Regarding the May 25 front-page article “Boy Scouts love this scenic river. Locals say they’re ruining it.”:
The camp offered many activities, but it was the river that was its beating heart. The camp had no running water. Each morning, we sprinted to the beach to plunge into its chilly waters skinny-dip style to soap up and rinse off for the day. Twice a day, after sweating through activities such as tennis, baseball and horseback riding, we returned to the Maury for refreshment, swimming, canoeing and fly-fishing. Several times each summer, we staged competitive swim meets, and there was the spectacular — or so we thought — aquacade, to which we invited surrounding girls’ camps for their communities to be dazzled by our displays of synchronized swimming. Tattooed on my memory are dawn canoe trips downriver to dock on the Maury’s bank to clean and fry a breakfast of sun perch that we had caught along the way.
Unlike the static Lake Merriweather, the Maury taught us her ways. Swollen and muddy after a hard rain, we waited for her to clear and settle to permit us to swim. When mountain streams that fed her slowed to a trickle in time of drought, we saw our river recede and our diving raft close. Also, we got to know her friends: dragonflies darting across her surface, bass and trout breaking the surface for insect snacks, and the variety of snakes and critters that lived in and around her currents. More than a neighbor, the Maury River was our friend.
I do not begrudge the Boy Scouts the certainty of their placid lake — the root cause of the silting issue — but I grieve that in its stability they cannot learn the ways of a living river and become dependent on its conditions for their education and recreation.
Ashley Hawken, Arlington
I live on the Maury River just downstream from the dam that was described in The Post’s recent article. The Scouts’ actions damage the water flow and quality of the Maury, negatively affecting the aquatic life that is essential to keeping the water clean and that forms the basis of the river’s food web. It is noteworthy that the purpose of the dam is to create a lake that is closed to the public and only used by the Scout community in the summer months, even as it impacts the local human and wildlife communities all year long. The article limited its discussion to ways to improve dam management, but frankly a better solution for our community would be to remove the dam entirely.
The National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts’ director of support services, Matthew Keck, indicates that it strives to protect the area’s environment. Our experience says otherwise. In addition to the volume of sediment that the Scouts send down the river, their failure to manage their property has allowed invasive plants to spread deeply and thickly into abutting natural areas, including into Goshen Pass Natural Area Preserve, an area with biological treasures that deserve protection.
I have spent nearly a decade attempting to improve the riparian area on my property with the dual goals of increasing wildlife habitat and reducing the flooding hazard to my neighbors and myself. This includes countless hours removing invasive plants. Alas, the perpetual flow of seeds from the Scout Reservation renders such efforts futile.
I lived in Alexandria for more than 20 years before purchasing an ancient, decrepit home along the Maury River because I could not resist the beauty of the area. Goshen Pass, just up the road, is one of the most spectacular spots in Virginia. I hope readers will come visit and see why the community cares so deeply about the Maury.
Susan McLaughlin, Rockbridge Baths, Va.
Regarding The Post’s May 24 front-page article “A hidden hazard.”
The Post’s recent reporting painted a disturbing picture of impending septic system failures caused by rising sea levels in coastal areas across the Southeast. The resulting potential for spreading human diseases will be compounded by another unaddressed problem: the introduction of novel waterborne diseases in discharges of ships’ ballast water.
When ships load water for use as ballast, it can carry pathogenic bacteria and viruses, including when ballasting in harbors that are polluted with raw human sewage. Once these ships arrive at U.S. ports, they release these pathogens into coastal and fresh waters in ballast discharges.
Until recently, it has been thought that public and private wastewater treatment systems would prevent any general epidemic spread of ship-introduced diseases in this country — although, as 180 environmental and public health organizations wrote to President Biden in 2022, poor and minority communities with inadequate water treatment systems could still be at risk. The expected failure of septic systems across a swath of coastal states raises the risks for a much broader set of communities.
We’ve seen what happens when we fail to prevent the introduction of waterborne disease in ballast discharges and to provide or maintain adequate wastewater treatment. In 1991, a pandemic strain of cholera that had emerged in Asia appeared on the Peruvian coast, having been carried across the Pacific in ships’ ballast water. Without effective wastewater treatment, the disease spread across South America. More than 1 million people got sick, and more than 10,000 died.
The 1972 Clean Water Act requires that ballast discharges be treated with the best available technology to stop the release of human diseases into U.S. waters. Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency has steadfastly refused to set discharge standards that comply with the act.
In 1973, the EPA exempted ballast water discharges from regulation. After environmental groups sued, a federal district court determined that the exemption was unlawful.
Under court order, the agency did establish standards for ballast discharges, but in 2015 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit found those standards were inadequate and unlawful and ordered the EPA to issue new ones. After years of delay and further litigation, the EPA finally agreed to issue new standards later this year, but it is proposing to issue the same standards that the court rejected in 2015, in apparent defiance of the court’s order.
The threat posed by the spread of human diseases in ballast water is clear, the technology to stop it exists, a law requiring the use of that technology has long been in place and the courts have upheld the law. All that’s needed is for the responsible agency to stop refusing to do its job.
Andrew Cohen, Richmond, Calif.
Now that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has eliminated the very utterance of “climate change” in many of the state’s laws, perhaps his only solution to the growing number of septic fields compromised by rising sea levels will be to channel his best King Canute and to command the sea to cease and desist its rising. Failing that, I suppose Mr. DeSantis could blame a rising tide of water and sludge on the woke agenda. Floridians deserve better than this.
Richard G. Little, Troy, N.Y.
Mr. Hogan’s mistake
Larry Hogan is not a credible candidate for the U.S. Senate. The Republican says he wants to fix broken politics and fight for Maryland. But he offers no leadership when he says he will not vote for Donald Trump or President Biden. Mr. Trump is the reason for the brokenness Mr. Hogan identifies. To stand against both presidential candidates and their allies lessens his ability to fight for Maryland.
Mr. Hogan seems to stand with Mr. Biden on the issues. He said he decided to run because GOP senators, acting on Mr. Trump’s instructions, killed the bipartisan border bill; he immediately announced a strong pro-choice commitment; he is not an election results denier; he supports Ukraine.
All this puts Mr. Hogan on the side of Mr. Biden and the Senate Democrats. There is no future in the Senate for an anti-MAGA Republican. Witness the parade of such senators who have recently exited government. He could, however, join Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who says she is done with Trump and might consider becoming an independent.
To show credibility and a higher level of integrity, Mr. Hogan should run as an independent Republican who endorses President Biden and pledges to declare as an independent and caucus with the Senate Democrats until the Republicans find new leadership more in line with his traditional Republican values.
Because Democrat Angela D. Alsobrooks is such a strong candidate and because of Mr. Hogan’s lack of real leadership and credibility, he will probably lose anyway. But Mr. Hogan would have a better chance and keep his dignity were he to take these steps to become credible.
Pete Crossland, Takoma Park
