The environmental blueprint D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty announced in celebration of Earth Day strives to make the District more eco-friendly, from adding more bike stations to cleaning up the Potomac and Anacostia rivers.
Fenty’s “Green D.C. Agenda” highlights key projects for District homes, schools, neighborhoods, parks, transit, business, and city and government operations.
“Those of us who live and work in the District have a special duty that comes from being the nation’s capital,” Fenty said in his Earth Day letter. “The model we create is meaningful on a national and international stage, at a time when the challenge of climate change and the hope of a green economy have pushed the environment to the top of the global agenda.”
Fenty said he will work with environmental officials and organizations to work on such issues as cleaning up the Anacostia River and curbing climate change.
“It’s different from other green agendas in the past because we’ve never had one before,” said Alan Heymann, spokesman for the D.C. Department of the Environment.
Fenty and environmentalists kicked off the plan by planting nine trees at River Terrace Elementary School in Northeast.
“Everybody has got to get engaged in this,” said Mark Buscaino, the executive director of Casey Trees, a nonprofit organization instrumental in expanding the District’s tree canopy from 34.8 percent to 40 percent of the city.
The District plans to plant 8,600 trees annually for the next 25 years as part of the green agenda.
Buscaino said the Department of the Environment “ramped up their programs,” after the Environmental Protection Agency required the agency to establish the goal for its storm water management permit.
The District government will “keep track of [the agenda] in real time” as an online document monitoring program progress, Heymann said.
The Web site also asks residents to submit a pledge to go green and suggest other ways they improve the environment.
“People typically think of this initiative as something someone else does,” Buscaino said.
