but Capital Yacht Club remains on the Washington Channel. News accounts of the day reported squadron on-water activity from the channel to Occoquan Bay.

Potomac River Squadron is one of many sponsors of the Anacostia River Cleanup Day held annually on Arbor Day. Past Commander Howard Gasaway, Sr., P, is the spark plug behind both the squadron's participation and the clean-up day itself.

Read the feature story on the magazine's web site, www.cheasapeakeboating.net. Click here.

Long articles are hard on eyes, especially old ones, when read online. So look for the February 2012 edition of Chesapeake Bay Magazine, if you can find it.

For a brief history of Potomac River Power Squadron, check out the Founders Day presentation posted on SlideShare here.

Other Anacostia links:

washingtonpost.com - Anacostia River from then till now.

Anacostia Watershed Society web site - http://www.anacostiaws.org/

State of Maryland Department of Natural Resources - The Anacostia: River of Recovery

.pdf document - History of the Corinthian Yacht Club.

Web site - History of the Capital Yacht Club.

Web site - History of the District Yacht Club.

Web site - History of the Seafarer's Yacht Club.