George W. Bush Sewage Plant?

San Francisco's liberal activists move to rename treatment plant after president

ByABC News
July 22, 2008, 5:50 PM

July 23, 2008 — -- Some presidents are forever memorialized with a marble statue, a reflecting pool, perhaps the renaming of an airport. But for others?

One San Francisco group has decided that the current president deserves to be memorialized by a sewage plant. And they have gathered enough signatures to put an initiative on November's ballot to rename a local plant the "George W. Bush Water Pollution Control Plant."

Naturally there are already plans for other honors in George W. Bush's name. There will be a a presidential library in Dallas, and an elementary school here and there. Perhaps more. But a sewage plant?

That's neither marble, nor customary.

President Bush may have the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco to thank for his first landmark memorial.

The rather facetious, official-sounding organization was hatched over some beers by San Francisco architect Michael Jacinto and technology entrepreneur Brian McConnell.

"We wanted to find some way to most appropriately sum up President Bush's years in office," said McConnell, "and this idea spoke to us like none other. It is ironic and comical on so many levels."

Thanks to McConnell and Jacinto's grassroots efforts, San Francisco voters will be asked in November to authorize the renaming of the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant.

Having received light opposition from both liberals who don't want to see George W. Bush's name written in stone anywhere, and right-wingers who think the ballot measure a disrespectful hoax, the organization hasn't received any heavy institutional resistance.

Tony Winnicker, spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, said he found the plant a rather odd choice, although he "totally appreciates" the humor and satire.

The Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant won the 2004 EPA Plant of the Year Award and offers "extraordinary environmental benefits," according to Winnicker, who said the name-change would cost the city $50,000 in signage changes.