Donald Trump has fought to block wind farms, said climate change was a concept created by China, and threatened to cut the Environmental Protection Agency if elected president. Now, critics can add one more anti-environmental hit to Trump’s track record: His Trump National Golf Course in Sterling, Virginia is exacerbating pollution in the Potomac River, according to one environmental group.
The golf course, as Washingtonian Magazine reports, was purchased by the Trump Organization in 2009. One year later, the company expanded the golf course — in the process cutting down 465 trees along the bank of the Potomac. The loss of those trees created the largest treeless stretch along the river from American Legion Memorial Bridge in Maryland to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, said Hedrick Belin, the president of the Potomac Conservancy.
That’s bad news for the river, because trees and shrubs help filter out runoff from urban and agricultural sources — a significant source of pollution for the Potomac — from reaching the river. The Potomac is the second-largest source of water entering the Chesapeake Bay — a water body that’s plagued with its own pollution problems. So keeping pollution out of the Potomac is key to reducing pollution in the bay.
It’s really important to keep green filter strips in place along our rivers and streams
“I think it’s pretty simple — trees are good for the environment. At least in this part of country, it’s really important to keep green filter strips in place along our rivers and streams,” Belin said. “And so when we look at Trump National Golf Course, a mile-and-a-half long stretch of shoreline where all trees were clear-cut, it’s not going to be good for the ecological health of the nearby waters and anyone that relies on good water quality downstream.”
Runoff occurs when rain washes pollutants — from cars, buses, lawns, cropland, and other sources — into bodies of water. It makes water quality worse, but in large enough quantities, it can also cause erosion of riverbanks. Trees help prevent both those things: their root systems help hold the earth together at the water’s edge, and they also help filter out contaminants before they reach the water.
Runoff, in fact, is the only type of pollution that’s getting worse in the Potomac, Belin said. In general, the river’s water quality has been improving over the years: the Potomac Conservancy gave the river a B- grade in its report card this year, a water quality grade that’s up from a C in 2013 and D in 2014. Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, which can cause harmful algae blooms, has been decreasing since 1985, thanks in part to a 2010 law in Virginia and Maryland that bans the sale of detergents with phosphates, as well as legislation limiting phosphorus in lawn fertilizers in the two states. Multiple species of fish have seen encouraging population growth in the river, and the Potomac Conservancy says the river is on its way towards being fishable and swimmable by 2025.
“There are no longer any big industrial pipes along the Potomac that are spewing bright, toxic pollution,” Belin said. “There’s not a single source that you point out and say, ‘that’s clearly bad and we need to stop it.’ It’s every acre, every block in urban and suburban areas.”
Belin said his group has tried to work with the Trump Organization, to get them to “strategically replant” trees along the river. More than 6,000 people that live near the golf course signed a petition urging the Trump Organization to donate 500 native trees to northern Virginia parks to offset the trees that the company had cut down.
“We’ve made multiple requests, sent letters, left voice mails, but we haven’t gotten any response from Trump National Golf Course,” Belin said.
It Snowed Once And Other Things Donald Trump Thinks Prove Global Warming Is A HoaxClimate by CREDIT: AP PHOTO/RICHARD DREW In a long speech in front of many American flags, billionaire Donald Trump…thinkprogress.orgA request for comment sent to the Trump National Golf Course went unanswered as of press time, but Ed Russo, the Trump Organization’s environmental expert, told Washingtonian that cutting down trees along the river was a good thing for the environment, and that the golf course’s grasses are an improvement over the trees — something that goes against the general consensus that trees help reduce runoff and are generally good for the environment.
“The preexisting conditions were a very erodible situation,” he said. “Every time it rained or flooded this was a perfect delivery system for pollutants into the Potomac.”
Belin said that his organization works with multiple companies in the region and would still welcome the opportunity to work with the Trump Organization. In the meantime, he said the Potomac Conservancy was working with volunteers in Maryland and Virginia to plant trees in county parks, and is also working to gain protections for existing forests in the region.