Jon Devine, Senior Attorney, Washington, D.C.

On my bike ride into work today, I was stopped in my tracks by the scene pictured below – huge, billowing piles of some kind of foamy substance flowing out of a storm drain and into Four Mile Run, a stream that the bike path follows and that ultimately flows to the Potomac River.  (If you’re a local, here’s a map view of the area where it happened).  It’s hard to get a sense of the scale, but I would estimate that the largest mass of stuff was at least 10 feet high.  Because my kids play around (and, kids being kids, sometimes in) the stream, because I’ve seen people fishing from it, and because we let our dog swim in it, pollution in this little waterway hits close to home.

This incident made me glad there’s a Clean Water Act, which turns 40 years old next month.  Acting under that law, Virginia officials will be able to penalize whoever is responsible if there was an unlawful discharge.  They likewise will be able to require measures to guard against it happening again.  Under the Act, my neighbors in Arlington can find out information ...

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