Forgotten River : Capital’s Scenic Anacostia Takes Back Seat to Potomac

London has its Thames. The Seine flows through Paris. Washington lies along the banks of the Potomac --and a dirty yet elegant eight-mile jewel of a river called the Anacostia.

Most people notice the dirty part first.

A stench comes up suddenly just below the Benning Road Bridge. Rising like a cloud, it sucks the breath away from occupants of a speeding motorboat. Heavy rains the day before have caused the antique sewer system of the capital of the United States to overflow. Now it is spilling into what many call Washington’s “forgotten” river.

Seemingly oblivious to the smell, boat pilot Perry Perret threads the channel as if chased by demons, his baseball cap turned backward against the wind. His boat throws spray in every direction. Perret skillfully dodges objects that cruise languidly downriver: tree limbs, beer cans, automobile tires.

Submerged Tires

“Trouble with tires,” Perret shouts over the engine, “is when they have rims, they sit a couple of feet underwater, where you can’t see them.”

The idea of being catapulted into the water causes Perret’s passengers to look around nervously for signs of submerged objects as the boat speeds on toward the place where the river joins its favored sibling, the Potomac.

Despite the Anacostia’s pollution, its resilient beauty has kept hopes of rescue alive. Scattered parklands bordering the water upstream and extensive parklands stretching along either bank farther south provide unexpected delights of woodland and open space.

Even some wildlife has survived the human onslaught. Hawks, mallards, great blue herons, otters and an occasional visiting osprey are seen, especially in the upper regions, near the wild beauty of the National Arboretum and the lily ponds of the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. In 1974, Maryland designated the Anacostia a scenic river.

Once a Major Port

It wasn’t always a forgotten backwater, either.

At its head, Bladensburg, now a suburb of Washington, was a major deep-water seaport for more than half a century before there was a Washington. Southern Maryland farmers brought hogsheads of tobacco to Bladensburg for shipment to England, France, Belgium and Holland. At the time of the American Revolution, Bladensburg’s docks handled more ocean export tonnage than any other port in the colonies except Yorktown, Va.

The fates of the city and the river were intertwined from the beginning. With the slow decline of the tobacco trade in the 19th Century, Bladensburg began sinking beneath the waves of history.

Tobacco eventually caused the downfall of the river itself. Always prone to silting because of easily erodible soils over much of its 158-square-mile basin, the river filled in rapidly as soon as colonial farmers began clearing tracts of forest to grow crops.

Water Too Shallow

By 1843, when the last oceangoing ship of any significance sailed from the docks, the water was becoming too shallow for safe navigation. Today, an adult can wade across the river at Bladensburg.

Humans still strangle the river. Mining in Maryland as well as continued rural and urban development have kept tributaries inundated with silt. Oil, grease and street debris ooze and tumble their way into the water.

Nature can do little to help. Almost as much estuary as river, the Anacostia is subject to tides. There is little flushing action and a lot of sloshing back and forth. A drop of water may take 44 days to travel from one end of this lazy river to the other.

Visions of reviving the river have come and gone, leaving not much more than the dream. Currently, the best hope is an agreement signed in 1987 by Maryland, the District of Columbia and the two Maryland counties with jurisdiction over parts of the Anacostia Basin.

Major Bases Touched

Initiatives undertaken thus far touch the major bases: strengthening sediment control and storm-water programs, rehabilitating sewer lines, abating land runoff, improving water-quality monitoring and encouraging the return of fish.

“It will take a long time,” Beverly Bandler of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin said. “But we hope people will see some differences within a couple of years.”

In the meantime, life goes on along the river at places like the Washington Navy Yard and several boat clubs that dot the banks.

“It’s finally come to the ‘powers-that-be’ that Washington has two rivers,” says Howard Gasaway, a retired city-government worker who heads the Seafarers Boat Club near the mouth of the Anacostia.

Back at Bladensburg, Perret’s speedboat drifts up to its dock. Mike Spencer stands on a bank overlooking a corner of river engorged with foam cups, plastic bags and bottles, fast-food containers and other debris.

“The Anacostia is highly polluted,” Spencer said, shaking his head. “Other than that, it’s a great river.”