Forest Hills Connection || News and Life in Our DC Neighborhood
Covering Forest Hills, Van Ness, North Cleveland Park and Wakefield
by Marlene Berlin We’ve been warned in the past that the Soapstone Valley Trail is endangered due to steady erosion of the stream banks. The erosion accelerates whenever we have a major storm event, and the storms have not decreased in frequency or impact since that warning in 2014. Take last Tuesday’s powerful deluge, so […]
by Marlene Berlin At the June 26th public meeting on a project that would address the century-old sewer system running through the Soapstone Valley, no one challenged the need for relining the pipes and repairing manholes. DC Water’s presentation made it clear that the pipes and manhole covers, now more than 110 years old, have […]
by Marlene Berlin If you’ve come across volunteers working on the Soapstone Valley Trail in the past year, you’ve run into JoAnn Shaner’s crew. Shaner has been the Soapstone Trail supervisor for the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club since mid-2018. (PATC maintains many of our trails and is currently rebuilding a footbridge on the Melvin Hazen […]
by Marlene Berlin At the public meeting this Wednesday on the Soapstone Valley sewer rehabilitation project, at least one member of the community will be asking the National Park Service and DC Water if the work has to be so invasive. As described on page 6 of Appendix E, Statement of Findings: Approximately 6,100 [linear […]
by Marlene Berlin A deteriorating, 110-year-old sewer system runs through the Soapstone Valley. The National Park Service and DC Water have released the environmental assessment of DC Water’s preferred plan to rehabilitate the system. The federal and city agency will hold a public meeting on this subject June 26th at the Forest Hills of DC […]
by Marlene Berlin The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club is rebuilding the footbridge on the Melvin Hazen Trail west of Connecticut Avenue. The old footbridge, or what was left of it, was near the entrance to the trail near the parking lot behind Sedgwick Gardens (3726 Connecticut Avenue, map). The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club received a […]
The nonprofit that has been organizing cleanups, concerts and other events at Forest Hills Park is preparing to dissolve unless more people join its board. Friends of Forest Hills Playground sent a letter to the community (see below) on Tuesday, June 4th stating that the board would begin winding down operations after June 30th, but […]
The National Park Service has released the environmental assessment of DC Water’s plans for rehabilitating the century-old sewer system in Soapstone Valley. This sets in motion a 59-day public comment period on work that will keep Soapstone users out of the park for as many as four years. NPS has scheduled a public meeting on […]
by Marlene Berlin Putting out an SOS for Broad Branch and Linnean Streams. These two streams in our neighborhood, which have developed into a frog haven, a peaceful place to walk your dog, and a place to find and hear birds and insects, need a group of friends to take care of it. One way […]
Rock Creek speaks to many of us. But it cannot speak for itself. That’s where we come in. One of the public meetings on a District plan to clean up the Chesapeake Bay watershed (including Rock Creek and its tributaries) is happening this Wednesday at UDC. You can register here. Here’s the notice from UDC’s […]
