Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Affordable housing proposal for Upton Street/Howard Law School grounds
Homeless family facility on Idaho Ave.
Homeless folks in Sedgwick Gardens' departments
Pool knocked into Hearst Playground despite neighborhood objections.

All these projects less than one mile from each other.

You live in the city. No ward is (or should be) exempted from playing a role in addressing homelessness and the dearth of affordable housing.

If you want an urban Mayberry, then move.

In Ward 6 we got way more than our fair share. So some of that should go to Ward 3 and other parts of the city.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's on the website.

Please send a link. I can't find the plan that indicates where trees will be added to replace those that were removed.

Please send the url for DC’s plan for reforestation of the park slopes and other cut area. It’s not apparent from the website.

Crickets ... or cicadas.

Or maybe some of us being outside and enjoying the beautiful weather all day.

What you are looking for is here

https://dgs.dc.gov/page/hearst-park-and-pool-improvement-project

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's on the website.

Please send a link. I can't find the plan that indicates where trees will be added to replace those that were removed.

Please send the url for DC’s plan for reforestation of the park slopes and other cut area. It’s not apparent from the website.

Crickets ... or cicadas.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's on the website.

Please send a link. I can't find the plan that indicates where trees will be added to replace those that were removed.

Please send the url for DC’s plan for reforestation of the park slopes and other cut area. It’s not apparent from the website.

Anonymous wrote:You lack of knowledge of water retention features is only clouded by your misplaced disdain for Cheh.

One could conclude that on the Hearst pool snafu that Mary Cheh is all wet.

This update is excerpted from a local bulletin board: “The city was determined to locate a pool in this park despite several of us neighbors voicing concern about locating a pool structure on top of the underground springs. When the pool excavations commenced, the contractor immediately hit ground water, which now needs to be pumped away in order for the structure to remain stable. We have been told that at some point the water will be diverted into the storm drainage system under the field. But what you are currently observing is the volume of water that will now need to be pumped — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in perpetuity — in order for the pool structure to remain stable. Because of this pumping requirement, there apparently needs to be an elaborate pumping system consisting of a primary pump, a backup pump in case the primary pump fails or needs to be replaced, and an emergency generator with secondary fuel source (oil tank or gas line) to keep the pumping going in the event of a power failure.”

You lack of knowledge of water retention features is only clouded by your misplaced disdain for Cheh.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The drainage issue 1) was already there, 2) is being aided by mitigation step on site and 3) has nothing to do with the issues at Connecticut and Ordway.

Yes, there was a water problem at Hearst, which was not taken account of by Che and the District agencies. And what is the mitigation (other than pumping it into the street, which they have been doing for months)? And, yes, the water drainage has a lot to do with Connecticut Avenue, as the last I checked, water flows downhill, not uphill. DDOT officials and contractors have identified up the slope drainage issues and the small storm sewer pipes under streets west of Connecticut Ave. as a major contributor to the water problems that plague Connecticut Avenue and the Metro system during heavy rains. And continuous pumping of Hearst Park water into the streets, exacerbated by the construction, just makes it worse.

They knew about the water problem. Neighbors on Springland had been complaining about it for years, it is and was nothing new, and nothing that the park renovation made worse. As I said, the renovation is adding water retention features that will help.

Yes, water flows downhill. The water at Hearst does not end up at Porter (see the uphill part of the statement) - it goes down Tilden/Hazen to Rock Creek. It doesn't make a right turn and go up to Porter and then down from there.



The current water pumping is a short term issue during construction.

Ha! Maybe the pool is the retention feature! Is it a spring fed pool? They'll need to double the size to hold all of the added runoff from the denuded park slopes. This whole thing has been a planning fiasco, and Cheh is largely responsible. The thing we've never quite understood about Cheh is that she thinks that she's rather intelligent, which one would expect from a law professor. But she's actually not - in her case, stubbornness doesn't equate to smarts. Cheh is a know-it-all who doesn't listen once she's made up her mind, and doesn't let facts or details get in her way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The drainage issue 1) was already there, 2) is being aided by mitigation step on site and 3) has nothing to do with the issues at Connecticut and Ordway.

Yes, there was a water problem at Hearst, which was not taken account of by Che and the District agencies. And what is the mitigation (other than pumping it into the street, which they have been doing for months)? And, yes, the water drainage has a lot to do with Connecticut Avenue, as the last I checked, water flows downhill, not uphill. DDOT officials and contractors have identified up the slope drainage issues and the small storm sewer pipes under streets west of Connecticut Ave. as a major contributor to the water problems that plague Connecticut Avenue and the Metro system during heavy rains. And continuous pumping of Hearst Park water into the streets, exacerbated by the construction, just makes it worse.

They knew about the water problem. Neighbors on Springland had been complaining about it for years, it is and was nothing new, and nothing that the park renovation made worse. As I said, the renovation is adding water retention features that will help.

Yes, water flows downhill. The water at Hearst does not end up at Porter (see the uphill part of the statement) - it goes down Tilden/Hazen to Rock Creek. It doesn't make a right turn and go up to Porter and then down from there.

The current water pumping is a short term issue during construction.

Anonymous wrote:The drainage issue 1) was already there, 2) is being aided by mitigation step on site and 3) has nothing to do with the issues at Connecticut and Ordway.

Yes, there was a water problem at Hearst, which was not taken account of by Che and the District agencies. And what is the mitigation (other than pumping it into the street, which they have been doing for months)? And, yes, the water drainage has a lot to do with Connecticut Avenue, as the last I checked, water flows downhill, not uphill. DDOT officials and contractors have identified up the slope drainage issues and the small storm sewer pipes under streets west of Connecticut Ave. as a major contributor to the water problems that plague Connecticut Avenue and the Metro system during heavy rains. And continuous pumping of Hearst Park water into the streets, exacerbated by the construction, just makes it worse.

The drainage issue 1) was already there, 2) is being aided by mitigation step on site and 3) has nothing to do with the issues at Connecticut and Ordway.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The best spot for a pool at Hearst would have been immediately below the park shelter SW of the Hearst school. It would have been some distance from most houses, have required little tree removal, and an elevator tower would not have been necessary. It would have been adjacent to the playground, a bonus. And pool users who drive could have parked in the school parking lot during the summer. A win-win.

There were engineering reasons why it couldn't be located there. Yes, that was one of the early, preferred locations.

I fought hard against that location. The field at Hearst is a large urban green space. They are few and far between. Placing the pool where the tennis courts are ensured that we would not lose more. Yes, we lost trees, but that was better than pouring concrete on open space. I did not support a pool in the first place, but once the decision was made by DC gov't to build, this was the best compromise. I don't know what they are going to do about all the water. I assume it will be piped underground and the evidence of the environmental havoc will be hidden.

Piped to where, exactly? One of the problems that DDOT identified with Connecticut Avenue drainage -- manifested most notably by the flooding of parts of the Cleveland Park Metro station during very heavy rainfall -- is that the storm drain infrastructure from Wisconsin down to Connecticut Avenue is only 6 inch pipes under many streets. The DDOT plan to fix drainage on Connecticut Ave in Cleveland Park only deals with the avenue portion. Pumping runoff and surface water, which clearly has been exacerbated by the Hearst Park construction, will only exacerbate the drainage infrastructure problems from the Hearst Park down to Connecticut Avenue. DDOT has no plan to dig up and replace the storm water pipes in this area, unless Bowser and Cheh come up with a large, unplanned appropriation. The Hearst water situation is a debacle of Cheh's own doing, as both she and DPR were put on notice that a hydrology study needed to be done and mitigation measures implemented. And a seventh grade earth science student could have told them that basically clear cutting the slopes of the park would exacerbate the runoff problem.

Anonymous wrote:It's on the website.

Please send a link. I can't find the plan that indicates where trees will be added to replace those that were removed.

It's on the website.

Anonymous wrote:There was no snow this year.

That said, the scrub trees and decades of weeds were cleared out. I am not going to be sad about that.

The stately trees that are healthy, remain, and hopefully will for another 100 years!

What is the re=planting plan?