Trash/Recycling (Might Be) Tomorrow

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This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which hopefully means trash and recycling pickup. I say hopefully, because the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority has struggled to maintain its schedule due to a shortage of workers and has missed some pickups recently and had to reschedule. That said, as neighbors, we should do our best to help.

One tool that might help ameliorate the situation if pickup does not come is this online form:
https://cvwma.com/programs/residential-recycling/recycling-service-request-form/

Please go over what can be recycled. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

In international recycling news, the Ukraine war has rippling effects–

Primary aluminum is another large-tonnage Russian export. In the first 11 months of 2021, some 183,000 metric tons of Russian-made finished and semifinished aluminum found its way to the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Despite previously existing sanctions, that made Russia the second biggest exporter of aluminum to the U.S. last year, following only the United Arab Emirates (and not including neighboring free trade zone partners Canada and Mexico).
Postinvasion, prices for finished aluminum and aluminum scrap have trended upward. London Metal Exchange (LME) prices at the start of March reached $1.58 per pound, or $3,495 per metric ton. That is a 107 percent increase compared with the $1,684 per metric ton (76 cents per pound) value of LME aluminum at the start of March 2021.

RECYCLE YOUR CANS! Think of Ukraine…

Dominion and Government Ignore Citizens On Solar

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Dominion is implementing solar on the roof of it’s riverfront parking garage this week after staging materials last week. Though some solar advocates cheer, it deserves more scrutiny.

While there is widespread support for solar in the neighborhood and elsewhere, this installation comes after repeated complaints that it will block more of the historic public view of the James River from Oregon Hill. And in the big picture it is part of a disturbing pattern from Dominion and the City.
That Dominion is ignoring neighborhood residents should come as no surprise. The company has a history of deception and betrayal. In 1999-2000, Dominion and the neighborhood were in bitter contention over plans to build a high rise office complex on the riverfront. The neighborhood worked with outside groups to try to hold Dominion more accountable, even though City Council and Planning Commission notably did not. Ancient history, maybe, but note that Dominion still clings to its City-given legal right to build something taller.
In pushing themselves onto to the riverfront location, approval was given in part because they promised to move their operations center with “hundreds of jobs” from the county to Tredegar Street. But of course they lied and that did not happen.
And in the process of trying to smooth things over, Dominion met with different community representatives about riverfront plans. At the time, traffic was brought up as a chief concern, and Dominion assured City Council that existing roadways could serve the additional traffic created by its development. They lied again. Ten years later, Dominion insisted on a new road while at the same time saying it had no plans for new development “at this time.” And then came Venture Richmond’s push for an amphitheater. It was very sad to see Richmond’s historic riverfront get this corporate driveway treatment. Many trees were cut down and wildlife displaced, and the historic canal was again cut into. When this new road was proposed, Oregon Hill residents suggested extending Spring Street to 5th Street instead. They were ignored.

Getting back to solar and the present day, it’s very important to note that when Dominion did build its complex on the riverfront, the architects created a huge, south-facing, sloping roof for it’s ‘Enron-like’ energy-trading floor FOR solar. PV panels could be put flush to that roof and have little to no impact on the historic river view from Oregon Hill. Despite this long-existing option, Dominion is building more height on top of its parking garage. Once again, Dominion purposely ignores citizens and alternatives.

So what, some solar advocates say. They don’t care about this historic neighborhood or even the riverfront. So what if this parking garage array is mostly a prop for the Dominion executives and politicians to point to during protests, it’s still more solar.
Maybe, but consider that, above all, this is more energy that Dominion OWNS, not the government, and certainly not citizens.

Case in point- the City’s Department of Public Utilities is beginning to re-roof the Byrd Park reservoir. Planned for many years, this project is a perfect opportunity for the City to make its own investment in renewable energy by copying what other localities all over the world have done and add solar to the new reservoir roof. The energy produced there could be invaluable for emergency/disaster recovery operations. Citizens have asked for it. The Byrd Park Civic Association asked for it. Yet there is NO mention of solar whatsoever in the planning. When our previous Councilperson, Parker Agelasto, asked for it years ago, the DPU head at that time (now PROMOTED by Stoney’s administration) deflected by saying it would violate agreements with Dominion.

Certainly, there are other examples where ‘muni-solar’ opportunities been discouraged and stomped on by Dominon. More ‘solar schools’ was one of the goals of the ‘Put Schools First’ movement– remember how the previous Dominion C.E.O. suddenly inserted himself in school board politics? Now, instead of fixing up old schools (and adding solar!), the local corporate media tells us that City Council and School Board are too busy fighting over the building of a NEW George Wythe High School.

Let’s look at the statewide level. Recently, Aaron Sutch, the Virginia program director for Solar United Neighbors, highlighted Dominion’s “bogus arguments” in regard to state policy and solar OWNED by communities and citizens. Even when ‘big box’ out-of-state corporations have asked to ‘go solar’ in Virginia, Dominion has discouraged it. It’s reprehensible given the opportunities. Coming back to local, recognize that Stone Brewing continues to expand here but does not ‘go solar’ here, despite having lots of solar at its California facilities. They know that Dominion and government discourages it. Dominion overall does not want distributed rooftop solar, they would rather have ‘utility-sized’ solar that THEY CONTROL installed as Virginians argue about ‘solar farms’.

The point is that Dominion will continue to pretend to ‘go solar’ while ignoring citizen and neighborhood concerns and doing all it can to discourage anyone else from competing with them for energy production. Indeed, this is why Dominion took over so much of Richmond’s riverfront in the first place. Government, captured by corporate money, will not stand in Dominion’s way. This is detrimental to not just Virginia citizens, but for humanity, as we face more climate change.

New Head Of St. Andrew’s School Announced

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St. Andrew’s School has announced that Kay Mason, a longtime independent educator from Isidore Newman School in New Orleans, LA, will become our new Head of School starting July 2022.
Mrs. Mason takes the helm from the School’s seventh leader, Dr. Cyndy Weldon-Lassiter.
“When I sat across from Kay in my office and listened to her talk about her experience and how it could complement the work we have been doing at St. Andrew’s School, I could clearly see our next leader. She was impressed with the school community, and we were equally impressed with her. I am thrilled she will be St. Andrew’s Head of School,” Dr. Weldon-Lassiter says.
Mason said she is truly humbled to have the opportunity to continue Grace Arents’ legacy and vision, as well as St. Andrew’s mission and values.
“It is certainly one of my goals to partner with all members of the St. Andrews’ community as this wonderful school enters the next chapter in its long history,” Mason says.
Please join us in welcoming Kay!

Trash/Recycling (Might Be) Tomorrow

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This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which hopefully means trash and recycling pickup. I say hopefully, because the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority has struggled to maintain its schedule due to a shortage of workers and has missed some pickups recently and had to reschedule. That said, as neighbors, we should do our best to help.

One tool that might help ameliorate the situation if pickup does not come is this online form:
https://cvwma.com/programs/residential-recycling/recycling-service-request-form/

Please go over what can be recycled. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

In recycling news, a recycling center in Chesapeake, VA caught fire Saturday afternoon causing a cloud of gray smoke that could be seen for miles.

On the national front, as reported by Waste Advantage magazine, U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) and Co-Chair of the Senate Recycling Caucus, along with Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the EPW Committee, and John Boozman (R-Ark.), Co-chair of the Senate Recycling Caucus and member of the EPW Committee, introduced two pieces of legislation focused on improving the nation’s recycling and composting systems.

The Recycling and Composting Accountability Act would require the EPA to collect, and make publically available, data on recycling and composting rates across the country, while the Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act would establish a pilot rural recycling program at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “When we look at opportunities for reducing pollution and waste and creating good-paying jobs domestically, recycling is an area that unites most Americans,” Chairman Carper said. “Yet, our nation continues to recycle only about one-third of the products we consume each year, leading to more and more waste overflowing from our landfills and polluting our oceans. To address this growing problem, I’m pleased to introduce a pair of bipartisan bills with Senators Capito and Boozman that would help strengthen our nation’s recycling and composting efforts. Our legislation would improve data collection for our nation’s recycling systems, explore opportunities for a national composting strategy, and expand recycling access in underserved communities. These commonsense solutions will move us closer to creating a more sustainable, circular economy and leaving behind a livable planet for future generations, which we all want.”

In international news, researchers at the University of Bath have developed a method for upcycling plastic waste at room temperature.

On Ukraine

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Oregon Hill joins the world in mourning the tragedy and destruction of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There has not been a neighborhood vote or anything, but I am confident neighbors would rightly condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine as an act of aggression and a violation of international law.

That said, there needs to be more editorial on what lead to this horrible moment in history. Before that though, the standard disclaimer- this editorial, and indeed, this site, does not portend to represent ALL of Oregon Hill residents’ opinion.

Certainly, the following editorial view is not being addressed by the corporate media- not nationally or locally, and probably does not represent the majority of popular American opinion either- but it needs to be expressed- President Biden is wrong when he declares the Russian invasion ‘unprovoked’.

Biden and other media and government leaders do themselves no favors when try to obscure the American involvement and actions preceding the Russian invasion.

In the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Warsaw Pact, and despite previous promises to not do so, America has pushed a policy of NATO expansionism that has alarmed and angered Russia. Despite many warnings from foreign policy experts, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were added to NATO in 1999, with Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia following in 2004. In a December 2021 speech to his top military officials, Putin expressed his concerns about Ukraine in particular:

Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext of exercises. The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads….
Kiev has long proclaimed a strategic course on joining NATO. Indeed, each country is entitled to pick its own security system and enter into military alliances. There would be no problem with that, if it were not for one “but.” International documents expressly stipulate the principle of equal and indivisible security, which includes obligations not to strengthen one’s own security at the expense of the security of other states….
In other words, the choice of pathways towards ensuring security should not pose a threat to other states, whereas Ukraine joining NATO is a direct threat to Russia’s security.

Now, Putin is a murderous thug with a reputation for executing journalists that criticize him, but he is also valued by many Russians as a ‘strongman’ who has rehabilitated Russia’s stature in the world since Yeltsin. Having him with a nuclear button is terrifying as he would be a real ‘cold fish’ pushing it. We can only hope that his love of country and self-preservation would prevent him from doing so. You trap a bear in a cave and it will lash out. Why has the U.S. embarked on this dangerous course and brought Ukraine along with it?

And in particular in the Ukraine (the name means ‘borderlands’), there is a very sordid C.I.A. track record of arming neo-Nazi militia. This is NOT to say that all Ukranians are fascists, but this element has been tolerated and even encouraged to fight Russians. Thankfully, local activist Phil Wilyato has done a very good job of reporting on this aspect in the Richmond Defender newspaper and elsewhere. Still, how many Americans really know about this? Because we can be sure that many Russians are aware of it on their border.

But the real problem is that the Biden administration seems to be supporting if not continuing a policy of regime change. In January, it appointed Victoria Nuland to the position of under secretary of state for political affairs at the State Department. Nuland was a key member of the Bush administration who advocated tirelessly for interventionism in Afghanistan and Iraq and later joined the Obama administration and advocated tirelessly for interventionism in Libya and Syria. (We will see if the Ukraine refugee crisis surpasses the Libyan one, biggest since World War II.) But Nuland became especially infamous in her post as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, where she helped orchestrate a coup in Ukraine in 2014.

Most Americans don’t know the story of the right wing Maidan Coup, which many U.S. mainstream media outlets did not cover. This essentially gave Putin the opening he needed to have Russia illegally annex Crimea from Ukraine and was a major event that lead to the current war.

As stated above, none of these things excuse or justify Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, but they definitely represent American provocation. The question is what comes next? Is Biden’s plan to push ‘regime change’ policies on Russia, a nuclear power? This risks WWIII. Sadly, Ukraine’s immediate future is that of a battlefield, unless cooler heads prevail. Negotiating for Ukraine’s permanent neutrality is a real option, but it may be lost in a fog of war.

Also sadly, any real political conversation on this topic, in the U.S. at least, will likely be drowned out by the same neo-McCarthyism and smearing that we saw during Russiagate, with racist conman Trump and his Russian thug friend Putin used as foils for triangulation. The ruling Democratic Party continues to punch left while joining the rest of the country in drifting to the right. In the process of all this, America will probably squander windows of opportunity for a new course and foreign policy.

At the same time, to end on a brighter note, America and Europe have new incentives to reform energy policy and move more quickly towards renewable energy. From the executive director of the Electrification Coalition:

“Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is a devastating crisis whose impacts are being felt around the world.
“This conflict is the latest example of the inextricable links between our energy systems and our national security, and it vividly demonstrates the human and economic costs of powering transportation with fossil fuels. In 2020, Russia was the world’s third-largest producer of petroleum. The U.S. transportation sector’s overwhelming dependence on volatile global oil markets – and the unreliable actors who influence them – is a direct threat to the interests of the United States and our allies.
“Widespread adoption of EVs is the best scalable strategy to loosen oil’s grip on our national security and our economic prosperity. As the price of gasoline rises, with impacts felt most acutely by those who are most vulnerable, it is time for bipartisan leadership to accelerate the arrival of a transportation future that is domestically powered and stably priced.
“The Biden administration has taken important steps to support the electrification of our transportation sector, including enactment of the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which includes unprecedented levels of funding for EV charging infrastructure and electric school buses, and executive orders to electrify the federal fleet and increase EVs’ share of total vehicles sold in the United States. And the president reiterated the administration’s commitment to EVs in last week’s State of the Union address.
“We applaud the administration for its leadership on transportation electrification, and we will continue to partner with national policymakers on steps forward to reduce our transportation system’s reliance on oil. Much more work remains to be done to free ourselves from the harms petroleum dependence inflicts on the American people, our national security, economic prosperity, manufacturing leadership, public health, and climate.
“It is critical that we come together now to accelerate widespread EV adoption. This is a moment like no other, and our leaders must waste no time seizing it.”

New Rector At St. Andrew’s Church

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Denise Clegg Bennett posted:

I am thrilled to announce that as of today, I have answered the call to be the interim rector at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Richmond. While I will miss the residents and team members at Hermitage Richmond, I am delighted to be a part of St. Andrew’s during this time of transition and change.