{"id":30580,"date":"2023-05-22t18:42:41","date_gmt":"2023-05-22t18:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/?p=30580"},"modified":"2024-02-22t17:04:16","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22t17:04:16","slug":"rock-creek-water-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/rock-creek-water-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"seeking a swimmable d.c.: water quality monitoring in rock creek"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

as another hot d.c. summer encroaches, the 19,000<\/a> people living near rock creek will need to find a way to cool off \u2014 but not in the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

no-swim zone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

d.c. residents know that swimming in the city\u2019s waterways is not the best idea \u2014 in fact, it’s been illegal since 1971. lorde shocked concert goers and made national news<\/a> last year when she claimed to float in the potomac before her show. there\u2019s a stigma around the cleanliness of these rivers from decades of pollution, but in recent years, the waterways have been slowly improving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the environmental protection agency has been trying to make the city’s waterways swimmable and fishable since the clean water act <\/a>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in 2019, city officials began floating the idea of relaxing or lifting the swim ban<\/a>. 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<\/a> is helping shed light on the state of the city\u2019s rivers and streams.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"a
signs in rock creek park warn park-goers and their pets to stay out of the water. (sophie kahler)
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

watching the waterways<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

on a cool day in early may, the ground is damp and the water is high in rock creek park. it\u2019s the first day of the 2023 water monitoring season, an overcast morning after several days of on-and-off rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

landrum beard, community engagement coordinator at rock creek conservancy<\/a>, sits under a picnic pavilion at a table lined with small red coolers for volunteers to pick up with their water testing kits. they\u2019ll 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\u2019s lab for testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

anacostia riverkeeper<\/a> launched the d.c. volunteer water quality monitoring project in 2018 to measure and track contamination levels in d.c.\u2019s main waterways: the anacostia river, the potomac river, and rock creek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

each wednesday morning from may to september \u2014 considered the outdoor recreational season \u2014 teams of volunteers take water samples at two dozen<\/a> 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<\/a> each friday and updated in the swim guide app<\/a>, which lets users check the water quality of nearby beaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"a
volunteers record the temperature, ph, bacteria, and turbidity levels of the water using the materials in the program\u2019s kits. (sophie kahler)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"13
they drop their samples off in a large cooler, which are then taken to the anacostia riverkeeper\u2019s lab for testing. (zoe swiss)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. \u201ci\u2019m really curious to see what happens this year,\u201d she says. \u201clast year, i feel like it was worse than the year before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

only a few of the rock creek sites passed with safe bacteria levels last year<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rock creek park’s sewage problem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

the root of this problem lies with infrastructure, and if you\u2019ve ever walked through rock creek park after a rainstorm, you can smell why. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

after just half an inch of rainfall, hazardous waste and sewage flood into the creek from the city\u2019s old combined sewer infrastructure<\/a>. in this system, stormwater and sewage flow through the same pipes \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

volunteers have tracked that trend at the sampling areas. \u201call these sites, for the most part, have a storm drain a few hundred feet or so upstream from where the sampling site is,\u201d beard said. \u201cso after big rain events, we always see that the sites have extremely high bacteria.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

d.c. water is now working on a $2.6 billion overhaul to the city\u2019s sewage system with the goal of redirecting some of these sewage lines away from the city\u2019s waterways and back toward treatment plants. this plan, the clean river project<\/a>, is set to be completed in 2030. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the current phase of the project, the national park service is teaming up with d.c. water to take on piney branch creek<\/a>, one of rock creek\u2019s main tributaries and victims of contamination. an estimated 39 million gallons<\/a> of sewage and stormwater pour into the creek each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"a
(sophie kahler)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"a
piney branch is the largest outfall in the rock creek watershed, with runoff and sewage from 2,400 acres of urban neighborhoods flowing through. (sophie kahler)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cthe 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,\u201d said steve dryden, a local conservationist who has worked in the piney branch area for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the city is expanding these pipes, aiming to reduce the amount of sewage flowing into the three waterways by 96 percent. it\u2019s part of a hybrid plan for rock creek<\/a> that includes both traditional \u201cgrey infrastructure\u201d \u2014 like basins, drains, and pipes \u2014 and new \u201cgreen infrastructure,\u201d such as rain gardens and permeable pavers in 365 acres of the surrounding urban areas. a pilot program<\/a> for this green infrastructure plan reduced runoff into the creek by nearly one fifth, surpassing d.c. water\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but sewage overflow and runoff after rainfall is not the only contamination source in rock creek. the water quality monitoring project reports<\/a> that some sites have had persistently high levels of bacteria even during dry weather, which may be caused by \u201coutdated infrastructure, leaking sewer pipes, or uninvestigated point-source pollution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

jeanne braha, executive director of rock creek conservancy, said<\/a> 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\u2019s contamination comes from several sources \u2014 making solutions harder to find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

one sample at a time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

while solving rock creek\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

the potomac and anacostia rivers have been slowly improving in water quality since the anacostia was once dubbed<\/a> \u201cone of the most polluted waterways in the nation.\u201d people debate whether the rivers have recovered enough to be swimmable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201ci think we’re getting there,\u201d said louis eby, a longtime water quality volunteer and former attorney advisor in the epa\u2019s office of water. he\u2019s seen a lot of progress in the two rivers, but remains cautious about rock creek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201ci wouldn\u2019t swim in rock creek,\u201d he said. \u201cwe’ll get there some day for rock creek, but not soon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

still, citizen scientists will continue to keep tabs on the water quality each week. as soon as rock creek is finally swimmable, they\u2019ll be the first to know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

as the summer recreation season kicks off, people flock to d.c.\u2019s waterways for kayaking, paddleboarding, and sightseeing \u2014 and one day soon, they might be able to safely swim in them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

rock creek and d.c.\u2019s other waterways have been unswimmable for decades, but they might finally be improving. volunteers are tracking just how unsafe the water is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10116,"featured_media":30589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4935,4938,4909,4904],"tags":[4147,262,361,2944,2020,772,37,3600,1325],"storyfest_categories":[],"class_list":["post-30580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conservation","category-pollution","category-public-health","category-water","tag-citizen-science","tag-conservation","tag-health","tag-parks","tag-rivers","tag-washington-dc","tag-water","tag-water-pollution","tag-water-quality"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nseeking a swimmable d.c.: water quality monitoring in rock creek<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"rock creek and dc\u2019s 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