In Washington, D.C., City’s ‘Forgotten River’ Cleans Up, Slowly

WASHINGTON – Bruce Holmes, 65, grew up fishing the Anacostia River, a nine-mile urban waterway that runs through Washington, D.C., and parts of Maryland and has long been defined by pollution and neglect.

Back then, Holmes would save what his family caught – usually carp or catfish – and take it home to fry. It was the 1970s and he didn’t know how contaminated the water was.

“There was no throwing it back,” said Holmes, “Everything we caught we ate. Or we sell.

Now, decades later, Holmes no longer eats what he catches in the Anacostia as he learns more about the river, but he teaches adults and children in the capital how to fish as the river is in something of a comeback. He hopes the fishing classes serve as a clarion call to help clean and maintain the river he grew up around.

Sometimes called D.C.’s “forgotten river,” the Anacostia River is shorter, shallower and more difficult to navigate than the more famous Potomac, which runs through the city’s historic landmarks and is steeped in Revolutionary and American Civil War history. . as a municipal deposit for industrial waste, storm sewage and garbage. This contamination largely affected the black communities that the river crosses.

In recent years, things have started to improve, but changes have come slowly.

It’s still illegal to swim in the Anacostia because of E. coli levels that are above the limit considered safe for human exposure, but in recent years, a $3.29 billion sewer upgrade in D.C. has reduced sewage overflows into the river , keeping large amounts of waste out.

A series of tunnels drilled beneath the city capture stormwater and sewage water that previously flowed into the Anacostia. Since 2018, when the first segment came online, upgrades have reduced sewage and wastewater outflows by 91%, according to DC Water, the city’s water utility.

Last fall, the final section of the Anacostia Tunnel System came into operation. The overall system is expected to reduce overflows into the river by 98%.

Still, the Anacostia received a failing grade for the third time in six years last year from a nonprofit organization that assesses the river’s health based on fecal bacteria content and the state of its aquatic vegetation.

The Anacostia River Watershed tested the river for fecal bacteria, dissolved oxygen – necessary for all aquatic animals – and algae levels, as well as the health of its aquatic vegetation and the clarity of its water.

“The trend line is going up,” said Chris Williams, director of the Anacostia River Watershed. “Twenty-five years ago, it was one of the most polluted rivers in the country,” he said, contrasting this with recent years “where the water quality is improving quite steadily.”

For many involved in cleaning up Anacostia, the river’s history, its abandonment and industrial pollution are inseparable from the city’s racial history.

The river and the surrounding 1,200-acre (4.85-square-kilometer) Anacostia River Park, which reaches parts of Maryland across the D.C. border, were where black communities swam, fished and recreated.

“Because there are low-income communities around the river, it may seem like they are responsible for the pollution,” said Akiima Price, executive director of Friends of Anacostia Park, an organization that works in communities around the river.

“But it comes from everywhere, from every watershed,” she said.

This was recognized last year when Pepco, the city’s utility, reached an agreement with the District of Columbia to pay more than $57 million for the discharge of dangerous chemicals from its power plants into soil, groundwater and storm sewers for decades that polluted Anacostia and other areas. . The settlement was considered the largest in the concessionaire’s history.

The payments will be used in part to clean up the river, including to address contamination from its old power plants. Other measures the city government has put in place, such as a tax on plastic bags since 2009, have also helped keep trash out, experts say.

For Price, the work is ongoing. “There are still challenges,” she said, “but people feel more connected to the river.”

To help change the long-held perception that the water is still as polluted as it once was, Anacostia Riverkeeper, another environmental nonprofit, organized a swimming event along a small section of the river considered safe for swimming.

This year’s event will take place in late June near Kingman Island, a patch of land in the middle of the river. If the event goes as planned, it will mark the first time in more than half a century that D.C. residents will be able to legally swim in the river, after the city banned doing so in any of its waterways in 1971. Last year, the same event was canceled after a storm increased bacteria levels in the river due to sewage overflows.

“It has not gone unnoticed that we are upending more than 50 years of discourse about the river,” said Quinn Molner, director of operations for Anacostia Riverkeeper. About 200 people are expected to participate in the swim, Molner said, despite skepticism from his organization. found when they first announced the event. “Many people who have lived in this area for a long time knew about this river when it wasn’t so big.”

Holmes is one of them. A longtime resident of Southeast D.C., still a predominantly black and less affluent part of the city, Holmes said he doubts that in just a few years the river in its entirety will be swimmable and fishable.

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” he said, “but I can say that because I’ve been fishing here for years, I’ve seen some big changes.”

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