While D.C. was busy breaking the record for most 90-degree days in a month (thanks for nothing, July), some locals decided to dip their toes — or entire bodies — into Rock Creek, a shallow and mostly shaded waterway that runs through Montgomery County and the District.
Public pools are closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and many D.C. residents don't have other options for relief from this summer's stifling heat.
"I've always been told that Rock Creek is really gross," says D.C. resident Mary Lauran Hall. "But, man, it looks like people are having a really fun time."
Article continues belowHall submitted a couple of questions to WAMU's What's With Washington about the swimmers, who seem more prevalent this year than in previous summers: "Why aren't people supposed to swim in Rock Creek?" she asks. "If it's unsafe, how unsafe is it? Are there plans to make the creek swimmable in the future, and if so, when?"
That Dirty Water
First things first: It is illegal to swim in any of D.C.'s waterways. Since 1971, District law has banned swimming or wading in the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers as well as Rock Creek. Violating the law is punishable by a $300 fine or 10 days in jail.
However, the city rarely enforces this law. On a recent 93-degree day in Rock Creek Park, around a dozen people were wading or swimming in the water. Four-year-old Drew Gentles wasn't among them, much to her displeasure. Her father, Andrew, brought her and his father, Jimmy Harris, to the park from Anacostia.
"We really wanted to take my daughter out, having been cooped up for so long because of the pandemic," Gentles said. "But we're staying away from the water right now."
Nearby, newly installed signs in English and Spanish warned about the reason why swimming is outlawed: Bacteria. This isn't some Footloose-style ban on fun — according to standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency, the city's waterways are very polluted.
There are lots of culprits for Rock Creek's pollution, depending on where you're standing.
North of Piney Branch (near the National Zoo), stormwater pipes in D.C. and Maryland funnel untreated runoff from yards, sidewalks and homes into the creek. That water can be contaminated with dog poop, goose poop, deer poop ... just so much poop.
Runoff from agricultural land in Montgomery County and century-old leaky sewers in the park also contribute to contamination.
Below Piney Branch, there are more than two dozen combined sewer outfalls. Essentially, stormwater gets funneled into the same pipes that carry raw sewage. After a heavy rain, those pipes, by design, overflow into Rock Creek.
All these sewer and runoff issues combine to create one very dirty creek, particularly after storms.
Poop Shmoop. How Unsafe Is It Really?
Every week, nonprofit workers and volunteers check dozens of points along the city's waterways for E. coli, which is an indicator of other harmful microbes that can cause water-borne illnesses. Jeanne Jordan, a public health professor at George Washington University, says those illnesses can include vomiting, diarrhea and "very dramatic" skin infections. All these contaminants come from feces.
E. coli levels are often much higher in Rock Creek than in the Potomac and Anacostia, in part because the creek has much less water in it to dilute pollutants.
"It's really pristine and beautiful," says Robbie O'Donnell, the watershed program manager with the nonprofit Anacostia Riverkeeper. "I think that kind of lulls people into this false sense of security."
Not Jordan. She doesn't even feel comfortable kayaking on the deep and wide Potomac River due to the data she's seen. "I'm a very risk-averse person when it comes to pathogens," she says.
In recent years, city officials have begun discussing relaxing the no-swimming law, reflecting a change in pollution levels. The Anacostia, for one, is already a lot cleaner than it used to be, thanks to a massive tunnel — completed in 2018 — that reduces more than 80% of sewage overflow into the river.
DC Water is working on another tunnel for Rock Creek and the Potomac as part of the court-mandated Clean Rivers Project, which aims to vastly reduce the amount of sewage flowing into the city's waterways by 2030.
"We're very pleasantly surprised at how successful the first leg of the tunnel is," says Olivia Anderson, who coordinates Anacostia Riverkeeper's weekly water testing program. "The fact that they're also adding a tunnel under Rock Creek is going to be really helpful."
But for now, Rock Creek is still very polluted.
I Hear You, But I'm Still Getting In
Hypothetically, if one were to, say, accidentally fall into Rock Creek while wearing a swimsuit, what would happen?
Jeanne Jordan, our risk-averse microbiologist, says you're much less likely to get sick if you keep your head and hands out of the water. "It's a very low risk, I think, to just be wading. Unless you have a cut on your foot," she says.
Water-loving rule-breakers can also pinpoint and avoid combined sewer outfalls.
Perhaps most importantly, avoid Rock Creek after rainstorms and whenever your nose senses something's off. That poop smell you're sniffing is, in fact, poop.
"After a big rain, it smells ... ripe," describes Jeanne Braha, executive director of Rock Creek Conservancy. Her organization is involved in the weekly testing efforts and park preservation and cleanup.
Another person involved in Rock Creek cleanup (who didn't want to be identified because she was contradicting her organization's official stance on swimming) says getting into the creek is likely safe after a "long, dry hot spell" without rain.
The other options, of course, are to wait for the public pools to reopen when the pandemic gets under control, or wait for the city's Clean Rivers Project to wrap up in 2030.
Which one of those will happen first? Your guess is as good as ours.
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