Entering its second year, initiative strives to protect Tidal Basin and its cherry trees ‘at a pivotal moment’

As DC resident Sarah Wagner tried to jog around the Tidal Basin on a sunny weekday afternoon in early March, she relished the monumental setting but noticed that she couldn’t actually use the paved path. 

“I love the monuments, [but] I had to run onto the grass and get off the pathway because the water is over the line,” she said.

Wagner and other springtime visitors to the Tidal Basin have experienced twice-daily flooding to the pathway at high tide, an increasingly visible indication that the area is in desperate need of repair. The Save the Tidal Basin initiative, jointly launched last year by the Trust for the National Mall and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, aims to help support the National Park Service in what could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in needed repairs. It remains to be seen, however, how much more damage the Tidal Basin — named one of “America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places for 2019” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation last May — must bear until repairs come. 

“It’s not able to support the foot traffic,” local tour guide Anita Ehler said of the paved area. “And our most prized possession, the cherry blossoms, aren’t protected because people have to walk to a dry spot,” bringing them near the trees.

The annual National Cherry Blossom Festival commemorates the gifting of the Yoshino cherry trees from the mayor of Tokyo in 1912 and has become one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions. While official festival events have been canceled this year due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, the trees have now reached peak bloom and many Washingtonians and tourists have visited them despite increasingly vigorous efforts to discourage the crowds. 

Originally built in the 1880s, the Tidal Basin was designed to regulate the tides into and out of the local river system. The inlet and outlet gates were installed at that time, but the seawalls and bridge over the Tidal Basin were added in the 1940s. According to Trust for the National Mall spokesperson Teresa Durkin, the water level has risen 11 inches in the past 90 years. However, the flooding is also a result of infrastructure that hasn’t been upgraded since its installation.

According to the Save the Tidal Basin campaign site, “the instability of the land underneath the Tidal Basin, daily flooding, and crumbling infrastructure threaten its sustainability and visitor enjoyment.” Meanwhile, the surface of the parkland is gradually sinking, a phenomenon known as subsidence.

The infrastructure issues exacerbate one of the major problems for the trees themselves: They are absorbing less water.

“An important impact from people walking around may not so much be that they’re stepping on the roots per se, but that they are stepping on the soil, which will lead to soil compaction,” explained American University environmental studies assistant professor Michael Alonzo. “This will decrease water infiltration into the soil, reducing the amount available to the trees, and increase runoff into the Tidal Basin.”

Originally announced in April 2019, the three-year Save the Tidal Basin initiative began with a $750,000 grant from American Express. This seed money is going to five architectural firms to examine the issues facing the Tidal Basin and collaborate on solutions.

Their work will be presented at a National Building Museum exhibit this September. Possibilities that have been floated include a smaller Tidal Basin, the creation of new wetlands, or conversion of some pathways to bridges.

“After our initiative, we’re going to have ideas that will help inform people’s thinking about what the next steps ought to be,” said Durkin.

Donations are also being solicited through the Save the Tidal Basin website to help support the trust’s ongoing efforts to promote public awareness around the Tidal Basin.

“If you have the right marketing campaign, you would certainly get people to contribute,” tour guide Maribeth Oaks said. “Even if they’re one-time visitors, they could certainly see the need for work to be done.”

One of the goals, though, is to engage the local population. “It’s primarily about memberships more than one-time donations. We want to get people invested and knowledgeable about projects,” said Durkin.

To that end, the Trust for the National Mall is highlighting its Endow a Cherry Tree Campaign — where donors are asked to sponsor a tree for $1,000 or give in smaller amounts — on the online Bloom Cam launched Thursday so viewers could watch the cherry trees transform in real time. The Trust for the National Mall, the National Cherry Blossom Festival and the National Park Service teamed up to launch the live streaming camera, which was provided by EarthCam.

Local engagement in the Tidal Basin project could lead to a larger conversation about the city’s arboreal health. Casey Trees — a DC nonprofit committed to restoring, enhancing and protecting the local tree canopy, defined as “the layer of leaves, branches and stems of trees that cover the ground when viewed from above” — explains that increased urbanization has reduced the District’s canopy from 50% in 1950 to 38% currently. The District’s established goal, through planting and education, is to increase the canopy to 40% by 2032. While Casey Trees isn’t actively participating in the Save the Tidal Basin campaign, the group’s leaders hope concern for the cherry blossoms could spill over.  

“People have this deep connection with the cherry blossom tree — they know those trees — so it’s a great connector right off the bat with our mission,” Casey Trees spokesperson Italia Peretti said. “It starts with the cherry blossom, or those trees, [and] ultimately it leads into the conversation of urban forestry and how you can add to it.”

Others agree the Tidal Basin and its trees have tremendous publicity value.

“Probably things are better at the Tidal Basin because more eyes are on those and more care,” Alonzo said. 

On the other hand, the Tidal Basin is run by the National Park Service and there’s a lengthy backlog of needed maintenance on its properties.

The ideas generated by the Save the Tidal Basin campaign won’t lead directly to construction plans but will instead be presented to the National Park Service. Before any work can take place, the project will have to undergo an environmental assessment as well as a review for compliance with security and accessibility requirements. Another complication is that there are 416 national parks competing for appropriations funding on a yearly basis.

“To make it to the top of the list [for appropriations], it has to be completely broken,” said Durkin.

NPS estimates the cost of the Tidal Basin repairs to be $64 million, but combined with needed repairs to the seawalls protecting the surrounding parkland the cost comes out to $329 million, Durkin said. That is nearly half of the $636.7 million of deferred maintenance for the entire National Mall .

But the NPS figure for the Tidal Basin doesn’t account for the full need, according to the campaign’s organizers. It will cost more, Durkin said, to make the improvements necessary to handle the crowds drawn to the Jefferson Memorial and the cherry blossoms and to address the underlying factors that lead to the flooding.

“While fixing the crumbling seawalls is a major component of needed repairs at the Tidal Basin, it is only one piece of the puzzle,” she said.

Given the limited federal spending on NPS projects, the Trust for the National Mall independently funds some projects that would never get congressional appropriation, such as a horse barn constructed south of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in 2015.

Ehler says that this approach can end up straining resources when new monuments — such as the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and the upcoming Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial — are added to the National Mall without a corresponding increase in funding for maintenance. 

“The Park Service is given more and more responsibilities every time a memorial is dedicated,” she said.

As the Save the Tidal Basin initiative enters its second year, Durkin hopes that the public will become aware of what an emergency this is in terms of the condition of the Tidal Basin and the ability of future generations to enjoy the majestic scenery. 

“It is at a pivotal moment, as subsidence, daily flooding, increasing visitation, and crumbling infrastructure threaten its long-term sustainability,” Durkin said. “We need to be thinking about how we can bring 21st-century design and engineering to this endangered place to meet the demands of a changing landscape.”