On this moist and musty Monday — in an autumn season that has seen almost every leafy tree in D.C. flame out with a burst of crimson or yellow or orange — the Pinehurst Branch of Rock Creek surfaces in a deep, dark pool just inside the D.C. line.
Beth Mullin opens a black trash bag. I reach down to pick up an empty beer bottle and stuff it in the sack. We continue our walk to the confluence of the Pinehurst with another creek.
Mullin, an attorney who used to work for the Environmental Protection Agency, has taken the Pinehurst Branch and its banks under her wing.
“People aren’t taking care of their own backyard,” she says. “This is my backyard. The water from my roof comes into this watershed.”
Readers of this column know that I love Rock Creek, walk along its trails, skip rocks across its pools, pick up trash on its banks, throw sticks into its pools for my dog to fetch. Like very other waterway that runs through an urban area, Rock Creek is threatened by stormwater runoff, trash, tires, erosion and so forth. Mullin is part of a new band of citizens organizing around the creek.
“I want to increase peoples’ connection to the land and water,” she says. “People should know where their water goes.”
Mullin got connected to Rock Creek through Steve Saari, who started a group called FoRCE a few years ago, short for Friends of Rock Creek’s Environment.
Saari started FoRCE before Mayor Anthony Williams created D.C.’s first Department of the Environment; now he’s a watershed protection specialist for the department.
You can see the ripples of his activism and activity in neighborhood groups around the city that are caring for Rock Creek.
Saari and his programs represent a positive side of Mayor Anthony Williams’ legacy.
Williams, under the prodding of Council Member Carol Schwartz, established the environmental agency and also worked closely with the Casey Foundation to plant tens of thousands of trees in the capital city.
Environmentalists give Williams mixed reviews: Good on trees; bad on water quality. Good on bicycle issues; bad on the stadium.
“He’s been a bit of a disappointment,” says Chris Weiss, director of the D.C. Environmental Network.
Environmentalism was the “other E” during the mayoral campaign, second to education.
But the green groups made their presence known in forums and endorsements.
The Sierra Club could not agree on a mayoral endorsement, but the Friends of the Earth dropped its stamp and some cash on Adrian Fenty.
“We’re very optimistic,” says Weiss, who works with the Friends of the Earth.
Fenty, as we know, is a regular runner and triathlete. Yet he rarely mentioned the environment in his campaign exhortations about education and accountability.
As a council member, Fenty did help constituents protect trees in his ward, and he led the drive to clean up the city’s drinking water.
His pre-transition policy papers talk about stormwater runoff, which is ravaging Rock Creek.
Beth Mullin could show him the unfortunate results.
Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at [email protected].
