The city of Alexandria, Virginia, has been sued by an environmental watchdog group claiming that the city has allegedly been dumping tar and other pollutants into the Potomac River for decades, but the mayor&#8217;s office maintains they were &#8220;surprised&#8221; to receive the lawsuit in the first place.
Earlier in May, the Potomac Riverkeeper Network group filed a lawsuit against Alexandria in federal court concerning &#8220;a storm pipe that is meant to collect rainwater near the former location of the now-defunct Alexandria Town Gas company and empties into the river through a nearby outfall at the edge of Oronoco Street in Old Town,&#8221; The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/05/25/alexandria-potomac-river-pollution-lawsuit/">reported</a>. The group claims that pipe empties contaminated soil and other toxins into the Potomac despite the city&#8217;s efforts to stop it.
A spokesperson for Alexandria told The Daily Wire: &#8220;While the City of Alexandria generally does not comment on pending litigation, we are surprised by the Potomac RiverKeeper Network&#8217;s (PKRN) action. Alexandria has worked closely with both the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ) and the PRKN on the City’s efforts to remediate the remnants of contamination that occurred at this site, which was the former location of Alexandria Town Gas in the late 1800s through the mid-1900s. The City entered the site into the Voluntary Remediation Program overseen by VDEQ in 2000 and has implemented the approved remedial measures in accordance with the approved schedules.&#8221;
Potomac Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks told the Post that his organization has been asking the city for more than half a decade to fix the problem.
&#8220;The idea that they would continue hemorrhaging oil out of this pipe after six years of us asking, begging, pleading them to do the right thing — it’s frustrating that we’re at this place,” Naujoks added. “I thought this would have been resolved years ago.”
As explained by the Post, the city’s website claims that it &#8220;has installed floating booms meant to contain the pollutants near the outfall, relined the storm pipe, and installed a treatment system that is meant to remove coal tar from groundwater before it discharges into the Potomac. It has also dredged contaminated sediment and capped off that area to prevent it from seeping into the rest of the river.&#8221;
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But the Potomac Riverkeepers claim that effort isn&#8217;t enough and the city is operating in violation of the federal Clean Water Act while continuing to pollute the water.
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“You can dredge all you want. But if oil continues to discharge, it’s going to get recontaminated,” Naujoks said. “And I believe it has.”
Since the 1970s, the city of Alexandria has spent millions <a href="https://wtop.com/alexandria/2022/05/lawsuit-says-alexandria-has-been-illegally-polluting-potomac-river-for-decades/">attempting</a> to get rid of water contamination from the Alexandria Town Gas plant.
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Alexandria, Virginia

Lawsuit Claims Alexandria, Virginia, Has Been Dumping Coal Tar And Other Pollutants Into Potomac For Decades

Potomac Riverkeepers Sue Alexandria, Virginia, Claiming The City Is Polluting The Potomac River

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According to a new report, the Alexandria, Virginia, school district and school board did not inform parents in the school district regarding a reported violent sexual assault that left the victim in the hospital.
“Alexandria police have now directly confirmed to Independent Women’s Forum via email that the police arrested a 14-year-old suspect in early December for ‘aggravated sexua[l] battery, rape, and forcible sodomy’ in connection with the October incident at Minnie Howard campus,” Inez Stepman of <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/virginia-school-covered-up-sexual-assault-that-left-victim-hospitalized/">National Review</a> reported on Friday, adding that a series of emails were sent vis-à-vis the incident between school-board members, the superintendent, the mayor, and Alexandria police. “Parents, however, were largely left in the dark,” National Review noted.
Molly Kaiman, an Alexandria City Public Schools parent, who said she felt “misled, angry, [and] scared,” charged, “Parents had zero communication regarding this incident. This crime should scare parents. If parents knew what had happened, parents could have necessary talks with their children and pressure the school to increase safety.”
The only public notification of the reported assault came at a joint board-council hearing, at which it was mentioned that “a potential sexual assault &#8230; is being investigated.”
“On October 6, 2021, ACPS superintendent Gregory Hutchings sent an email to the nine-member ACPS school board with the subject ‘Potential Sexual Assault,’” National Review reported. “The body of the email contained few details but did say &#8230; &#8216;FYI there is a potential sexual assault of a student by other students this afternoon at MH. The student has been taken to the hospital and APD is working through the investigation. No more details at this time.&#8217;”
Mayor Justin Wilson and all city councilors were reportedly notified. But days later a parent emailed Hutchings, then-acting Alexandria City police chief Don Hayes, and the mayor to confirm the reported sexual assault and other alleged violent incidents in the school district.
The district and school-board officials reportedly did not respond, but Hayes confirmed that a sexual assault at the school was under investigation.
Stepman wrote, “The behavior of ACPS and the city council goes far beyond the city of Alexandria. The secrecy surrounding serious crimes at Virginia schools risks becoming systematized. &#8230; In November 2021, a bill was introduced to reverse the earlier law and to require reporting of serious misdemeanor crimes. Additionally, the new law requires that parents be notified of such crimes in their children’s schools and be informed of their rights to press charges through the justice system. That bill has passed both houses of the Virginia legislature and is awaiting signature from the governor.”
This is not the first episode in Virginia where a reported sexual assault has created headlines; last October, The Daily Wire’s investigative reporter Luke Rosiak <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/loudoun-county-schools-tried-to-conceal-sexual-assault-against-daughter-in-bathroom-father-says/">broke the story</a> that the Loudoun County school board had lied about a rape in a girls’ bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt, a story that affected the gubernatorial election.

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Virginia School District Knew About Alleged Sexual Assault That Left Victim In Hospital. They Didn’t Tell District’s Parents: Report

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Alexandria

Lawsuit Claims Alexandria, Virginia, Has Been Dumping Coal Tar And Other Pollutants Into Potomac For Decades

Virginia School District Knew About Alleged Sexual Assault That Left Victim In Hospital. They Didn’t Tell District’s Parents: Report