Natural Thoughts: Ode to a New Anacostia

It has been a long and cold winter, and usually after work I head straight home for a nice hot shower. Finally though, the days are starting to get longer and at least a little warmer.  So, the other day I took a badly needed break from all of the chaos at work and went for a stroll along the Anacostia River.  As I walked the pathway that was elevated on a man made levee, I thought about how the river used to be, and I realized that,

Never again will the river abound with the diversity of large game fish that it once had.

Never again will a wolf howl at a cliff along the Fall Line.

Never again will clear and clean water wind past old growth forest.

Never again will giant American Chestnuts (Castanea dentata) line the banks of the river.

Never again will a large cloud of Passenger Pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius) darken the daytime sky over the river.

Never again will an ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) soar across the coastal plain.

Never again will anyone hear the squawking of a dozen bright green Carolina parakeets (Conuropsis carolinensis) cruising towards the Potomac River Gorge.

Never again will a bobcat (Lynx rufus) cautiously approach a riffle along the river to take a drink.

Never again will there be spring-fed tributaries clean enough to drink from.

Never again will see see a waterfall without a plastic bag caught in the undertow (maybe?)

Never again will we see a skyline of contiguous forest.

Never gain will anyone be able to paddle out onto the river at night and look up to see the entire galaxy.

Never again will the river be allowed to meander wherever it chooses

Never again will we be able to listen to crickets at night without  hearing car alarms and rumbling trucks nearby.

Never again will be have the diversity of amphibians that were once living in the stream.

Never again will this river be truly wild the way it was for tens of thousands of years.

Yet as a cool breeze brushed my ear, and has another piece of litter skidded past my feet, I could not help but look around and smile as hikers and bikers glided along the newly constructed bike trail, as crocuses broke through the surface of the ground with their blossoms, as newly planted trees along a grassy corner began to bud, and as someone stepped outside of their house with a rooftop covered in solar panels.

We will never have our old Anacostia back.  We have lost it forever.  But now we have a new Anacostia River to look forward to.  And we should cherish it as much as we can.

Figure 1:  A rejuvenated Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River as seen from Riverdale Park, MD.  March 2014.  Late afternoon.  






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