A Pollution Concern in the Anacostia River

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Table of Contents

Introduction
History
How the pollution issue in the anacostia river began
Environmental laws
Public interest
Conclusion
Footnotes

Introduction

The Anacostia River is one of the oldest rivers located in Washington D.C. With a watershed of about 170 square miles, Anacostia remains to be the largest tributary of the Potomac River. Similarly, its watershed extends to some parts of the District of Columbia. For many years, the river was the reason behind the improved ecosystem and scenery¹. However, this is no longer the case due to human activities: it is now very shallow besides being a destination for about 50 percent of the polluted water within the county. According to research, much of the dumping/ pollution was started by the Washington DC metropolitan area. The new development/construction that took place around the country’s capital saw the surface become less impervious. This, in turn, led to soil erosion with a large amount of silt ending up in the river². Another issue that contributed to the pollution concern in the Anacostia River is the modern septic systems.

The Anacostia River was nicknamed by the town’s people and visitors as the abandoned river. In fact, the river shows a clear picture of the ugly side of the capital’s population. The efforts by some local and environmental groups to restore the dignity of the river are yet to bear some positive results. The good news is that several environmental and lobby groups have been at the forefront when it to champion the protection of the rivers: they have petitioned EPA for negligence³. Overall, despite the worrying nature of the river, a larger percentage of the populace continues to use and enjoy it.

History

The Anacostia Rive, as indicated above, is considered one of the oldest rivers in the larger area of Washington DC. The River has a watershed of about 176 square miles. Anacostia’s major distributaries include Northwest, Northeast, Paint and Little Paint Branches. Other distributaries include Sligo Creek, Indian Creek and Beaverd and Creek. The river flows for 8 miles before joining the Potomac River located in the District of Columbia—it is located approximately 110 miles upstream of Chesapeake Bay⁴. The river also used to have other small streams flowing into it until the modern sewer system was introduced: it completely enveloped most of these streams.

Another important historical milestone that gives a true picture of what Anacostia River used to be is through Captain John Smith’s expedition. His journey saw him sail up to the Chesapeake Bay, through the Potomac River and eventually along the shores of the Anacostia River⁵. The Captain was intrigued by the beautiful sceneries of these two rivers. In addition to this, John Smith found the Nonchtank Indians to be the most unique Native American Culture coupled with clean and blooming shorelines⁶. In fact, the name Anacostia traces its origin to the Native American Word, “anaquash” a native-based trading center⁷. Additionally, the Captain observed the Anacostia River to be very productive: it was rich with different specifies of fish including even the hickory shad and white and yellow perch. Other fish included herring, catfish, red-breasted sunfish and American shad.

Captain John Smith, overwhelmed by his adventures along the river, decided to share the news with other European settlers. The European settlement, in return, brought about major changes in form of agriculture⁸. They were excited by the fertile soil that surrounded the river and its distributaries. The European settlers, protected by the Civil War, started clearing much of the forests which served as the main landscape of the river and its tributaries. The settlers after clearing the forests decided to grow corn and tobacco. They further relied on Anacostia’s deep water to transport tobacco for export to England⁹. In addition to this, the river’s strategic position allowed large trading ships to sail to the port of Bladensburg which was the nation’s main trading center.

The tobacco and Corn agri-business continued to flourish but, at the same time, signaled a series of unending misfortunes for River Anacostia. The high demand for tobacco around the globe compelled the settlers to encroach further into the river by clearing many trees. The heavy rains that followed suit ended up eroding the topsoil and depositing it at the bottom of the river¹⁰. Towards the end of the 19^th century, soil erosion made the river shallower, thus making it difficult for large trading ships to sail to Bladensburg. In addition, the unending sedimentation affected the river’s ecosystem due to the lack of sunshine, especially at the bottom of the river.

In 1902, Congress made an attempt to address the issue by approving funding for the US Army Corps of Engineers. Their tasks included dredging parts of the river with the aim of repairing boat channels located along the Washington Yard which once acted as a naval experimentation center¹¹. Instead of addressing the problem of the river getting shallower, the team ended up complicating the situation. As explicated in Kwiatkowski’s study, “they further injured the river’s fisheries by tearing up established habitats on the riverbed”¹². However, as evidenced in research, this was only but the tip of the iceberg.

How the pollution issue in the anacostia river began

The pollution issue in the Anacostia River started after the Washington DC area embraced the idea of urbanization which was later followed by endless suburban sprawl. These two periods were marked by major construction projects, such as modern buildings, which attracted many people to move along the river and its tributaries¹³. An increase in population coupled with poor sanitation saw the river become the dumping side of the city’s sewage. Earlier efforts to address the sewage problem compelled the city to commission the construction of several dams and one large treatment plant. Although the city spent a lot of resources in building the Blue plant, it failed to address the sewage problem due to population growth¹⁴. What was once considered a state-of-the-art technology failed to meet the needs: it ended up contributing to the pollution problem.

The immediate problem the Blue Plains Water Treatment Plant encountered was in the design structure of the pipelines—they carried both rainwater and human waste from sewer systems. The pipelines could not handle withstand the high pressure caused by heavy rains¹⁵. This, as Wang et al. explained in their study, “resulted in a back-up in the pipes that overflows and dumps the rainwater mixed with raw sewage into the river”¹⁶. Being a tidal river, Anacostia was a slow-flowing river compared to Potomac. This means that the sewage overflow stagnated in the river for several days before eventually flowing downriver into the Chesapeake Bay.

In line with the above, the silt deposits also contributed heavily to the pollution concern in the Anacostia River. From a scientific point of view, silt deposits create a barrier between the seabed and sunshine: This affects the ability of plants to manufacture food through the process of photosynthesis¹⁷. Similarly, silt deposits, as observed by Wang et al., affect the ability of water to pass between tissues and, in the process, provide a medium for gaseous exchange. It is important to note that less transparency affects plant life by reducing the amount of sunlight needed for photosynthesis¹⁸. A decline in plant habitat, in turn, affects the fish habitats and food sources¹⁹.

Lastly, pollutants such as Polychlorinated Biphenyls²⁰, Chlordane²¹, and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, which were common in the 1930s, contributed a lot to the pollution problem. These chemicals were carried into the river via run-off water after the settlers cleared the forests for farming²². The aforementioned chemicals, although some of them are no longer in use due to their carcinogenic properties, could be traced in the Anacostia River’s tributaries until the late 2000s. Besides these chemicals being harmful to humans, they also affect the wildlife around the river. Up until recently, many animals have been found to have cancer-related diseases such as tumors.

Maryland and the District of Colombia also contributed partly to the current pollution status of the Anacostia River. While they shared a common goal of making the river great again, they held competing interests that had counterproductive effects on the river. They later agreed to focus their attention on dredging in order to increase boat access to the river. Dredging is also aimed at ensuring large ships access the upstream, with the small crafts being limited to the shallow waters²³. However, on the flip side, dredging ended up reducing the capability of the fish to move freely while, at the same time, hindering plants from growing due to inadequate sunlight²⁴. The issue was compounded by murky water, which affected plant growth due to the lack of sunlight at the riverbed.

It is evident that the Anacostia River had fallen way below the vibrant attention it once received in the 17^th century when the European settlers first arrived. However, the future looks more promising as the river is slowly but steadily receiving the necessary attention. In fact, Washington, DC has already put measures in place to reclaim the once-forgotten waterways.DC has already commissioned several projects in order to restore the ecological health of the river. For instance, the Urban Waters Federal Partnership (UWFP) has already put in place several measures in an effort to restore the river to its original status: a river with beautiful scenery and an ecosystem. This plan, according to its founders, represents “a bold and unparalleled initiative²⁵”. No other restoration plan in the United States has systematically identified the thousands of projects needed to retrofit an entire urban watershed²⁶. The UWFP comprises “local, state, and federal agencies, environmental organizations, and private citizens²⁷” working in tandem toward a cleaner and healthier watershed.

Another project that has made efforts to restore the river is the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative (AWI). AWI allocated $ 10 billion to spearhead the revival of Anacostia’s troubled shoreline into a vibrant asset to the community. Its main vision for Anacostia is to see it transformed, specifically the many abandoned stretches of waterfronts, into parks, recreational facilities, walking paths and commercial centers aimed at job creation.

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), founded in 1970, is currently working with other partners to promote and help with the implementation of a long-term solution to the “runoff-laden stormwater that is responsible to about 75 percent of the river’s pollution”²⁸. The solution, dubbed low-impact development, consists of evidence-based measures that integrate technology with common sense in developing beds of native plants, rain barrels, porous parking lots and courtyards to ensure rainfall evaporates back into the atmosphere or soaks into the ground as opposed to washing into the river

Environmental laws

For the purpose of clarity, environmental law can be described simply as sets of protections with a common goal of safeguarding the environment. Some of the commonly cited environmental laws include National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which was passed in 1970 alongside Environmental Quality Improvement Act, National Environmental Education Act and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The main objective of these laws was to protect the environment against harm. EPA, for instance, is responsible for monitoring and analyzing the environment, conducting research and partnering with state and local governments in establishing pollution control policies.

Another notable law that was developed in the effort to regulate the nation’s waterways is the Clean Water Act (CWA) which was introduced back in the year 1977²⁹. The Act was introduced to help address the shortcomings/limitations of the Federal Water Pollution Control Amendment (FWPCA) of 1972³⁰. CWA was strengthened further following the establishment of the Water Quality Act of 1987³¹. Unlike other laws, the CWA is responsible for establishing the basic structure that regulates the discharges of waste products in the bodies of water. Similarly, the Act was established to help regulate quality standards of surface waters.

The most notable accomplishment of the CWA in improving water quality was through giving EPA the mandate to provide measures and policies to control point sources of pollution. A point source refers to “any discernible, confined, and discrete conveyance, including but not limited to any pipe, ditch, container, or vessel or other floating craft, from which pollutants are or may be discharged”³². However, a point source does not apply to agricultural stormwater and associated return flow³³. This explains why these sources of pollution, commonly referred to as non-point sources, are hardly addressed. More specifically, most of the pollutants within the Anacostia River were considered to be non-point sources of pollution. These pollutant sources, such as stormwater run-off, are responsible for up to 70 percent of the total waste in the river.

The Impact of the Clean Water Act

Although indirectly, the CWA has made some attempts to address several challenges facing the Anacostia River. For instance, the Act has, in the past, introduced several measures aimed at controlling the pollution problem in the Chesapeake Bay: Anacostia River is its indirect tributary³⁴. The Act initiated the creation of the Chesapeake Bay Program Office (CBPO) within the EPA whose mandate includes coordinating scientific research into the problems facing Chesapeake. Similarly, CBPO is responsible for providing the much-needed grants for local investments with the aim of reducing pollution and improving the quality standards of Chesapeake³⁵. It goes without saying that the CBPO should be concerned with the Anacostia River since it is one of the largely populated tributaries of Chesapeake Bay. While much of the governmental focus revolves around Chesapeake Bay because of the income it generates to Maryland, there is a need to resolve the Anacostia River’s problem in order to prevent the decline of the fish population.

Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs)

Every state, as highlighted in the Clean Water Act is required to come up with “lists of impaired water” that cannot meet the quality water standards put in place³⁶. In addition to this, the Act requires that all states with polluted waters to put in place priority ranks for the listed water as well as establish proper TMDLs³⁷. TMDLs, according to EPA refer to “calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a water body can receive and still safely meet water quality standards”³⁸. In the U.S., the common causes of impaired water include sediment, pesticides, metals, mercury, heat deposits and pathogens.

The EPA went a step further to codify the regulations guiding the TMDL program based on the already established regulations measures³⁹. However, these regulations hold that all responsibilities should be performed by the states in line with the Clean Water Act. According to EPA, every state must strive to identify waterways that should be classified as troubled waters. In addition to this, it is mandatory for every state it regularly updates its data record on waterways and ensures it reports the same to EPA⁴⁰. Most importantly, each state must come up with TMDLs for water quality based on a pollutant-by-pollutant state. Finally, each state is required to submit an accurate “list of waters, pollutants causing impairment, and the priority ranking including waters targeted for TMDL development⁴¹” to the Regional Administrator after every two years for approval.

Public interest

Litigation

For many years, private groups have been at the forefront of suing the Environmental Protection Agency on different accounts. Most of the lawsuits focus on EPA’s regulations for rivers and other water bodies. Private groups such as Earthjustice, Anacostia Riverkeeper, and Potomac Riverkeeper have, in the past brought lawsuits against EPA⁴². These groups often claim that they represent the local people who regularly visit the river for leisure purposes. The groups also argued that EPA’s actions and omissions prevented their members from using the rivers⁴³. In other words, the private groups are suing the EPA, not for their selfish gains but rather for the interests of their injured members. Similar to the approach used for class action suits, individuals tend to find it difficult to sue EPA regulations: they require the resources of well-established environmental groups.

Another critical issue that prevent individuals from suing EPA is the matter of jurisdiction. A good example is the case of Friends of Earth v. EPA⁴⁴ which went all to the Court of Appeal. However, the case was dismissed because it did not meet all the requirements: it lacked jurisdiction. The Court ruled that “original jurisdiction over EPA actions not expressly listed in section 1369(b)(1)⁴⁵ lies not with us, but with the district court”⁴⁶. Although CWA outlines several punitive measures against the EPA as per the court of Appeal’s jurisdiction, the US District Court has jurisdiction over those challenges that do not meet the set requirements (108). The aforementioned groups have, in the past, filed lawsuits against EPA’s regulation standards on behalf of Anacostia River.

In line with the above, private groups also accuse EPA of failure to follow the regulations put forth by CWA as well as uphold its own regulations. Although such attempts to petition EPA started many years ago, the private groups are yet to achieve a significant result. For instance, in 2002, Earthjustice and Friends of Earth filed a lawsuit accusing EPA of its failure to regulate the number of waste products being deposited in the Anacostia River. According to the Anacostia Watershed Society, “about two billion gallons of a mix of stormwater and untreated human waste flows into the river each year”⁴⁷. The private group also argued that in 1997 both the CWA and EPA allowed limited TMDLs for specific wastes from authorized source points to be deposited in the river. In their defense, EPA claimed that the allowed permits were in line with CW and that the word “daily” in TMDLs was ambiguous. However, the Court ruled that EPA is responsible for giving the correct and accurate meaning of its own regulations.

A few years later, Earthjustice together with Friends of the Earth and Anacostia River Keeper, filed a case in which they challenged EPA‘s approved caps for bacteria, sediments, and metals. Earth Justice maintained that EPA “must correct several remaining pollution limits that are only based average annual loads, rather daily loads”⁴⁸. This was in line with the previous ruling by the Court. The EPA ignored the Court’s ruling and instead continued to allow 15 existing limits that were controversial. They further claimed that “daily” in TMDLs truly means per day. The plaintiffs also indicated in the lawsuit that the idea of using daily limits only endangers the lives of those using the river. However, despite the continued litigation efforts, the problems of sewage overflow, silt deposits and human pollutants still persist.

Legislation

According to statistics, a large percentage of the population is unaware that most plastic bags from grocery find their way into the Anacostia River. The continued accumulation of these bags end up blocking small tributaries and, at the same time, killing plants and fish⁴⁹. However, it is important to note that the plastic bag pollution issue is not limited to the Anacostia River alone but rather a national and international problem. This explains why many countries around the globe have already enacted legislation aimed at controlling the circulation of plastic bags. A good example of such legislation is asking members to pay a small fee for plastic bags, especially in retail stores⁵⁰. Ireland is often cited as a country with a well-controlled plastic bag circulation after it implemented several measures aimed at charging a small fee for plastic bags.

The same trend has been witnessed in the United State for the past few years consumers are required to pay a certain fee amount for every bag. IKEA, a Swedish retailer, recorded an overall improvement in waste control with a reduction of paper usage of up to 97 percent after adopting a fee-for-bag policy⁵¹. Based on these findings, many lobby groups across the US have been petitioning governments to implement such legislation.

Washington DC, in the year 2010, instructed all businesses in the District to adopt the policy that requires consumers to pay a small amount of money (5 cents) for plastic or bags. The DC’s plastic legislation further claims that citizens can easily avoid the fee and reduce the number of plastics by bringing their own bags. The revenue collected from the bag fee initiative was to be used in funding the Anacostia River Clean Up and Protection Fund in its attempt to install trash traps in the Anacostia and its tributaries. In the year 2016, Foam Free DC was introduced with the aim of banning businesses and organizations from serving food using expanded polystyrene (EPS) containers. The expanded polystyrene included plates, cups, clamshells and foam peanuts.

In the year 2019, Washington DC banned plastic straws in restaurants and other businesses. The move saw DC become the second major city to do so. According to anti-straw activists, consumers in the United States use up to five million straws every day. For instance, in Washington, the volunteers who took part in the organized trash cleanup of the Anacostia River collected more than four thousand straws. The straw ban was introduced because it is considered to be a gateway plastic—it is only used once but adds up when used by millions of people every day. The straw ban was passed in 2014 as part of the legislation that prohibited Styrofoam from containers.

The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2021 provides clear requirements and incentives aimed at reducing the production of several products and materials, such as plastics. The same bill aims at increasing efforts to collect, recycle or compost products and materials. The bill will make some producers of products such as packaging, paper and single-use products liable for collecting, recycling, or compositing products. Starting January 2023, the bill aims at phasing out a variety of single-use products such as plastic and utensils. In addition to this, the bill has put in place measures to encourage the reduction of a single-use products. To achieve this, the bill has established programs to refund consumers for returning beverage containers. Finally, the bill will also put in place measures to limit the export of plastic waste to other countries.

Conclusion

The pollution issue currently facing the Anacostia River traces its roots back to European settlement. Upon settling in the area, they started clearing the forest to grow corn and tobacco. The high demand for these products compelled them to continue clearing the trees and, in the process, making the land less impervious. As discussed above, the pollution issue worsened after the Washington DC area embraced the idea of urbanization which was later followed by the endless suburban sprawl. These two periods were marked by major construction projects such as modern buildings which attracted many people to move along the river and its tributaries. While there have been several attempts to revive the river through lobbying, litigation and legislation, the issue continues to persist.

This paper recommends the need for EPA and private environmental groups to consider working together in an effort to achieve the same objective. The problem private groups face in their quest to lobby against EPA regulations is that they waste a lot of resources both personal and environmental. They should consider using mediation to achieve their objective instead of filing costly lawsuits. Most importantly, the resources such as taxpayer and donor money channeled towards petitioning the EPA could be used to address the primary causes of Anacostia river pollution.

Footnotes

Arnold C. Anthony. Social-Ecological Resilience of an Eastern Urban-Suburban Watershed: The Anacostia River Basin. Idaho L. Rev. 51 (2014).
Id.
Id.
Kwiatkowski Courtney, Nature, History, and the Rhetoric of Redevelopment along the Anacostia River. 2016.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Avni, Nufar, and Raphaël Fischler. Social and Environmental Justice in Waterfront Redevelopment: The Anacostia River, Washington, DC.Urban Affairs Review 56, no. 6 (2020).
Id.
Ranganathan, Malini, and Eve Bratman, From Urban Resilience to Abolitionist Climate Justice in Washington, DC.Antipode 53, no. 1 (2021).
Solomon, Caroline M., Melanie Jackson, and Patricia M. Glibert.Chesapeake Bay’s” Forgotten” Anacostia River: Eutrophication and Nutrient Reduction Measures.Environmental Monitoring & Assessment 191, no. 5 (2019).
Christophers, Brett. Risk capital: Urban Political Ecology and Entanglements of Financial and Environmental Risk in Washington, DC.Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 1, no. 1-2 (2018).
Wang, Mingming, Yi Zhu, Lirong Cheng, Bruce Andserson, Xiaohui Zhao, Dayang Wang, and Aizhong Ding, Review On Utilization of Biochar For Metal-Contaminated Soil and Sediment Remediation.” Journal of Environmental Sciences 63 (2018).
State of the Nation’s River 2008: Potomac Stormwater Run-off, fig. 1, POTOMAC CONSERVANCY.
Ranganathan, supra note 4
Cherie V. Miller, et al., Water Quality in the Upper Anacostia River, Maryland: Continuous and Discrete Monitoring with Simulations to Estimate Concentrations and Yields, 2003-2005, 2007-5142 U.S.
Phelps, Harriette L. Identification of PCB, PAH and chlordane source areas in the Anacostia River watershed.Report, DC WRRI, Washington, DC (2005).
Id.
Ranganathan, supra note 4.
Wang, supra note 2.
Wang, supra note 2.
Nnachi, Uchechukwu. Linking Humanitarian and Development Interventions into A Joint Resilience Continuum: World Food Programme (WFP) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Collaboration on Building Climate Resilience in Nepal. El Salvador and Ethiopia (Doctoral dissertation, NUI Galway) (2019).
Id.
Id.
Arnold, supra note 5.
See 33 U.S.C. § 1251(a)-(g) (2010).
Clean Water Act, Pub. L. No. 92-500 (1972); Water Quality Act of 1987, Pub. L. No. 100-4 (1987)
U.S.C. § 1251 (1987).
U.S.C. § 1362(14) (2008).
Id.
See 33 U.S.C. § 1267 (2001).
U.S.C. § 1267(b)(2) (2010).
Impaired Water and Total Maximum Daily Loads, ENVTL.PROT. AGENCY (2011);
33 U.S.c. § 1313(d)(1) (2010), which states: Identification of areas with insufficient controls; maximum daily load; certain effluent limitations revision (1 )(A) Each State shall identify those waters within its boundaries for which the effluent limitations required by section 1311 (b)(1 )(A) and section 1311 (b)(1 )(B) of this title are not stringent enough to implement any water quality standard applicable to such waters. The State shall establish a priority ranking for such waters, taking into account the severity of the pollution and the uses to be made of such waters.
Id.
Impaired Waters and Total Maximum Daily Loads, supra note 72.
Riverkeeper, In Anacostia, EPA’s approval of TMDLs for the Anacostia River, claiming the TMDLs were not designed to achieve water quality standards applicable to all designated uses (which included primary and secondary contact recreation); rather, the TMDLs focused only on the designated use of” the protection and propagation of submerged aquatic vegetation.”
See id. § 130.7(c)(2)-(d)(I).
See id. § 130.7(c)(2)-(d)(I).
See Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief at 4, Anacostia Riverkeeper and Friends of the Earth v. Stephen L. Johnson, Administrator, Envtl. Prot. Agency (D.D.C. IS, 2009).
See supra note 99.
F.3d 140 (D.C. Cir. 2006). States: Review of Administrator’s actions; selection of court; fees (1) Review of the Administrator’s action (A) in promulgating any standard of performance under section 1316 of this title, (B) in making any determination pursuant to section 1316(b)(l)(C) of this title, (C) in promulgating any effluent standard, prohibition, or pretreatment standard under section 1317 of this title, (D) in making any determination as to a State permit program submitted under section 1342(b) of this title, (E) in approving or promulgating any effluent limitation or other limitation under section 1311, 1312, 1316, or 1345 of this title.
U.S.C. § 1369(b)(l).
Friends a/the Earth, 333 F.3d at 189.
Friends of the Earth v. EPA, 446 F.3d 140 (D.C. Cir. 2006).
Manchik, Estie, Friends of the Earth v. United States Environmental Protection Agency: A Battle for the Proper Forum to Protect the Nation’s Forgotten River.” Ecology LQ 31 (2004).
David Alpert, Get plastic bags out of the Anacostia, GREATER GREATER WASHINGTON (2009).
Id.
Alpert, supra note 136.

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