Polluted Waters Stain D.C.'s Shining Vision

There have been efforts to fix that problem by using filters to capture trash and using plants and artificial wetlands to absorb stormwater upstream.

But in Montgomery and Prince George's, officials say the problem is much bigger than the solution. It will be very hard to retrofit entire neighborhoods, they say, because many of the changes would have to be made on private property.

The District

In the District's section of the Anacostia, the problem is not water running too fast; it's the opposite. The Anacostia in the District is beyond languid. It can take more than 30 days for water to make the trip from Bladensburg to the Potomac.

That means the river doesn't flush out pollution quickly. It remembers insults. One of the biggest came from Washington Navy Yard, where runoff from ship maintenance and munitions-building washed down hazardous metals and other chemicals.

The Navy Yard is an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund cleanup site, though some of the most toxic soil and groundwater has been removed or cleaned. One current research project has put down layers of sand and absorbent materials a foot thick on the river bottom there, hoping to bury the remaining pollutants.

Another problem is the District's sewer system, designed more than a century ago to dump out raw sewage during moderate rainstorms. It still does. At last count, the system dumped 2.14 billion gallons of mixed rainwater and waste into the Anacostia. The river's count of fecal coliform bacteria has been found to be 21 times the EPA's limit.

Being on the river when waste is flowing in is "like being in a toilet," said Connolly, the watershed society's director.

When he said it, he was steering a boat to show the location of one sewage "outfall" -- within sniffing distance of the new Nationals ballpark.

"It's going to be stinky, especially after a rain," Connolly said. "You'll stand up in the seventh-inning stretch and get a big whiff of sewage."

The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority is working to solve this problem, with a plan to dig enormous tunnels under the city where water can be stored during a rainstorm, then treated to remove the sewage.

WASA Chief of Staff Johnnie Hemphill said 30 percent of the problem had been eliminated. But fixing the bulk, he said, will probably take close to 20 years and $2 billion.

The Future

The Anacostia today provides stark contrasts of beauty and ugliness, sometimes on the same day.