We are in Southeast DC. This is Alger Park and it's part of the Texas Avenue Tributary,
which ultimately drains the Anacostia. Here we have a very dramatic example of the
impacts of uncontrolled stormwater. In Southeast DC we have these Christiana soils,
which are predominantly sand. When uncontrolled stormwater hits this sand,
it just blows it out. And all this sediment is going to end up down in the Anacostia and eventually
likely down in the bay, which is not what we want. My name is Stephen Reiling. I'm an environmental
protection specialist with the District of Columbia Department of the Environment.
So this technique is called regenerative stormwater conveyance. And the regenerative part of it is
that over time this will just get better. The vegetation will come back. We have all these
plantings that will mature. And the conveyance part of it, as you can see, it's a series of step pools,
weirs, these cobble weirs, step pool weir. We just have a way of slowing the stormwater down,
letting it settle, let the sediment settle in these pools. And these ponds, they act to slow
the water down. They also act to infiltrate the water back into the ground. And then also,
obviously, by looking at it, you can see it's a great habitat for wildlife. So
that's one of the other goals is habitat creation. Total cost for this project here is
close to $700,000. And impressively, it only took actual construction less than three months to do
the bulk of the construction. Then plantings have been sort of sporadic as needed. This
tributary, which is Milkhouse Ford, this will make its way into Rock Creek, which is maybe a mile
downstream and eventually into the Potomac and then the bay. So if we can stem the problems here at
the headwaters, that's the best place to do it. We have a very impervious watershed up here. And so
there's grease and oil from vehicles, sediment, any kind of fertilizers that are coming off the
lawns. And so we'd like to slow that down and hopefully keep it here before it makes its way
to the bay. We're in Watts Branch, which is northeast DC. This stream had a history of sewer
leaks, a lot of trash, a lot of dumping, not a lot of biological life, and just very, very poor
quality stream. This is what you might call a traditional natural channel design. These stream
restoration structures are designed to deal with high flows and to keep the channel relatively
stable. During low flow, like what we have right now, water flows through here. It's possible for
fish to pass through. When we have a storm, what will happen essentially is the water will rise
up here. As it comes over here, due to the grading, it will tend to fall back into the center of the
stream. So essentially the drop of water comes up here and then it's going to fall in this way
over these stones as opposed to coming in and tearing out this bank. This is a bandalong litter
trap. And these basically float on top of the stream. And the trash that comes down from upstream
will get caught in these structures. And we're doing it because we really want people to value
the stream. And we know that people's impression, litter, and just general impurities really
impacts people's thoughts and their ideas about what their local water bodies are.
There's a lot of work to do in the district in terms of stream restoration. We restored three
in the last year in 2011. We have four other stream projects in design. And we think we can make a
real positive impact on the Anacostia and the Bay overall. It's going to take some time and some
money, but we're well on our way and we expect to do many more.
