McMillan, Part 1 - The Story of the Sand

On Wednesday, September 9th, interested parties convened on St. George’s Episcopal Church in Bloomingdale to discuss what has become the biggest hot-button issue facing the neighborhood and surrounding areas: the fate of the McMillan Sand Filtration Site.  Tempers flared only occasionally; the discourse was mostly civil and rational.  The presence of professional facilitator Alexander Moll (working pro-bono) certainly helped.

But the passion surrounding the 25-acre McMillan site – a registered DC Historic Site and pending member on the National Register of Historic Places – is never simply a matter of NIMBY (not in my backyard) or anti-development sentiments.  The site has lain fallow for decades now and nearly everyone agrees on one thing: its historical and cultural significance to the Bloomingdale neighborhood, Washington, DC, and even nationally, as one of the few remaining examples of a large-scale slow sand filtration system still in extant.

This is the first of a series of articles on McMillan’s evolution from essential component of D.C. sanitation to contentious landmark with a dubious future.  Let’s start at the beginning.

Officially named in 1907 after Senator James McMillan of Michigan, a supporter of developing adequate water supply facilities for the District of Columbia as the chair of the Senate Committee on D.C., McMillan first began operation as a reservoir filtration plant in 1905.  Senator McMillan’s “McMillan Plan” – the outcome of Senate Park Improvement Commission for the District of Columbia - called for a comprehensive park system to be designed around the District, the so-called “Emerald Necklace.”  In 1906 then-Secretary of War William Howard Taft designated the plant part of an overall “McMillan Reservoir Park.” The reservoir quickly became a bifurcated model of turn-of-the century ideals combining equal parts art and science.

An April, 2006 article in the Washington Post  explained the scientific process thusly: “Potomac River water, fresh from Great Falls, arrived at the [McMillan] plant and was filtered through underground cells lined with sand dumped by mule-drawn wagons. Clean water emerged and was piped into homes across the city, including the White House.”  A custom-designed system of vaults and silos filtered up to 75 millions of gallons of water per day through the layers of Schmutzdecke (or biofilm of gelatinous material), sand and gravel.  Slow sand filtration is a chemical free process, relying on the biological activity of micro-organisms and a fair amount of physical labor to keep the filtration process moving efficiently and effectively.  Still considered highly desirable in developing countries, this type of filtration is effective in removing most bacteria from a water supply.  Indeed, the McMillan plant is often credited as eliminating cholera, typhoid, and malaria from D.C. in the early part of the 20th century.

Meanwhile, the artistic side of the project also flourished.  In 1913, Herbert Adams sculpted a Beaux Arts fountain featuring three water nymphs to further honor Senator McMillan.  The fountain was placed at the northwest corner of First and Channing Streets, NW.  Additionally, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (who, along with Daniel H. Burnham, Charles F. McKim and Augustus Saint-Gaudens comprised the original members of the McMillan Commission) had designed a park above and around the reservoir, with the intent of incorporating it into D.C.’s larger park system.  However, with the onset of WWII, and concerns regarding the city’s water supply, the site was closed to the public in 1941.

It would be nearly four decades until McMillan again became a news item.  Next week: Closing Down and Falling Apart.