In a photo taken on the morning of Friday, Feb. 16, two spotted salamanders can be seen chilling on a log in the marshy wetlands of Kingman Island, a narrow strip of land in the Anacostia River. Following five days of toxic debris removal at the Ward 7 park, the squishy amphibians may stand a better chance of avoiding harmful chemicals that can leach into their spongy skin.
The weeklong project — which removed at least 60 wooden telephone poles coated in a carcinogenic preservative called creosote — is the latest step in a wide-reaching effort to bring Kingman Island to life.
“As little pockets of nature are being restored, we’re seeing the return of wildlife,” said Lee Cain, who manages the land at the D.C. Department of Energy and the Environment. “There was an asphalt parking lot on the island at one point, so they pulled that stuff out — now there’s a meadow there.”
The city’s goal for Kingman’s rehabilitation isn’t just to make the 1.5-mile man-made island hospitable for flowers and critters — it’s about creating a welcoming and educational space for D.C.’s human residents, too. Cain said that the site has gone from about 10,000 visitors per year around 2008 to almost 80,000 visitors per year on average between 2018 and 2023.
“When everyone was really stressed out during the pandemic, everybody came to Kingman, as a way to kind of escape from the stress,” Cain said. “It helps…calm the soul, I guess. And it’s really important to have places that you can go to do that.”
Last week’s debris removal effort, which kept Kingman Island closed for five days, aimed to take care of waste that was either toxic to wildlife, like the creosote-covered phone poles, or dangerous to visitors, such as concrete blocks with rebar sticking out, Cain said. Parts of Kingman Island functioned as a dumping ground during much of the 20th century, and some of the debris has remained in the woods there for decades.
Longtime River Terrace resident Brandon Frazier, serves on the Board of Directors for Friends of Kingman and Heritage Islands. He noted Kingman Island’s use as a dump mirrors other harmful sources of pollution surrounding River Terrace, including I-295 and the old Benning Road Pepco plant.
Frazier sees the years-old trash remaining on the island as “evidence of past crimes, evidence of past divestment.”
“It is a reflection, a figurative and literal reflection, of what the city thinks of Ward 7,” he said.
Removing dangerous debris holds particular importance because thousands of school-aged kids visit Kingman Island every year for class trips and other educational experiences. The District’s long-term vision for the island, as laid out in a feasibility study published in 2017, includes several outdoor classrooms and a nature center.
Even without the envisioned amenities, the islands present learning opportunities for visitors of all ages. Cain oversaw operations at Kingman Island with the outdoor education nonprofit Living Classrooms for several years before joining the D.C. Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE). He recalled chatting with a young neighbor who seemed to visit the island nearly every day during the summers.
“I saw this kid on Kingman Island all the time, every summer for like three years, and he’s like, turning over logs or turning over rocks, looking for amphibians and snakes,” Cain said. “He would come there and just exist on the island. … And he’s not the only one. There’s tons of people that come out for different reasons.”
An Island, But Not Isolated Issue
Cain said that residents from adjacent Ward 7 neighborhoods — Kingman Park on the western side and River Terrace to the east — have been deeply involved in plans for Kingman Island and its sister site, Heritage Island.
“Kingman Park and River Terrace — I think they’re the reason that Kingman Island has that collective community vision of ‘this is for natural resources, this is for education,’” Cain said. “There’s people in River Terrace who are like, ‘I grew up fishing there 40 years ago.’ … So there are these really good champions who are invested in this area.”
Frazier said that his own advocacy on behalf of the parkland around his neighborhood is about more than nature — it’s about justice, both environmental and economic. The valuable land around RFK Stadium has seen years of vacancy and neglect, and Frazier said investments have been left in “jurisdictional purgatory” as federal ownership complicates development.
“Whether it be National Harbor, Old Town Alexandria, the Wharf — we see what happens when you can make investments in waterfront land and waterfront communities, and we also see what happens when you don’t make those investments,” Frazier said. “And we’re on the latter [side] of that equation.”
Development proposals for Kingman Island came and went throughout the 20th century — unrealized plans included an airport and a children’s amusement park. The federal government transferred the land to D.C. in 1996, and in the early 2000s the city began to look into using the island for nature education. Mayor Muriel Bowser designated parts of Kingman and Heritage Islands as a State Conservation Area in 2018.
“Any means of environmental rehabilitation and improvement is always going to be a step in the right direction, but it’s a very small step,” Frazier said. “As improvements are being put in place for that waterfront property, [the city should be] making sure that the voices of these communities and those long-standing residents that went through all of the pollution and all of the environmental damage done over the series of generations — that they are equally heard, equally compensated, equally validated and equal participants.”
Removing the remaining debris and clearing more invasive plants are the next key steps that have to happen before DOEE and partner organizations can begin planting more native species and, eventually, creating new ways for people to observe and experience the restored habitats. The dumped trash includes everything from car tires to old water fountains, and Cain thinks getting rid of it could start to change the way people think about natural spaces around the District.
“As we get that stuff out — and then the public perception changes — I think that Kingman can be a really good kicking-off point for other areas around, too, because it sort of sets the example of what’s possible,” he said. “If you can really make progress in a place like Kingman … and then also provide a way for people to visit while honoring those natural resources … we can do this in other places, too.”