For years DC was plagued by open sewers but none more so than in SE with the stagnant
Washington City Canal. To piece together the history of the transfer station and the pumping station located near Yards Park is a little difficult. By the late 1890s, after the Washington City Canal had been filled in, DC didn't have the most efficient sewer system but
steps were made to improve the sewer problem in and around Washington DC. Some of those steps involved the building of the pumping station located near the Yards park/entrance to the old canal (which can still be seen today). Additionally, Congress and the resident associations battled as early as 1893 on where to place a new transfer station/crematory.
The first protests I could find against the creation of the transfer plant on NJ Ave came in 1905 from the East Washington Citizen's Association (Washington Post 7 Apr 1905). The reasons they provided for relocating the proposed station as stated by Mr. Weller, vice president of the association, was simple, "We have your almshouse, your poor house, your jail...and really we can spare the garbage transfer station." The city responded with saying that it would cost between $25,000 to $40,000 to relocate the station. A few months later (Jun 1906) about 60 property owners petitioned the city commissioners to remove the planned station but the Washington Post reported that it was unlikely the city would remove the plant despite no contract being signed to build the station. By 16 Jul 1907, the transfer station was operational (probably around Jul 1906) and a legal decision came down that the station could operate legally but that it should be regularly inspected.
More protests followed in 1915 from the East Washington Association. They called for the removal of the plant and in its place the "establishment of a parked space" from 1st St SE down to the DC Water Pumping station on NJ Ave/2nd St. As you will see over the next few decades residents and associations would continue to complain but to no avail. By 1918, problems arose with the Washington Fertilizer Company over how to run the station. Eventually the city paid $300,000 to take over the plant, or risked - this apparently was an option - turning it into a hog and chicken farm for the farming of fresh eggs and to fatten pork. Even with those problems, the operation of the plant kept chugging along.
In an editorial to the Washington Post, 2 Jul 1929, a SE resident complained about conditions prevailing in the neighborhood and complained that SE was being discriminated against because of the conditions at the garbage plant. The complaint focused on the smell, lack of service, the methods of the railroad to remove the garbage (which might explain the set of old tracks on Canal St leading to the old Post plant) and just the general disregard for the health of SE residents. But one of the most striking comments made by the resident was a perception that could almost be made today but one that has impacted SE since 1792 was the apparent disregard for SE and it development while other parts of the city reaped the benefits of tax revenue.
By 1934 District officials had described SE as the most underdeveloped section of DC. Piggybacking on that sentiment, complaints continued to arise about the garbage plant and by 1934, the president of the Southeast Business Men's Association (is that kinda like todays Capitol Riverfront BID) called for the (immediate) removal of the NJ Ave garbage transfer plant to another part of the city. The group expected to raise up $1500 to bring attention to removing the station from SE (the $1500 also included several other projects w/in Se that needed attention) but needless to say, it didn't work.
By the late 1940s and despite all these protests over the years, the city thought it was a good idea to make use of the same location and build a new transfer station. Those dreams came true on 24 Jul 1949, when a brand new two-story transfer station became operational. The new station had replaced a nearly "50 year old loading platform for garbage, street sweepings, and household ashes from collection trucks to trailers, railway gondola cars and farmers' trucks." This new transfer station is the same structure you can pick-up sandbags from today and dump your Christmas tress off as well. But what people probably don't know, especially those who live in
909 at Capitol Yards and
Capitol Hill Towers and who have a spectacular view of the garbage transfer plant, is that the station they live across the street from is an award winning garbage transfer plant!
In 1951, the American Public Works Association bestowed upon, William Xanten, the District superintendent of sanitation, the Charles Walter Nichols Award (and $500). The award was in response to the construction of a $918,700 state of the art garbage transfer facility built two years earlier at NJ Ave which incorporated "a unique dust and odor control system." I'm not sure this process is still practiced today but one of the functions of this new plant was to grind up garbage and dump it into the city's sewer system and to load street sweepings onto railroad cars for transfer to Cherry Hill, VA. I'm not sure the grinding and dumping process still takes place today but back in the day the location would make sense with the old railroad tracks visible today, proximity to the old canal (which became a sewer) and the pumping station straight down 2nd St.
JDland.com has posted that operations at this transfer station may stop soon and over the last few weeks, there appears to be less traffic/activity at the station but that could just be an optical illusion. Regardless, I won't hold by breath until the station is closed and the stack is down before rejoicing that it took nearly 100 years of complaining to finally remove the plant from the 'neglected' part of the city.
