A new environmental strategy calls for the elimination of trash in the Anacostia River by 2013; However, the implementation and cost of the proposal remains unclear.
The Anacostia Watershed Trash Reduction Strategy calls for government agencies to cut the trash flow from an estimated 20,000 tons annually to zero. The strategy proposes that governments in Maryland, the District and local administrations in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties invest in existing programs and new technologies as well as educating people along the watershed on the importance of not littering.
These changes won’t come cheap, said John Galli, senior environmental engineer with the Washington Metropolitan Council of Governments and a leader among the 15 agencies and groups that authored the report.
Galli estimates government environmental agencies in the area will need anywhere between a 10 to 20 percent increase in funding to meet the proposal’s goals.
That estimate may be conservative, Montgomery County Environmental Protection Agency Senior Planner Meo Curtis said. The river’s cleaning cost depends on what technologies and proposals from the strategy the county and state choose to support, Curtis said.
“We are certainly going to need more resources to do more,” Curtis said.
Similarly, the District is unsure about that figure, said Ronald Austin, coordinator in the District’s Office of the Clean City. “We haven’t even estimated the cost,” he said.
But Austin maintains that the strategy is attainable and groups are already, “making a big strong effort to get there.”
“This is not going to end up on a shelf collecting dust,” Galli said. “I think it has a really good shot of getting done.”
