Opinion: DC Water must address hazardous conditions at the Soapstone Valley Albemarle trailhead

by Marlene Berlin

Friday, May 31st was DC Water’s National Park Service-imposed deadline for completing the Soapstone Valley sewer work. That end date was also clearly stated on the sign at the Albemarle Street trailhead.

In the days that followed, and perhaps encouraged by the sign and the easy access through an opening in the chain link barrier, visitors were entering and exiting the park.

This concerned me, as DC Water contractors had left the trail in poor and even hazardous condition. The issues included a layer of straw masking an uneven trail surface and tripping hazards.

The straw-covered trail.

The straw hid stones and other tripping hazards on the Soapstone trail.

The straw covering the trail also made the edge of a culvert under the trail difficult to spot, and created an additional fall risk.

ANC 3F Commissioner Mitchell Baer, who is also a Soapstone trail maintenance supervisor for the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, told me that another issue with the straw is that it created a slippery surface in dry conditions. And in rainy conditions, the trail beneath transformed into slippery mud. He said he had never seen the trail in such bad condition.

An additional hazard is the steep rock cascade to the north of the trail. The only barrier is caution tape.

On Friday, June 7th, I emailed DC Water, the National Park Service and DDOT, which owns part of the right-of-way, alerting them to the confusing signage and urging DC Water to do something about the unsafe trail conditions.

Project manager Peter Tinubu replied that the straw was necessary to protect newly planted seeds and suppress weeds. He did not, however, explain why there would be seeds or straw on the trail, or the further engage on the other unsafe trail conditions.

He did say that a crew would return to close the entrance gate, but he could not guarantee that it would stay closed. And, he said the sign at the Albemarle entrance would be modified to state that the park is closed until further notice. It was, by the following day.

But I still saw walkers and a runner on the trail.

On Wednesday, June 12th, I happened upon the DC Water contractor planting trees along the Soapstone trail. The Empire Landscape supervisor responded similarly to the answers I received from DC Water’s Tinubu about the need for straw. However, once his assistant checked the thick book of designs that informed their work, they quickly realized their mistake. They had not seen that this was actually a walking path. They committed to removing the straw by the end of the day.

The Empire supervisor also told me that bushes would be planted in the area of the rock fall and culvert, but could not provide a timeline. And, a veteran of several stream restorations, he acknowledged that the only way to prevent people from using the trail was to station workers at each end to warn them away.

Commissioner Baer’s advice, since people are going to use the trail regardless, is to make what he says are some easy fixes: “Remove the straw, which should not be growing anything, dump some gravel at the top of the trail which can be transported in wheel barrels and mixed into the clay with tripping hazards removed, and branches moved to block the [rock fall] façade and culvert area.”

The trail did get a fix, though a few days later than the Empire Landscape supervisor had stated. The straw was still there the morning of Saturday, June 15th. It was gone when I returned the following morning.

A woman checks her phone along the newly straw-free trail on Sunday, June 16th. The fallen tree is a new development.

So I ask of DC Water: Knowing that that people will continue to use this walkway, why not make it as safe as possible, until the work is finally complete?