{"id":1494552,"date":"2022-05-27T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2022-05-27T16:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1494552"},"modified":"2022-05-27T12:00:31","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T16:00:31","slug":"lawsuit-claims-alexandria-virginia-has-been-dumping-coal-tar-and-other-pollutants-into-potomac-for-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawsuit-claims-alexandria-virginia-has-been-dumping-coal-tar-and-other-pollutants-into-potomac-for-decades\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Claims Alexandria, Virginia, Has Been Dumping Coal Tar And Other Pollutants Into Potomac For Decades"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flawsuit-claims-alexandria-virginia-has-been-dumping-coal-tar-and-other-pollutants-into-potomac-for-decades%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1494552&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>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\u2019s office maintains they were \u201csurprised\u201d to receive the lawsuit in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in May, the Potomac Riverkeeper Network group filed a lawsuit against Alexandria in federal court concerning \u201ca 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,\u201d 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\u2019s efforts to stop it.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for Alexandria told The Daily Wire: \u201cWhile the City of Alexandria generally does not comment on pending litigation, we are surprised by the Potomac RiverKeeper Network\u2019s (PKRN) action. Alexandria has worked closely with both the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ) and the PRKN on the City\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe 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 \u2014 it\u2019s frustrating that we\u2019re at this place,\u201d Naujoks added. \u201cI thought this would have been resolved years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As explained by the Post, the city\u2019s website claims that it \u201chas 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\" data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\">But the Potomac Riverkeepers claim that effort isn\u2019t enough and the city is operating in violation of the federal Clean Water Act while continuing to pollute the water.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-copy font--article-body gray-darkest ma-0 pb-md\" data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\">\u201cYou can dredge all you want. But if oil continues to discharge, it\u2019s going to get recontaminated,\u201d Naujoks said. \u201cAnd I believe it has.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-qa=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\">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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2019s office maintains they were \u201csurprised\u201d to receive the lawsuit in the first place. Earlier in May, the Potomac Riverkeeper Network group &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":326,"featured_media":1494574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1494552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/326"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1494552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1494574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1494552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1494552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1494552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}