By Jenna Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 29, 2008; B02

A coalition led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has released a report outlining a strategy to clean up the Anacostia River by improving its tributaries. The plan ranges from relatively costly initiatives, such as improving storm water drainage systems, to small steps that individuals can take, such as planting gardens on properties in the watershed.

Plans call for about 170 small-scale projects to be tested at Sligo Creek, a tributary of the Anacostia that runs through Montgomery County. The creek's 11-square-mile watershed includes Prince George's and Montgomery counties and a small portion of the District.

The projects aim to restore the wetlands, increase fish populations, educate the public and reduce the amount of sediment and trash swept into the creek. Projects and methods that prove successful and cost-efficient for Sligo Creek would be implemented at the river's 13 other main tributaries, which flow through Montgomery and Prince George's.

"The only way to achieve a holistic plan for the entire basin is to take a piece of it and test it for results," Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said in a statement. In 2005, Norton introduced a bill that arranged for the Army Corps of Engineers to oversee an Anacostia cleanup with $55 million in federal funds.

The goal of the projects is to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay by slowly cleaning the rivers that feed into it, such as the Potomac, and tributaries of those rivers, such as the Anacostia. The highly polluted Anacostia was largely ignored until the late 1980s because most officials were focused on the larger Potomac.

Although the report says the Anacostia will "never again be the pristine river watershed it was before development and urbanization," it outlines steps to improve its overall health.

The Army Corps of Engineers began studying Sligo Creek in September 2007, and organizers hope to see a cleaner waterway and improved habitat by 2020. Efforts yesterday to reach U.S. Army Corps of Engineers representatives and associations dedicated to restoring the Anacostia and Sligo Creek were unsuccessful.

Urban surroundings cause pollutants to flow into the Anacostia and its tributaries, particularly after heavy rainstorms, when water runs off roofs, streets, parking lots and other surfaces and into storm drains that lead to waterways. The runoff carries sediment, chemicals and trash. Runoff also raises the level of the waterways, eroding their banks and increasing sediment in the water.

Runoff could be absorbed by plants or collected in rain barrels, small ponds or cisterns, the report says. The amount of sediment and trash on the streets can be reduced by strictly enforcing litter laws, encouraging people to pick up leaves and grass clippings, and increasing the number of street cleaners.

In the Sligo Creek area, organizers plan to dispatch weekly street cleaners.

The report also promotes the importance of educating the public about where storm water ends up. The Sligo Creek watershed area has about 18,000 single-family homes, so the creek could be greatly helped if homeowners collectively picked up trash or reduced the amount of fertilizer they use.

The report recommends that the three jurisdictions in the watershed offer incentives, including in some cases cash, to residents who reduce the amount of their storm water runoff by planting trees or other moisture-absorbing plants, setting up rain barrels or planting vegetation on the roof.

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