In a section of the city east of the Anacostia River where violent crime, drugs and economic distress frequently command the spotlight, D.C. Council member Marion Barry zeroed in on a very different subject: environmental cleanup.
"People say we're not concerned about the environment. That's not true. We're all concerned," Barry (D-Ward 8) told a crowd of more than 100 at a community meeting last week in the Anacostia High School auditorium.
"We care about air . . . we don't want dead trees," he said, as a slide show displayed photos of a polluted river and streets littered with raggedy furniture, busted wooden pallets, battered appliances and vandalized cars. "We care deeply about our community."
The meeting, titled "From Blight to Beautification; A Ward 8 Community Conversation on the Environment," was billed as the first environmental meeting of its kind in Ward 8 in recent times.
"When kids grow up in trash, they think that's what they deserve," Phillip E. Pannell, executive director of the Anacostia Coordinating Council, one of the event's organizers, said at the end of the night. "They will trash other people."
A panel of representatives from the city, nonprofit environmental organizations and the Anacostia Garden Club spoke in broad terms of economic development, planting more trees and flowers, creating parks, and cleaning up blighted streets and the polluted Anacostia River. All of that, they predicted, would reap new jobs for residents.
Much of the meeting was upbeat, and residents such as Diane Fleming, who is also president of the Anacostia Garden Club, were clearly pleased. "It was good. It brought attention to issues that we deal with every day," said Fleming, who was in the audience while the garden club's founder, Frieda Murray, sat on the panel. "I think the slides were very compelling."
The meeting came at a time when the city's environmental concerns are growing. Just last month, Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) proposed creating a cabinet-level department of environment.
And in January, the city officially launched the Anacostia Waterfront Corp. to oversee an ambitious $8 billion 20-year project that calls for economic and environmental improvements along the Anacostia River.
Dubbed the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, the project includes plans for new commercial and residential development, riverside walking and biking trails, new parks and improvements to existing ones, and recreational boating improvements.
Ward 8, which covers more than 4,000 acres, has historically had its share of environmental problems, particularly with the Anacostia River. A study released last year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that 50 percent to 68 percent of the mature brown bullhead catfish collected in 2001 from three parts of the river had liver tumors, an indicator of serious pollution.
In recent years, there have been efforts to clean up Ward 8 neighborhoods and the Anacostia River. Still, in the poorest ward in the city, where crime, housing and employment are in-your-face problems, the environment has not always been an easy sell. Jobs have long been an issue in the ward, where unemployment exceeds 15 percent, triple the national average.
Bob Morris, a member of the executive committee of the D.C. chapter of the Sierra Club, which is active in Ward 8, said some residents probably figure they have bigger problems to deal with, such as getting jobs and feeding families, "before we figure out how to grow nice trees."
Some residents at the meeting seemed clearly more concerned about jobs than the environment.
Cardell Shelton, 80, an Anacostia resident and critic of Barry, stepped up to the microphone and blasted the panel, expressing skepticism about its plans and saying the city needs more training programs so residents could land jobs created by the proposed projects.
"It's a sham when they talk about jobs for this community," Shelton said after stepping from the microphone. Many residents are not "qualified or skilled to do anything," he added.
Panelist Andrew Altman, executive director of the Anacostia Waterfront Corp., assured the audience that contracts for projects would require that some jobs go to Ward 8 residents.
Besides the economic payback of improving the environment, there are also psychological benefits, according to panelist Robert E. Boone, president and founder of the Anacostia Watershed Society.
"There's a direct correlation between the unemployment and the trash in the community," Boone said, calling blight a "psychological toxin." And he added, "If you don't celebrate beauty, your children will have low self-esteem."
James R. Lyons, executive director of the Casey Trees Endowment Fund, a nonprofit organization that plants trees in Washington, told the crowd that planting more trees would help reduce heat, ozone levels and storm water runoff.
"We're investing in a solution for children," Lyons said.
He also said some studies have found a correlation between tree-lined areas and lower crime rates and stress. One such study was released in 2001 by researchers Frances E. Kuo and William C. Sullivan of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It concluded that units at the Ida B. Wells housing project in Chicago with high levels of vegetation nearby experienced 48 percent fewer property crimes and 56 percent fewer violent crimes than buildings with little greenery, though Kuo noted that vegetation might not have been the only factor causing the difference. The study found that greenery helps relax people and reduces aggression. It also brings people outdoors, which results in more watchful eyes in the neighborhood.
As the meeting plowed ahead, Barry again stepped up to the microphone and listed proposals of his own. He said he hopes to have a month-long cleanup in Ward 8 this fall to encourage people to spruce up their homes and yards. And he spoke of a Christmas contest in which $1,000 would go to the block club with the best tree decorations.
As he was leaving the auditorium, doing his trademark schmoozing, shaking hands and chatting with the crowd, Barry said the meeting debunks "a lot of myths that low-income people don't care about the environment. We're bringing it to the front."
