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Poisons still get into the James, 50 years after Kepone

By DAVE RESS, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Metered Paywall - 7 articles a month)

A half-century after the scandal over Allied Chemical's years of dumping Kepone into the James River finally prompted officials to take action, poisonous chemicals are still getting into the river — and, for many, it’s not clear from where or how much. What is clear is that decades of state officials’ examinations of fish tissues show that one class of toxic chemicals — polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs — are still in the James in significant amounts, 45 years after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned them, a Richmond Times-Dispatch review of thousands of state records, filed over the past three decades, found.

VaNews March 18, 2024


Roanoke board carefully planning apology for urban renewal impacts

By LUKE WEIR, Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 5 articles a month)

Apologies are difficult. Especially while Roanoke is drafting a city apology to families uprooted by racist policies of years past, every word matters. So too matters every vote of current elected leaders. Recent city council decisions have left some citizen members of the Roanoke Equity and Empowerment Advisory Board questioning the timing of apologizing. Now decades removed from city policies enacted between 1955 and 1980, the generational pain caused to Black residents by urban renewal remains acute in Roanoke.

VaNews March 18, 2024


Youngkin administration considers bill to expand local authority to lower speed limits

By NATHANIEL CLINE, Virginia Mercury

The Virginia General Assembly passed a measure three years ago allowing local governments to decrease roadway speed limits in their localities to as low as 15 mph. But recently, lawmakers found that the Virginia Department of Transportation denied seven of eight speed limit decrease requests, because, by state law, only the Commissioner of Highways can authorize changes on state-maintained roads. Earlier this month, legislation advanced that would expand a locality’s speed-reducing authority to roadways within a business or residence district, including state-owned highways.

VaNews March 18, 2024


Parents want more say as Fairfax high school to get fifth leader in 12 years

By KARINA ELWOOD, Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)

Parents at Justice High School in Northern Virginia are calling for more involvement in the selection of its next principal as the high school gears up to have its fifth leader in a span of 12 years. The school’s current principal, Tiffany Narcisse, announced late last month that she will be leaving at the end of the academic year for an opportunity abroad after leading Justice for three years.

VaNews March 18, 2024


Road-kill free-for-all and Virginia’s favorite pollinator: A handful of quirky new laws

By ELIZABETH BEYER, News Leader (Metered Paywall - 3 to 4 articles a month)

Gov. Glenn Youngkin acted on a stack of 50 more bills Thursday, signing 30 into law and vetoing 20. Amid the partisan squabbling, some unique pieces of bipartisan legislation have made it through the gauntlet. Among those are bills to raise the age for jury duty exemptions, recognizing Virginia’s favorite pollinator, and a road-kill free-for-all. Here are some of the quirkiest pieces of legislation to be passed, so far.

VaNews March 18, 2024


Working-class people rarely have a seat ‘at the legislative table’ in state capitols, including in Virginia

By ROBBIE SEQUEIRA, Stateline

In her first few months as a Minnesota state legislator in 2021, state Rep. Kaela Berg often wondered: “What the hell am I doing here?” A single mother and flight attendant without a college degree or prior political experience, Berg now had a seat at the legislative table, shaping policy decisions in her home state. As she ran against a former two-term Republican representative — a commercial real estate agent — she also was struggling for housing and living in a friend’s basement. … While it was gratifying to receive support from working families in her district, her transition to state policymaker felt overwhelming.

VaNews March 18, 2024


2-mile tunnel project under Alexandria reaches major milestone

By MATT PUSATORY AND MATT GREGORY, WUSA-TV

Nearly 150 feet underground, the City of Alexandria is tunneling toward a more environmentally friendly future. The key to that future is 360-ton tunnel-boring machine, affectionately named Hazel. Hazel has not seen the light of day since November 2022. Over the last 16 months, Hazel and her highly skilled crews have been carefully constructing a 2.2-mile tunnel under Old Town Alexandria and the Potomac River. This tunnel, left in her wake, will prevent millions of gallons of combined sewage from polluting the region’s waterways.

VaNews March 18, 2024


Mainstream G.O.P. Group to Target Bob Good as It Shifts Mission and Members

By ANNIE KARNI, New York Times (Metered Paywall - 1 to 2 articles a month)

The Republican Main Street Partnership, a group that supports center-leaning House Republicans, plans to direct half a million dollars into a bid to defeat Representative Bob Good, a hard-right lawmaker from Virginia, making an unusual push to oust a sitting Republican member of Congress. The move is notable not just because the group, through its campaign giving arm, is inserting itself into the kind of intramural fight against an incumbent that it typically avoids. It is also striking because the candidate it is backing — John J. McGuire, a former member of the Navy SEALs and an election denier who has pledged fealty to former President Donald J. Trump and promised to bring a “biblical worldview” to Congress — bears so little resemblance to the kind of moderate Republican the Main Street Partnership was founded to support.

VaNews March 18, 2024


Warrenton council aims to pry more information from Amazon data center site plans

By PETER CARY, Piedmont Journalism Foundation

The Warrenton Town Council wants to make more information available to the public about Amazon’s plans for its controversial data center on Blackwell Road. Councilmembers voted 4-2 on Tuesday to discuss ways to release details of the project’s noise mitigation plans as well as how Dominion Energy will route power lines to the facility. The move came after impassioned pleas from Councilman Paul Mooney (at large) to provide residents with information that is missing from public versions of Amazon’s site plans, which are detailed building plans that must be approved by town staff.

VaNews March 18, 2024


‘We need to get started now’: Search for backup water storage, supply for Potomac River funded

By NEAL AUGENSTEIN, WTOP

Almost six years after WTOP reported D.C. only has a one or two-day supply of drinking water if the Potomac River weren’t available, a study to find potential water storage or another drinking water source will soon begin. The Energy and Water Appropriations Bill approved by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden last week contains $500,000 in funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin a study on potential solutions.

VaNews March 18, 2024