Passing by the waste treatment plant yesterday, with the overwhelming stench of sewage in the air, I thought to myself, “Gee, I sure wish the City of Arlington had spent $646,000 on plans to develop a park here at the stinky, stinky place so I could hold my nose and have a picnic.”
Imagine my relief when I remembered that Arlington paid Mary Miss that exact amount to create those very plans! Your tax dollars at work! Except it was an unworkable plan for a place with much more pressing needs…
“Mary was trying to change the tires on a tractor-trailer going down the road at 95 miles an hour,” said Larry Slattery, the plant’s bureau chief. Some of her ideas were innovative, he said, but he added dryly, “It’s very difficult to put a rain garden over existing utilities we have to maintain.”
Miss, who has also overseen public art projects in New York’s Battery Park and in Santa Fe, N.M., said she envisioned making the “invisible visible,” prompting residents who might prefer not to know what happens after the toilet flushes to contemplate or even tour the plant. Information kiosks were to dot the Edenlike landscape. She thought people might even picnic there.
Bring the kids! Make a day of it.
Just don’t stand downwind.
Aside from laughing heartily I don’t have a lot to say about Scott Mclellan’s departure (which I have been mocked for predicting here for months, not that I’m feeling smug). A post about sewage is as good a tribute to Scotty as I can think of.