while the waters may look idyllic, a century-old sewage system and dangerously high levels of bacteria have made the urban national park unswimmable for decades. now, a team of volunteers is working to change that, one water sample at a time.

no-swim zone

d.c. residents know that swimming in the city’s waterways is not the best idea — in fact, it’s been illegal since 1971. lorde shocked concert goers and made national news last year when she claimed to float in the potomac before her show. there’s a stigma around the cleanliness of these rivers from decades of pollution, but in recent years, the waterways have been slowly improving.

the environmental protection agency has been trying to make the city’s waterways swimmable and fishable since the clean water act of 1972. while the original ten-year timeline for that goal passed forty years ago, the act set in motion a clean water agenda the city is hoping to reach in the next few years.

in 2019, city officials began floating the idea of relaxing or lifting the swim ban. but even after decades of cleaning up the waterways, environmentalists question whether the water is safe enough to open to public swimming. data from the d.c. volunteer water quality monitoring project is helping shed light on the state of the city’s rivers and streams.

watching the waterways

on a cool day in early may, the ground is damp and the water is high in rock creek park. it’s the first day of the 2023 water monitoring season, an overcast morning after several days of on-and-off rain.

landrum beard, community engagement coordinator at rock creek conservancy, sits under a picnic pavilion at a table lined with small red coolers for volunteers to pick up with their water testing kits. they’ll head out toward their assigned sites, marked with ribbons, along the creek and return with the coolers filled with water samples, which are taken to anacostia riverkeeper’s lab for testing.

anacostia riverkeeper launched the d.c. volunteer water quality monitoring project in 2018 to measure and track contamination levels in d.c.’s main waterways: the anacostia river, the potomac river, and rock creek.

with a $140,000 grant from the d.c. department of energy and environment, the project has grown into a collaboration between anacostia riverkeeper, alliance for the chesapeake bay, rock creek conservancy, and nature forward. the groups have trained almost 400 volunteers from all eight wards of the city, collecting more than 2,000 water samples from 2019 to 2022.

each wednesday morning from may to september — considered the outdoor recreational season — teams of volunteers take water samples at two dozen sites across the city and test for ph balance, e. coli levels, water temperature, air temperature, and turbidity, a measure of water clarity. they also note if they see anyone in the water, as many people and their pets still wade in the creek despite park signs warning against it. the results are posted each friday and updated in the swim guide app, which lets users check the water quality of nearby beaches.

most of the volunteers are consistent, beard says. there are some newcomers on this first day of the new season, but others have been a part of the program for years.

benita veskimets is one of those veteran volunteers. veskimets, who used to work in fundraising for rock creek conservancy, is in her fourth year of water sampling. “i’m really curious to see what happens this year,” she says. “last year, i feel like it was worse than the year before.”

only a few of the rock creek sites passed with safe bacteria levels last year, beard confirms. those were mostly on dry weeks, when there was little or no rainfall impacting the stormwater sewage overflow. this morning is not one of those times. after a rainy week, the creek is likely swimming with bacteria from runoff. not the best way to kick off the season, he admits.

rock creek park’s sewage problem

the root of this problem lies with infrastructure, and if you’ve ever walked through rock creek park after a rainstorm, you can smell why. 

after just half an inch of rainfall, hazardous waste and sewage flood into the creek from the city’s old combined sewer infrastructure. in this system, stormwater and sewage flow through the same pipes — and when it rains, they quickly fill up and overflow into the rivers. rock creek is considered dangerously contaminated when that happens, and recreators are advised to avoid the waterway for up to three days afterward.

volunteers have tracked that trend at the sampling areas. “all these sites, for the most part, have a storm drain a few hundred feet or so upstream from where the sampling site is,” beard said. “so after big rain events, we always see that the sites have extremely high bacteria.”

d.c. water is now working on a $2.6 billion overhaul to the city’s sewage system with the goal of redirecting some of these sewage lines away from the city’s waterways and back toward treatment plants. this plan, the clean river project, is set to be completed in 2030. 

in the current phase of the project, the national park service is teaming up with d.c. water to take on piney branch creek, one of rock creek’s main tributaries and victims of contamination. an estimated 39 million gallons of sewage and stormwater pour into the creek each year.

“the way to do it is to build bigger pipes under the ground that can handle all the sewage and the stormwater and keep it in the pipes and get it down to the treatment plant,” said steve dryden, a local conservationist who has worked in the piney branch area for years.

the city is expanding these pipes, aiming to reduce the amount of sewage flowing into the three waterways by 96 percent. it’s part of a hybrid plan for rock creek that includes both traditional “grey infrastructure” — like basins, drains, and pipes — and new “green infrastructure,” such as rain gardens and permeable pavers in 365 acres of the surrounding urban areas. a pilot program for this green infrastructure plan reduced runoff into the creek by nearly one fifth, surpassing d.c. water’s goals.

but sewage overflow and runoff after rainfall is not the only contamination source in rock creek. the water quality monitoring project reports that some sites have had persistently high levels of bacteria even during dry weather, which may be caused by “outdated infrastructure, leaking sewer pipes, or uninvestigated point-source pollution.”

jeanne braha, executive director of rock creek conservancy, said this may also come from pet waste and houses or businesses with sewer pipes that are accidentally hooked up to storm drain pipes that flow into the creek. construction in the urban area is another contributor, veskimets adds. while the potomac and anacostia bacteria levels are a direct result of combined sewer overflows, rock creek’s contamination comes from several sources — making solutions harder to find.

one sample at a time

while solving rock creek’s water contamination problem is a long process, participants in the d.c. volunteer water quality monitoring project are ensuring that city officials and environmentalists have the data to help. 

the potomac and anacostia rivers have been slowly improving in water quality since the anacostia was once dubbed “one of the most polluted waterways in the nation.” people debate whether the rivers have recovered enough to be swimmable.

“i think we’re getting there,” said louis eby, a longtime water quality volunteer and former attorney advisor in the epa’s office of water. he’s seen a lot of progress in the two rivers, but remains cautious about rock creek.

“i wouldn’t swim in rock creek,” he said. “we’ll get there some day for rock creek, but not soon.”

sure enough, the rain in early may was a forecast of remaining challenges. both upper and lower rock creek sites reported unsafe e. coli and ph levels in the first week of monitoring.

still, citizen scientists will continue to keep tabs on the water quality each week. as soon as rock creek is finally swimmable, they’ll be the first to know. 

as the summer recreation season kicks off, people flock to d.c.’s waterways for kayaking, paddleboarding, and sightseeing — and one day soon, they might be able to safely swim in them.

the santa cruz has a long way to go. urban rivers across the world are facing the same problem: trash. and a lot of it. trash impacts waterways, harbor disease, and pollutes water with invisible microplastics. something needs to be done, and at many scales, government policies to clean up or prevent trash pollution aren’t working. so, in a five-month endeavor to seek the truths about plastic pollution in my river, i came across an amazing untold story.  

reconciliation. restoring relations with the landscapes that sustain you. the idea of reconciliation with nature is not new. nor is it mine to profess. all my relations and interconnection is a central core of first nations, inuit, and metis worldviews and ways of knowing. some first nations sum this up with the phrase “all my relations”. this mindset reflects people who are aware that everything in the universe is connected. what is new, is the use of this mindset to insight into action and inspire change. on a local level in tucson, angelantonio breault is leading the charge to reconcile with the lands that sustain us. reconciliation as a climate solution is harnessing the power of empathy and has the ability to heal our planet, as well as ourselves.

in the face of breakneck innovation and rapid change, i propose a return to self. 

this story was featured in our series, slipping through our fingers: the future of water.

shadows cover the path to the river, protecting us from the scorching sun. i feel the sweat running down my back as i readjust the basket under my arm. skirting a big branch, beds of clay, and lines of rock, we arrive at our destination: a flat patch of grass overlooking the river — perfect. with picnic blankets spread and the eno set up, i hop into the hammock and look up.

the water oak on each end of the hammock leans at the perfect angle to cover the space around me with a cool shade. i watch the branches above me, each twisted in its own unique way. they looked almost like the towering branches i would climb as a child when my babysitter took me to a local park. i’d climb a magnolia tree, take home its white blossom as a prize, and watch it wither away on my bedside table.

my daydream doesn’t last. i hear a loud, “omg josh, stop!” there are four teenagers horsing around near the river. one, a girl, is pushed into the water. she quickly finds herself in the middle of the river. the current is strong and fast-flowing and she is pulled away. i jump out the eno, and with my friends, we run to the river, to a point where we might be able to reach to her.

i see a protruding branch from a tree. i grab it, break it, and carry it to the river’s edge. along with my friends, we stick it out just in time. the girl grabs it, and manages to stumble out onto the rocks near the river, safe.

after thanking us, she returns to her friends. i crawl back into my eno, exhausted. i look up at the branches above me again — this time with a new appreciation for them. this tree that i am lying under must have seen so much: children clambering up, teenagers breaking its branches, and adults slumbering in hammocks. and so, as the music from our speaker begins to play again, i silently thank this tree.

washington — instead of sleeping in on saturday morning, over a hundred volunteers turned to a day of action in honor of rev. martin luther king jr. day.

volunteers donned red gloves and headed into pope branch park to collect trash –– from plastic bottles to mattresses –– to honor the late civil rights leader. the event was planned for january 17, but was pushed back due to weather conditions. 

this year the total trash collected weighed 11,333 pounds. last year over 4,600 pounds of trash were removed from the area according to anacostia riverkeeper member trey sherard. 

“it’s a day on, not a day off,” dolly davis, president of the pope branch park restoration alliance, said about the intersection between environmental justice and mlk day. 

davis’ grandmother used to say a “community’s cleanliness is next to godliness;” she believes king represented the same message. davis works within her community to educate her neighbors, teaching how to properly recycle, build rain barrels and be more conscious of the environment.

king is remembered for his role in the civil rights movement, and inspires days of service across the country. 

“it really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.” king said in a 1976 christmas sermon. “whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.”

davis said she believes in king’s message and wants to bring people together to enjoy the earth and instill his dream in her community. 

davis was one of several community leaders and members of local nonprofit organizations who worked with the environmental group anacostia riverkeeper in an annual event to clean up trash along the pope branch stream, which flows into the anacostia river.

the anacostia river is one of the rivers in the u.s. that was considered “impaired by trash” by the environmental protection agency over a decade ago.

christine burns of anacostia riverkeeper said trash that winds up in the stream will eventually flow into the river. the area in and around the park is often used as an illegal dumping site, she said. during the cleanup, volunteers found 290 tires illegally dumped off the anacostia freeway. 

“environmental activism is extremely important, especially in our watershed, and so using the mlk day of action to get people out here and participate is truly important,” burns said. 

will teass brought his two sons, austen and cole. teass’s company, teass warren architects, participates in the mlk day of service every year.

“i bring these guys along to teach about what we need to do in our community,” teass said. 

the two boys, both in elementary school, excitedly looked for trash with their grabbers and ran back to their father when they found litter. 

davis said she believes the collective efforts of the volunteers are what king envisioned when he spoke about change, but she wants city agencies to step in more and promote recycling and keeping communities clean.

“we shouldn’t be cleaning. we shouldn’t be out here today,” davis said. “we should not have people who [litter] or illegally dump. what we want to happen is to see more and more people to be responsive and responsible on how they recycle and throw away trash responsibility.”

however, the central arizona project is working on several initiatives to make arizona’s water supply more reliable. one of those initiatives is a recent partnership with an israeli company called n-drip. according to n-drip’s chief sustainability officer, seth siegel, their technology brings a new irrigation system that could help save 50% of the water used in arizona’s agriculture.

this past may, wright was stand up paddling, suping, when he first noticed the amount of waste in the potomac river. he picked up some trash and took it out of the water. the next time, he brought a crate for collection. that filled up quickly. when he returned again, more crates came with him. now wright’s set up includes specific crates organized by the types of litter he finds. following a picking session, he sorts through the findings and recycles anything he can in fairfax county. 

wright hopes to inspire others to pick up trash and goes out on the water as often as he can. today he documents his passion for litter picking to share with others on instagram, @sup.garbage.man. as of november 2019, wright has removed over 450 cubic feet of litter from the dmv’s water. that amount of trash could nearly fill a 1960’s vw bus. 

in the future, wright hopes to organize clean up events and invite others to come pick litter with him. joseph also has a road adopted in fairfax county which he cleans regularly. 

i stumbled upon wright’s page on ig while researching for a photo series featuring environmental activists.

the lorax, as he famously states, speaks for the trees. but to speak for individual trees is one thing; how might one speak for as large a body as the river?

with the help of my friend grace bautista, we put together this storybook guide to “speaking for the river,” inspired by the work done by the potomac conservancy, a d.c.-based group devoted to protecting the potomac river.

in this podcast, frisbie speaks with colin boyle, a planet forward environmental correspondent out of chicago, about the past, present and future of the river.