By SUMAN NAISHADHAM (KeynoteUSA)
Washington (KeynoteUSA) — Bruce Holmes, 65, grew up fishing the Anacostia River, a 9-mile urban waterway that flows through Washington, D.C., and parts of Maryland, and has long been characterized by pollution. and abandonment.
Back then, Holmes kept what his family caught (usually carp or catfish) and took it home to fry. It was the 1970s and he didn’t know how contaminated the water was.
“There was no way to give it back,” Holmes said, “Everything we caught we ate. Or we sold.”
Now, decades later, Holmes no longer eats what he catches on the Anacostia because he has learned more about the river, but instead teaches adults and children in the capital how to fish as the river undergoes a recovery of sorts. He hopes the fishing lessons will serve as a wake-up call to help clean and maintain the river where he grew up.
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 the history of the Revolution and the American Civil War. For decades, Anacostia was treated as a municipal dumping ground for industrial waste, storm sewers and trash. That pollution greatly affected the communities of color that cross the river.
In recent years, things have started to improve, but change has come slowly.
Infrastructure upgrades
It’s still illegal to swim in Anacostia due to E. coli levels above the threshold considered safe for human exposure, but in recent years, a $3.29 billion sewer upgrade in D.C. has reduced sewage overflows in the river, maintaining large amounts of waste. outside.
A series of tunnels bored beneath the city capture stormwater and wastewater that previously flowed into Anacostia. Since 2018, when the first segment came online, improvements 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 became operational. The overall system is expected to reduce river overflows by 98%.
Still, Anacostia last year received a failing grade for the third time in six years from a nonprofit organization that rates the river’s health based on its fecal bacteria content and the state of its aquatic vegetation.
The Anacostia Watershed Society 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 moving forward,” said Chris Williams, director of the Anacostia Watershed Society. “Twenty-five years ago, it was one of the most polluted rivers in the country,” he said, contrasting that with recent years “where the water quality is improving pretty steadily.”
environmental justice
For many involved in the Anacostia cleanup, the history of the river, its abandonment and industrial pollution are inseparable from the city’s racial history.
The river and the surrounding 1,200-acre Anacostia River Park that reaches parts of Maryland across the D.C. border were where communities of color swam, fished and recreated.
“Because there are low-income communities around the river, it can seem like they are responsible for the pollution,” said Akiima Price, executive director of Friends of Anacostia Park, an organization that works in the communities surrounding the river.
“But it comes from everywhere, from all over the basin,” he said.
That was recognized last year when Pepco, the city’s utility, reached a deal with the District of Columbia to pay more than $57 million for decades of dumping dangerous chemicals from its power plants into the ground. groundwater and storm sewers that contaminated Anacostia and other areas. . The deal was believed to be the largest in the utility’s history.
The payments will be used in part to clean up the river, including treating pollution from its aging power plants. Other measures the city government instituted, such as a fee 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.”
making it swimmable
To help change the long-held perception that the water remains as polluted as ever, Anacostia Riverkeeper, another environmental nonprofit, has organized a swimming event along a small stretch of the river designated as safe for swimming.
This year’s event will take place in late June near Kingman Island, a piece of land in the middle of the river. If the event goes as planned, it would be the first time in more than half a century that D.C. residents could legally swim in the river, after the city banned doing so in any of its waterways in 1971. Last year, the The same event was canceled after a storm raised bacteria levels in the river due to sewage overflows.
“It is not lost on me that we are reversing more than 50 years of discourse on the river,” said Quinn Molner, director of operations for Anacostia Riverkeeper. About 200 people are expected to participate in the swim, Molner said, despite the skepticism she met with her organization when they first announced the event. “A lot of people who have lived in this area for a long time knew about this river when it wasn’t so good.”
Holmes is one of them. Holmes, a lifelong resident of Southeast D.C., still a predominantly black and less prosperous part of the city, said he doubts that in just a few years, the entire river will be swimming and fishing.
“That’s a little exaggerated,” he said, “but I can actually say, because I’ve been fishing here for years, that I’ve seen big changes.”
The KeynoteUSA receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of environmental and water policy. The KeynoteUSA is solely responsible for all content. For all of KeynoteUSA’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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