The public image of the Anacostia River as a sewage-ridden repository for pollution has tended to overshadow the river’s vast ecological diversity and vibrant life. A boat trip upriver last Saturday was a testament to the astonishing potential for beauty the river holds. After crossing the CSX railway bridge in Northeast that renders the upper river impassable to larger vessels, the Anacostia transforms into an idyllic waterfront as it snakes up through the National Arboretum.
There is a concerted effort underway on the part of the federal and city governments to clean up the Anacostia, but the prospects for a quick recovery are grim. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency filed a joint lawsuit in 2003 against the D.C. city government and its Water and Sewage Authority for violation of the Clean Water Act. A full settlement was reached last year requiring the city’s administration to implement controls to bring the system within regulations, but the implementation of the plan is slated to take at least 20 years.
Mohsi Siddique, the program manager of WASA’s Long Term Control Plan, said that the official cleanup plan will involve fixing and expanding pump stations to ensure that the combined sewage overflows that currently enter the river directly reach the treatment plant at Blue Plains, as well as sinking 20-to-25-foot-diameter tunnels into the river bed to store overflow until the plant can handle it. The plan is estimated to cost $1.9 billion over 20 years.
“We know how to do it,” Earth Conservation Corps Anacostia Riverkeeper Brian Van Wye said. “But the question is, is there the money and political will there to make it happen?” The ECC is a non-profit environmental advocacy group on the river seeking to raise community awareness of the Anacostia’s problems.
Siddique said that the archaic system of sewage tunnels, constructed in the early 19th century to funnel waste east of the city along the natural streams that run down into the Anacostia, would be impossible to replace without tearing apart the city. The current plan alone was originially slated to take 40 years before the lawsuit and cost billions of dollars.
Thanks to lobbying by Mayor Anthony Williams and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, the federal government has pledged $85 million towards the cleanup, WASA Public Affairs Director Michelle Quander-Collins said. The bulk of the cost, though, will be borne by local taxpayers in their water bills, which will increase by four to 10 percent.
“We hope that the federal government will continue to help fund the project,” Siddique said.
The prohibitive expense has also slowed the cleanup efforts, as the many involved bureaucracies point fingers at each other in hopes of defraying the cost.
“I think it’s political red tape, it’s getting Maryland and Virginia to help pay for it,” Glen O’Gilvie, president and CEO of the ECC, said.
O’Gilvie considers increasing awareness of and involvement with the cleanup effort in the local community in Southeast to be key to the plan’s success.
“It’s a change of culture, educating young people in schools and other venues who then educate their parents,” he said. “We challenge school teachers to incorporate the environment into their curriculum and incorporate the environment into their churches.”
Hope remains for the river, as the ECC continues to raise awareness of the Anacostia’s potential. According to O’Gilvie, there were only three species of fish present in the 1940s; today there are 76. The ECC’s educational efforts have surged forwards as well.
“We’re chipping away at it at about 5,000 people a year,” O’Gilvie said.
