 We
have a plan! After two years of unprecedented collaboration by waterfront
industries, local, state and federal agencies and area residents, the
Elizabeth River Project is proud to announce the completion and initial
implementation of a 10-year plan to clean up and restore Money Point.
An industrial hub on the Elizabeth’s Southern
Branch, Money Point’s waters have long been considered the most hopelessly
polluted section of the river. A century’s worth of unregulated industrial
toxins, combined with two devastating creosote spills during the 1960s,
created a 35-acre no-man’s land of carcinogenic sludge on the river bottom
off Money Point. Contaminated storm water from the area’s industrial
properties, city streets and residential properties continue to add to the
problem. Under the newly-minted Money Point Revitalization Plan, both the
sludge and onshore sources of contaminants will be gone by 2016.
“This plan is a great example of how we can
balance the health and ecology of the river with the needs of local industry
and have everyone come out ahead,” says Elizabeth River Project Director of
Watershed Restoration Joe Rieger.
 “If
you go in and clean up the river, the last thing you want is to have
contaminants still entering it from ground and storm water. Now we have a
plan under which these industries will clean up their soil and groundwater
to protect our investment.
It’s a holistic, landscape restoration
approach. Everybody contributes and everybody benefits.”
The Elizabeth River Project has invited
community and national leaders to a celebration of the Money Point Plan at
the headquarters of Lafarge Cement on October 19 from 4 p.m. to
6 p.m.. There will be music, food, historical photos of Money Point, tall
ships, boat rides and a not-yet-disclosed Grand Artistic Gesture to Honor
the Money Point Plan by Sandra Iliescu, an award-winning painter and
architect who specializes in ethical issues in art and design at the
University of Virginia’s School of Architecture.
We applaud all those who have contributed to
this great effort. |
