Potomac, Anacostia get some cleanup

Volunteers cleaning the District’s waterways pulled 40 tons of trash from the banks of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers this month and yesterday placed the garbage on a barge to commemorate the 34th annual Earth Day.

As of Wednesday, volunteers with Capital River Relief had collected enough garbage to fill 3,000 trash bags. The group also picked up 746 tires, 25 55-gallon barrels, 12 shopping carts, seven refrigerators, six messages in bottles, three water heaters and a mannequin hand.

“I spent 39 days in the Amazon and I could not even find a fish to catch,” said Jenna Morasca, winner of the TV reality show “Survivor: The Amazon.” “Out here, you can find a refrigerator.”

Miss Morasca, who helped with the cleanup, made her comments at a press conference yesterday at Washington Channel in Southwest, where volunteers showed off the 140-foot-long barge that was piled high with garbage.

“You wouldn’t believe the amount of trash that’s out there piled up on the riverbanks. It’s incredible,” said Ethan Zohn, winner of “Survivor: Africa,” who spent the morning gathering trash with volunteers. “But when you see all of these people volunteering their time to do something about it, it gives me hope that things can get better.”

The unprecedented cleanup of the District’s waterways was spearheaded by Chad Pregracke, founder of Living Lands & Waters, who set out to clean up the Mississippi River several years ago.

Capital River Relief is a partnership of environmental groups, community and government organizations, businesses and volunteers who wanted to improve the two rivers and watersheds.

Mr. Pregracke, 29, of Illinois, put together a team of about 1,000 local volunteers to clean more than 30 miles of the city’s riverbanks. The teams cleaned up the banks of the Potomac River between Mount Vernon in Alexandria and the Tidal Basin. They also targeted the banks of the Anacostia, from RFK Stadium to where the river meets the Potomac.

Among the refuse collected was a note in a bottle that turned out to be a traffic ticket, Mr. Pregracke said.

“The Potomac and Anacostia are a lot worse than the Mississippi,” Mr. Pregracke said, as he stood on the barge.

Mr. Pregracke’s organization has removed more than 900 tons of trash from rivers across the country, including the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois.

The Potomac and Anacostia rivers have had problems with pollution for years. The Potomac is the source of the District’s drinking water.

In March 2002, The Washington Times reported that the Army Corps of Engineers had discharged massive amounts of smelly sludge through a national park and into the National Heritage River near Georgetown. The sludge flowed into the Potomac.

The event sparked a congressional investigation into whether the federal government was in violation the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act.

Meanwhile, chemicals from sewage, toxic waste and runoff from buildings and highways have seeped into the Anacostia River, which is one of the three most-contaminated tributaries emptying into the Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay.

Since the beginning of the month, volunteers with Capital River Relief worked in two shifts, with 40 persons working from 9 a.m. to noon and another 40 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. each day.

The garbage will be sorted and most of the items will be recycled, organizers said. Items that cannot be recycled will be taken to a landfill.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams yesterday thanked the volunteers. He said the District was founded as a waterfront city. However, the rivers have since become so polluted that few value their locations.

“This trash is the pollution you can see. It is symbolic of the pollution you can’t see,” said Doug Siglin, chairman of Capital River Relief. “We picked up this much trash, but it will be back. We need some policy changes in this city.”

Mr. Siglin complained that there are no anti-littering laws in the District. He said discarded Powerbar wrappers were the No. 1 item volunteers picked up from the banks.

The cleanup efforts at both rivers were one of many events held to commemorate Earth Day in the region.

Mr. Williams also attended D.C. Earth Day Celebrations at Union Plaza, where the national Recycling Coalition hosted exhibits on environmental initiatives to help D.C. agencies increase their recycling collections.

Clean Cities, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association celebrated Earth Day on Wednesday by opening an ethanol-fuel station at 1835 West Virginia Ave. NE.

The Environmental Protection Agency has designated the District and a number of local cities and counties as “non-attainment” areas, which means that the air quality in those areas falls below EPA standards, largely because of vehicle pollution.