Incinerator foes protest
Fraction of attendees heard at waste-to-energy project hearing
By Pete McCarthy, News-Post Staff , August 23, 2012

Ed Merrifield, president of Potomac Riverkeeper, a group focused on stopping pollution and restoring clean water in the river, said allowing a water permit for this project will allow "a new polluter the right to create a new toxic mixing zone into the Potomac."

The permit being considered would allow up to 400,000 gallons of water a day to be dumped into the Potomac River.

My name is Ed Merrifield, I am the Potomac Riverkeeper as well as President of Potomac Riverkeeper, Inc.  I am here representing our organization and its 3,000 members.  Our mission is to stop pollution and restore clean water in the watershed and that is the reason I am here today.

We will be submitting written comments and if anything I say here is confusing compared to the written comments, please respond to the written comments.  I say this because the last two days have been a little unusual for me. 

Many advances have been made in the technologies available for treating wastewater, but many outdated practices continue to be employed by polluters. One of those obsolete discharge methods is the toxic mixing zone, which means the river itself is used to dilute waste in concentrations not normally allowed.

Public use of Virignia's waterways threatened, regression to worst available technologies, updates from the water, new staff member. Read More

Two years ago, Brent Walls came to Potomac Riverkeeper to serve as the Upper Potomac Manager.