For generations, swimming in the Anacostia River was not just discouraged; it was prohibited. The District’s swim ban, first enacted in the 1970s amid widespread concerns about pollution and public health, reflected the reality of a river suffering from decades of neglect. Combined sewer overflows, industrial contamination, and urban runoff had taken a severe toll on the Anacostia River’s health. Yet, rivers are resilient and so are the communities that fight for them. Over the last several decades, federal agencies, local governments, advocates, and nonprofits like Anacostia Riverkeeper have invested in restoring this iconic waterway. Today, the Anacostia River is cleaner than it has been in generations: the conversation is no longer whether people will ever swim in the Anacostia again; instead, it is about when.
Community Science Monitoring & Its Limitations
Since launching the District’s first community science bacteria monitoring program in 2018, Anacostia Riverkeeper volunteers have collected weekly water samples throughout the summer across the watershed, creating one of the region’s most comprehensive records of recreational water quality. Their efforts have demonstrated something remarkable. Safe swimming conditions are already occurring at key recreation sites along the Anacostia River. In 2025, several mainstem locations, including Buzzard Point and Kingman Island, consistently met recreational water quality standards, providing growing evidence that a swimmable Anacostia is no longer a distant aspiration but an increasingly achievable goal. At the same time, the program has highlighted one of the biggest challenges in protecting public health. Traditional bacteria testing requires samples to be collected, transported to a laboratory, and analyzed before results are available. Even under ideal circumstances, that process takes at least 24 hours. By then, rainfall, stormwater runoff, tides, and other environmental conditions may have already changed water quality. For people looking to enjoy the river safely, yesterday’s conditions provide valuable context, but today’s conditions matter most.
The Future of Monitoring: Real-Time Sensors
Last spring, Anacostia Riverkeeper partnered with Xylem’s Reservoir Center to deploy a network of real-time water quality sondes throughout the watershed. These sensors continuously measure physical characteristics of the river, including temperature, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, turbidity, and other indicators of river health. Unlike traditional monitoring that provides only periodic snapshots, the sondes allow us to watch the river respond to changing conditions as they happen. Storms, tides, and seasonal shifts all influence water quality, and this continuous stream of information is helping us better understand how the Anacostia changes from hour to hour and day to day.
This fall, we are building on that foundation through a new partnership with Xylem and Virridy by installing three LUME sensors alongside our existing monitoring network. These sensors represent an exciting step toward real-time bacteria modeling. By pairing continuous environmental measurements with years of volunteer-collected bacteria data, we will evaluate whether the system can accurately estimate bacteria concentrations without waiting for laboratory results. If successful, this technology could provide communities, river users, and event organizers with timely information about recreational water quality while building on, not replacing, the community science program that makes these advances possible.
The Near Future- A Swimmable Anacostia River
Over the past several years, Anacostia Riverkeeper has secured permission to host Splash three times, the first legal public swim in the Anacostia River in more than half a century. Each event represented a milestone in the river’s recovery and a chance to demonstrate how far restoration efforts have come. Yet all events were ultimately canceled due to weather and uncertainty about water quality conditions on the day of the swim. While disappointing, those cancellations highlighted an important reality: as we move closer to a swimmable Anacostia, the challenge is no longer simply improving the river. It is developing the tools needed to understand changing conditions in real time and make informed decisions about recreational access.
That is why investments in real-time monitoring are so important. Community science has shown us that safe swimming conditions already occur regularly in parts of the Anacostia. Real-time sondes, predictive models, and next-generation bacterial monitoring technologies have the potential to tell us when those conditions are happening at the moment. Together, these tools can help transform uncertainty into confidence, allowing river users, event organizers, and public agencies to make decisions based on current conditions rather than yesterday’s data. The next Splash is coming soon. And when it does, it will represent more than a single swim. It will be a celebration of decades of restoration, community science, and innovation working together to reconnect people with a healthier, more accessible Anacostia River.
