THE RIVER BENEATH THE RIVER THE ANACOSTIA FLOWS INTO A BETTER FUTURE. BY JENNIFER REUT KRISTA SCHLYER KRISTA 80 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2018 / 81 an example of environmental fail- ures writ large onto the city’s poorest and most vulnerable. Spurred by the 1972 Clean Water Act, the city is now aiming for a fishable, swimmable river by 2032, though the Anacostia Watershed Society, a local advocacy organization, is targeting 2025. Pri- to transforming the river through economic, trans- vately, some environmental advocates tell me the portation, recreation, and environmental initia- river may be swimmable even sooner. tives spearheaded by the District of Columbia, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and The story of the Anacostia River (which finally dozens of nonprofit citizen organizations. Fifteen acquired a name derived from indigenous nomen- years ago, when the city of Washington, D.C., clature) could easily be written as a parable for all released the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative Frame- the woes we have visited on our urban waterways work Plan, the river was a national embarrassment— and on vulnerable communities trapped in ↘ OR A LONG TIME, the Anacostia River Of course, that was before the port and the shipping ABOVE TOP didn’t even have a name. It was just the channels silted up in the 19th century from agri- The Anacostia River A muskrat’s habitat on Eastern Branch, the other, less promis- cultural misuse; before the river was flushed with once had an estimated the Anacostia River 2,500 acres of wetlands. includes plastic bottles, ing section of Washington, D.C.’s better sewage, pesticides, and polychlorinated biphenyls Restored and extant now the most common known and more distinguished river, the (PCBs) that embedded in the sediment and eventu- wetlands now cover form of trash in Potomac. But it was always known as a ally in the fish populations that fed local residents; some 180 acres, the river. fortunate course to the Nacotchtank, the Native before sections were channelized and controlled by primarily in the upper Americans who used it as a trading post, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; before it was the reaches of the river. LEFT later to the European colonists who relied on site of an open-fire landfill that killed a seven-year-old The tidal flow of the river is slow, stranding the river’s deep port at Bladensburg, Maryland, child, Kelvin Tyrone Mock, and regularly spewed trash and other Fto carry tobacco, and to the generations of farm- toxic smoke into the city’s predominantly African pollutants on its banks. ers, tradesmen, and laborers who never seemed American neighborhoods; before more than 600 to run out of fish, fowl, and game to hunt. For tons of trash found its way into the river each year. nearly nine miles, the Anacostia eased in and Before all that, the Anacostia was abundant. out with the tide, with no particular urgency, toward its confluence with the Potomac, tracing And so it may be again, if in a more modest way. an unhurried flow through thousands of acres This year, 2018, is the Year of the Anacostia, a of tidal wetlands. celebration of the past 15 years of effort dedicated SCHLYER KRISTA SCHLYER KRISTA 82 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2018 / 83 ANACOSTIA RIVER 1 NATIONAL WAR COLLEGE 3 2 THE WHARF 3 NATIONAL MALL 4 U.S. CAPITOL BUILDING 5 U.S. NATIONAL ARBORETUM 2 6 KENILWORTH PARK & AQUATIC GARDENS 4 7 PEPCO (UTILITY) 8 KINGMAN ISLAND POTOMAC RIVER 9 RFK STADIUM SITE 10 ANACOSTIA PARK 11 BOATHOUSE ROW WASHINGTON CHANNEL 12 WASHINGTON NAVY YARD 1 15 13 YARDS PARK 14 14 NATIONALS PARK ANACOSTIA RIVER 16 13 15 AUDI FIELD FREDERICK DOUGLASS 5 MEMORIAL BRIDGE 16 BUZZARD POINT (SOUTH CAPITOL STREET) BLUE PLAINS 17 17 POPLAR POINT ADVANCED WASTEWATER 12 TREATMENT PLANT 18 JOINT BASE ANACOSTIA-BOLLING 9 11TH STREET BLADENSBURG BRIDGE 9 11 JOHN PHILIP SOUSA 8 BRIDGE 10 7 18 (PENNSYLVANIA AVE.) 6 ANACOSTIA WHITNEY YOUNG 10 MEMORIAL BRIDGE MAYFAIR CSX (EAST CAPITOL STREET) BRIDGE BARRY FARM 10 EASTLAND RIVER GARDENS KENILWORTH TERRACE FAIRLAWN GREENWAY CONGRESS HEIGHTS N GOOGLE EARTH GOOGLE 84 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2018 / 85 ANACOSTIA RIVER WATERSHED A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles → the worst environmental calamities. Now poised Those stories are all true, but the parallels can be on the edge of a hard-won environmental recovery, heavy handed. They keep you from seeing the riv- the river might become yet another case study in er as a unique human ecology. The river deserves urban waterfront renewal and exploding economic a better story. The Anacostia deserves complexity. development, followed by gentrification and dis- placement and a sense of regret, if not action, over Krista Schlyer is a conservation photographer and ABOVE One of the river’s lost opportunities and a lost sense of place. writer who lives near the river’s upper reaches in many tributary creeks Maryland and has spent several years observing and streams. That the Anacostia flows through the east side of and photographing the Anacostia. Her book, River the nation’s capital, cutting off the city’s poorest of Redemption: Almanac of Life on the Anacostia people and isolating their neighborhoods from (Texas A&M University Press, 2018), documents its more prosperous mainland, as it were, further the recovery of the river habitat, but also the tempts observers to draw pointed parallels be- persistence of pollution and continued environ- tween the river’s story and the country’s inability mental crises. It’s the coexistence of these two to confront the interdependencies of race and qualities that makes the Anacostia unexpectedly environmental and economic justice. The east- compelling. side neighborhoods are predominantly female and African American. They experience the city’s The recovery of the river ecosystem is most visible highest prevalence of asthma, cancer, and infant in the rebounding and persistence of wildlife, mortality, to name just a few of the significant particularly in the stretch of the river around health indicators that disproportionately affect Kingman and Heritage Islands and the National residents. There is a chronic lack of services and Arboretum. For D.C. residents familiar with a dif- N HOLMES DOLLY ASLA AFFILIATE COSTON-HARDY, SAHAR economic investment. ferent, more contaminated version of the river, the 86 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2018 / 87 DC WATER’S CLEAN RIVERS PROJECT LEFT Outfalls along both banks of the river are marked by stonework, part of an early 20th century seawall built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to manage flood risk. The seawall is no longer maintained, and the corps is a partner in restoring the river wetlands. BELOW A new overflow structure near Kingman and Heritage Islands that controls tunnel overflow will replace the older outfall structures that disgorged stormwater into the river. The tunnel construction can be seen in the background. natural world Schlyer captures is nothing less than 1972 Clean Water Act, which requires cities to astonishing. A recent BioBlitz logged more than control point source pollutants that discharge 550 species in the Anacostia watershed. Paddlers into their waterways. One-third of Washington, upriver may encounter bald eagles, osprey, cormo- D.C.’s land—primarily its historic core and older rants, and beaver among the plastic bottles and oc- neighborhoods—flushes sinks, tubs, and toilets casional shopping carts. Schlyer says the reduction into a combined sewer system that carries both LEGEND of trash has been the most visible change. “It’s still sanitary and storm flows, rather than into a more there. It’s still a huge problem. But it’s noticeably modern separate storm sewer system. When NORTHEAST BOUNDARY TUNNEL different from 2010 when I really started doing those combined sewers are overwhelmed, which ANACOSTIA RIVER TUNNEL this. That’s a big thing, because it changes the happens about 75 times a year on average, the POTOMAC RIVER TUNNEL way that people feel when they spend time on the combined sewer overflow (or CSO) drains directly BLUE PLAINS TUNNEL river,” she says. “Of course, there are problems that into the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers, as well CSO OUTFALLS are much deeper and more complex than trash.” as Rock Creek, a waterway within a national park that flows through the city’s central spine, at 47 In 2005, the D.C. government, the U.S. Depart- outfalls in the District. According to the city’s N ment of Justice, the EPA, and the city’s water water authority, the CSOs dump nearly 2,142 authority entered into a consent decree intend- million gallons into the Anacostia River and 1,063 ed to bring the city into compliance with the million gallons into the Potomac annually. ↘ ASLA AFFILIATE COSTON-HARDY, SAHAR HOLMES DOLLY 88 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE NOV 2018 / 89 UPSTREAM D.C. KLINGLE WATERSHED OVERALL STORMWATER MANAGEMENT/GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE OPPORTUNITIES LEGEND BIORETENTION: MID-BLOCK BIORETENTION: INTERSECTION PERMEABLE PARKING LANES GREEN ALLEYS KLINGLE WATERSHED LIMITS N PRIVATE PROPERTY LEGEND KLINGLE WATERSHED ROCK CREEK PROJECT — GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE (DETAIL) enough green infrastructure is planned to manage 1.2 inches of rainfall on the equivalent of 365 impervious acres; in the N Potomac sewershed, it will manage 1.2 inches on the equiva- lent of 133 impervious acres. “We are volume-driven,” says Seth Charde, a landscape architect who is DC Water’s GRAY INFRASTRUCTURE HAS GIVEN WAY TO GREEN TO PREVENT program manager for green infrastructure construction. SEWER OVERFLOWS INTO WASHINGTON, D.C.’S WATERS.