New Environment Head Faces a Daunting Task

Environmentalists say they fear that D.C. Council members, many of whom are absorbed in campaigns for reelection or other offices, won't have time to monitor the agency, but Schwartz promised that she would.

Schwartz said that the mayor's proposed $26 million budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 is "adequate for now" and that council members "will be open to adding additional resources" as needs become clear.

But Sierra Club board member Jim Dougherty and other environmentalists say they are concerned the department may not get enough money.

"I am more scared than anything else," Dougherty said in an interview. "If they are not going to give it enough dough to get it off on the right foot, it is a waste of energy."

Summing up his broader view of the mayor's environmental record, Dougherty said, "The final analysis has to be that the achievements didn't match the hopes."

During his eight years in office, the mayor has expanded bike trails, made pedestrian safety a bigger issue and set in motion an ambitious plan to revitalize the Anacostia waterfront. But Dougherty said that the mayor has not done enough to promote recycling and that his tree-planting program, though extensive, has not made up for a deficit going back to the 1980s. Dougherty and other environmentalists also fault the mayor for not requiring tougher environmental reviews before development projects begin.

Neil Seldman, a recycling activist, gives the Williams administration more credit than Dougherty does. He says the city has gone from having one of the worst programs in the country to one of the best. Seldman cited the purchase of new trash trucks, the shutdown of decrepit trash transfer stations, the start-up of a composting program and the institution of an everything-in-one-bin residential recycling program. But he agrees with Dougherty that the city has been slow to enforce commercial recycling requirements.

As for Berry, "she gobbles up information, gets things very quickly. From what I've known of her, I think she's a very competent person, and I think she will do well," said Seldman, who is president of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Chris Weiss, D.C. program director for Friends of the Earth, gives the mayor and council credit for trying to block shipment of hazardous waste through the city, an issue now tied up in court. A major test for the department, he said, will be how much it can do to push for the cleanup of the Anacostia River.

The river is polluted these days mainly by runoff from aging sewage pipes, as well as the leftovers of daily life: oil, grease, trash, pet waste and the like. Making improvements could require changes to seemingly unrelated programs, such as street sweeping, environmentalists say.

Taking a break from the Anacostia River cleanup to talk about her new job, Berry said her top priority is to get her department organized. By October, the start of the department's first fiscal year, she hopes all her employees will be in one building instead of scattered, as they are now. Another goal, she said, is to step up enforcement of environmental laws -- a move environmentalists say is crucial.

"It's a huge task," she said of her new role. "I call it a heavy lift."

But she quickly noted that D.C. Council member Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7) had told her how fortunate she was to be the first director of a new venture.

"It's really a huge opportunity," she said.