In partnership with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and other Anacostia Watershed Toxics Alliance partners, NOAA led the development of a conceptual model for the fate and effects of contaminants and a plan for addressing contaminated sediment hotspots, plus a broader plan to address restoration and on-going contamination throughout the watershed.

NOAA helped conduct tidal river spatial analysis that identified six contaminated sediment hotspots. NOAA and partners are pursuing ways to address these hotspots for possible sediment remediation and/or source control.

With roughly $1.25 million (through a congressional appropriation to DC), NOAA helped investigate contamination at DC-owned portions of Poplar Point, as well as helped develop preliminary plans to restore tidal wetlands and preserve existing non-tidal wetlands. In addition to a preliminary design for tidal wetland creation, recent efforts include a Remedial Investigation (including human health and ecological risk assessments) and Feasibility Study. NOAA is also exploring partnerships for the daylighting of Stickfoot Creek, restoration within the Stickfoot watershed, and treatment of stormwater with partners such as the D.C. Department of Transportation.

NOAA is involved with helping assess and manage a number of hazardous wastes sites along the river, including the Washington Navy Yard, Washington Gas & Light (WG&L), and Kenilworth landfill. The NOAA assessment of riverine contamination from WG&L was used as the basis for the government’s negotiations with WG&L.

Restoration

In partnership with the Maryland State Highway Administration, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, Prince George’s County, and EPA, NOAA spearheaded the engineering and design of the Anacostia East Wetland Mitigation Project, ANA-11. The site covers ~54 acres along the eastern shore of the Anacostia River, just upstream of the Washington, D.C. border. Approximately 25 acres of the site are being considered as a wetland mitigation site for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Replacement Project. When completed, the site will have been transformed into a tidal wetland consisting of a series of aquatic zones that will provide habitat for fish and promote the growth of various wetland plant species. Construction is scheduled to start in spring 2007. This project alone will increase tidal wetlands by 20%.

Through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, NOAA funded the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to complete surveys, design work, and two small fish passage barrier removal projects on Beltsville Agricultural Research Center property in the Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River.

NOAA is also a member of the restoration committee of the Anacostia Watershed Restoration Partnership based at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, working to help identify, fund, and implement additional restoration priorities.

Aerial view of Anacostia East Wetland Mitigation Project, ANA-11, which will increase tidal wetlands in the watershed by 20%.

Trash

NOAA funded and helped develop the Anacostia Watershed Trash Reduction Strategy , one of the first strategies in the Chesapeake Bay region to focus solely on preventing and reducing marine debris in the river and its tributaries. Key objectives of the Anacostia Strategy are to—

• Increase funding for trash reduction programs
• Create and enhance regional partnerships/coordination
• Improve regional outreach and measure citizen knowledge & behavior
• Promote use of effective trash reduction technologies
• Improve enforcement of illegal dumping laws
• Increase trash monitoring data collection efforts

NOAA is a member of the trash committee of the Anacostia Watershed Restoration Partnership at the Council of Governments (along with county and district representatives and interest groups), which is working to implement the priorities identified in the strategy to make the Anacostia trash-free by 2013.

In 2005, the NOAA Marine Debris Program supported the Anacostia Watershed Society to enhance their existing River Habitat and Watershed Explorer curricula to include information about how trash and marine debris directly affect the Watts Branch subwatershed, the Anacostia River, the Potomac River, and the Chesapeake Bay.

NOAA Marine Debris Program is funding and NOAA Anacostia Initiative is working with the Alice Ferguson Foundation to create a regional trash outreach strategy as part of the Potomac Trash Free by 2013 Summit.

For the last two years (2006-07), NOAA Marine Debris Program has provided funding for the Alice Ferguson Foundation’s Annual Potomac Trash-Free by 2013 Summit. The Summit is chaired by Congressman Van Hollen, and ORR’s CAPT Ken Barton provided opening remarks at the 2007 event held at the World Bank.

NOAA National Ocean Service Administrator Jack Dunnigan and Anacostia Watershed Society President Jim Connelly remove trash from the Watts Branch Subwatershed of the Anacostia.

Stewardship

NOAA Bay Watershed Education & Training (B-WET) Program provided funding and technical assistance to K-12 schools and non-profit providers in the Anacostia watershed. Specifically, NOAA has funded roughly eight local partners since 2005, which provide Anacostia watershed students with a meaningful watershed experience.

NOAA Emerging Scientists Project (ESP) has run programs in 12 high schools and provided approximately 25 Washington, D.C. high school teachers with the means to bring oceanic and atmospheric sciences into their classroom. On board NOAA ships based in the Chesapeake Bay, teachers conducted research and a wide range of physical, chemical and biological sampling. Using new technologies, NOAA and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) broadcast "live" into D.C. classrooms from NOAA research cruises.

NOAA Marine-Debris funded the Anacostia Watershed Society to conduct trash-focused classroom and field studies with elementary, middle, and high school students in the Watts Branch area—one of the poorest and most environmentally degraded subwatersheds.

An educator from the Anacostia Watershed Society at a local high school in the watershed.

Improving Coordination

In 2006, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments formed the Anacostia Watershed Restoration Partnership (AWRP). This partnership comprises a Leadership Council consisting of the Governor of the State of Maryland, the Mayor of the District of Columbia, Prince George’s County Executive, Montgomery County Executive, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers District Engineer, and the EPA Region III Administrator.

Advising the Leadership Council and making the majority of funding and prioritizing decisions is the Steering Committee, on which Pat Montanio (Director, Office of Habitat Restoration, NMFS) sits, with Tom Brosnan (Manager, Mid-Atlantic Branch, Assessment and Restoration Division, ORR, NOS) serving as an alternate. Several NOAA staff also participate in various subcommittees of the partnership, such as the restoration, contaminant, trash, and management subcommittees.

NOAA is working with the AWRP to organize an Anacostia Workshop in 2007 to build partnership capacity within the watershed among industry, developers, landowners, residents, interest groups, and local, state, and federal partners.

NOAA is coordinating with other Federal agencies to use the Anacostia as a pilot project under the U.S. Ocean Action Plan. A task team formed under the Subcommittee on Integrated Management of Ocean Resources (SIMOR) was established with the goal of identifying tools for coordinating cleanup and restoration of urban estuaries. As part of the SIMOR effort, NOAA is taking the lead in organizing Federal Agency Anacostia Coordination Meetings to ensure enhanced coordination on cleanup and restoration within the federal family. Other Federal partners include U.S. EPA, USACE, USFWS, U.S. Federal Highways, Navy, U.S. National Park Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey.