A Trip Down Washington's "Forgotten River"

By Josh Blumenfeld

The weather was appropriate for a trip down one of the most polluted rivers in America, and a steady drizzle fell from a gunmetal sky.

The temperature hovered in the 60s as we arrived at the Bladensburg public boat ramp near the Maryland - Washington, D.C., border for a five-mile canoe trip down the Anacostia River toward its meeting with the Potomac.

This trip was one of several field excursions planned for the first day of the Society of Environmental Journalists annual meeting in Baltimore, Md., October 9 - 13. Our group was composed of about two dozen journalists from across the nation, and we huddled at the water's edge for a briefing before hitting the water.

Our guides down the river were Robert Boone, founder and president of the Anacostia Watershed Society, and Jim Connolly, director of the Anacostia Watershed Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring and protecting the Anacostia River.

Along the way, we were joined by David Baron, an attorney with Earthjustice, and Bob Nixon, founder and executive director of the Earth Conservation Corps. These two organizations also have worked to stem the degradation of what was once one of the most important trading rivers in colonial America.

Native Americans were living at the confluence of the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers long before European settlers arrived in 1608. According to the Anacostia Watershed Toxics Alliance, the name Anacostia is derived from the Native American term anaquash, which means "trading center."

Four hundred years of clear-cutting, development, sewage, and sedimentation led to the virtual death of the Anacostia. By the 1980s, the river was choked with garbage and raw sewage, and many of the remaining native plants and animals were contaminated with PCBs and chlordane.

Unlike the Potomac River, which has received more than $5 billion worth of clean-up funds over the past four decades, according to figures compiled by the Earth Conservation Corps, the Anacostia has been Washington's "forgotten river." This is partly due to the fact that the Anacostia flows through some of the poorest neighborhoods in the District of Columbia.

As we paddled down the slow tidal current, Bob and Jim described some of the work done to restore the river.

Since the late 1980s, Anacostia Watershed Society volunteers have removed more than 400 tons of debris and more than 10,000 tires from the river. Tens of thousands of trees have been planted, and improvements to sewage and storm drains have significantly reduced the amount of waste entering the river.

In the 1990s, the Earth Conservation Corps began an ambitious project to reintroduce bald eagles to the Anacostia. Under the direction of Bob Nixon, executive director of the Earth Conservation Corps, a small group of inner city youth devoted several years to cleaning the river and creating suitable eagle habitat.

The first eagles were released in the mid-1990s, and today almost a dozen bald eagles once again reside in the nation's capital.

However, the bald eagle reintroduction came at a high price. Several members of the Earth Conservation Corps were killed in gang-related violence during the project. Some of the released eagles bear the names of the dead youth - "Tink," "Bennie," and "Darrell."

After three hours of paddling we pulled off onto a side tributary for lunch at the Kenilworth Marsh and Aquatic Gardens. "Don't touch your mouth, wipe your nose, or rub your eyes before washing your hands thoroughly," we were admonished, a reminder that the river is still a long way from being free of sewage and other toxic substances.

Over lunch, Bob Boone described some of the problems he encountered when he first ventured into the neighborhoods along the Anacostia to solicit volunteers for his clean-up efforts.

"Being white, I wasn't too welcome at first," he said. "But, once the residents and community leaders saw that our mission was to clean the river, they came around."

Today the Anacostia Watershed Society relies on thousands of local volunteers for its clean-up efforts and has a strong working relationship with the community.

Almost 200 bird species call the Anacostia home, and great blue herons and egrets stalked the river's edge while ducks, gulls, terns, and kingfishers floated and flew between the banks. We finally saw one of the bald eagles as we paddled past the National Arboretum after lunch.

Just before the take-out point at Anacostia Park near RFK Stadium, we paused to look at one of the reasons for the Anacostia's troubles. Recessed into the bank behind some scraggly bushes was a large concrete opening. The concrete around the opening was chipped and weathered, but the large red warning sign over the opening was still quite fresh.
This was one of several sewage overflow openings that line the Anacostia and through which stormwater and raw sewage are flushed into the river during periods of heavy rain.

While improvements have been made to the Maryland and District of Columbia sewage and runoff systems, the water of the Anacostia still has high concentrations of fecal-coliform bacteria and other wastes.

By the time we reached the Anacostia Park take-out point next to Pennsylvania Avenue, the rain had stopped and a weak sun was fighting through the clouds. Over the past six hours we had covered five miles, almost 85 percent of the Anacostia River's navigable length. As we took our canoes out of the river, we also took out mounds of trash we had collected -- our small contribution to the on-going restoration of America's "forgotten river."

Josh Blumenfeld is a Master's student in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder.