Office of Secretary

For Immediate Release: July 17, 2000

Contact: Joan Moody, DOI
(202) 208-6416

Secretary of the Interior Babbitt Praises Anacostia Students
for Painting Mural Celebrating
Conservation of Anacostia River

Washington, DC - To 'unveil' a mural painted at the Department of the Interior by D.C. public school students, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Corcoran President and Director David C. Levy, other Interior and Corcoran officials, and members of the Earth Conservation Corps today joined the student artists in celebrating the mural's depiction of life along the Anacostia River. The Department of the Interior is responsible for fish and wildlife such as the reintroduced bald eagle as well as parklands in the Anacostia watershed.

"We are proud that our building will showcase these dramatic scenes of wildlife and people along the Anacostia River," says Interior Secretary Babbitt. "Inspired by the reintroduction of the bald eagle to the river area, the mural will be a symbolic reminder not only of the return of fish and wildlife to the river, but also of the efforts of the Earth Conservation Corps, volunteers, and many of our own employees to protect the watershed. It shows some of the ECC members who are with us today as well as the importance of the watershed to people such as those fishing, canoeing, and planting along the riverbank in the paintings."

All four students participated in art classes as part of the CANVAS (Corcoran Art: New Visions at School) program, taught by Corcoran faculty at Fletcher-Johnson Middle School in Anacostia, one of the Corcoran's partner community sites. Secretary Babbitt praised the Corcoran program and the students, all of whom live in Anacostia, in southeast Washington, D.C. Shonondra Fogel and Brittany Oliver are sophomores at D.C.'s Woodrow Wilson High School; Derrick Byrd and Brian Carpenter, graduates of the Duke Ellington School for the Arts, plan to attend the Maryland College of Art and Design this fall. Painting the mural has provided a paid summer experience both this summer and last for each of the students.

Working with the Earth Conservation Corps (ECC), Julia Moe, who directs The Visual Arts Community Outreach Program's CANVAS program, recruited the students to paint the mural and worked with John Berry, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Policy, Management, and Budget to set up the internship. The students worked under the guidance of professional artist Judy Southerland.

During the summer of 1999, the students spent time at the ECC offices located in a restored Pump House donated by the Potomac Electric Power Company on the Anacostia River. "Last summer they were introduced to the environmental efforts underway to restore an ecosystem to the river that permits wildlife to survive," says Moe. "Their understanding of these efforts has been eloquently conveyed this summer in the students' designs for the mural."

The ECC partners with the Department of the Interior on conservation programs. For example, in 1999 Secretary Babbitt and ECC members joined President Clinton at a White House eagle event. The National Park Service (NPS), Earth Conservation Corps, and District of Columbia have proposed constructing a riverwalk from the mouth of the Anacostia River to the Maryland line.

Several Department of the Interior agencies are involved in conservation efforts in the watershed. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is responsible for the bald eagle and other species protected under the Endangered Species Act. Since 1987, FWS has conducted field studies on the effects of environmental contaminants on fish and wildlife resources in the Anacostia. About 15 percent of the Anacostia watershed is federally owned. The NPS manages Anacostia Park-which includes Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens--Greenbelt

Park, most of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and portions of the Civil War Defenses of Washington and Capitol Hill parks.

-DOI-