Rising waters trigger change for DC's Tidal Basin.

Landscape architects reimagine future of DC's Tidal Basin.

A visit to the Tidal Basin in the District of Columbia should deliver sweeping views of cherry trees heavy with pink and white blooms this time of year, drawing millions of onlookers to the concrete shorelines annually.

But not this spring. For the second straight year, festival organizers are warning people to stay away, encouraging them to visit virtually. This is not only because of the coronavirus pandemic. The popular gathering spot also faces growing problems with accessibility and safety hazards caused by regular flooding. The water flowing into the basin from the Potomac River rises up and over its sea wall twice daily, at each high tide.

The Tidal Basin — flanked by stately memorials to Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr. — is a gateway to more than peak blooms. But its paths, when they aren’t underwater, are cratered with muddy holes and, in places, eroded away entirely, replaced by debris-littered beaches. The regular brackish-water baths have also wreaked havoc on the cherry trees closest to the basin.

At high tide today around 4 o’clock, this will completely disappear,” said Teresa Durkin, executive vice president of the Trust for the National Mall, during a walk on one of the now-sandy paths around the Tidal Basin in March. “All of this area that’s like beach now … it had cherry trees.”

The Tidal Basin was carved into this landscape in the late 1800s as an engineered solution for tidal flooding from the Potomac River. But the seawalls built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are now regularly overwhelmed by the waters they were meant to contain. That’s in part because the tide levels are rising while the land and structures — situated like much of the city on hundreds of acres of former wetlands — are sinking, a phenomenon that’s exacerbated by heavy foot and vehicle traffic.

For these reasons, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the Tidal Basin one of America’s most endangered historic places in 2019. The 107-acre landscape is in need of an estimated $500 million in repairs and upgrades. Though it’s located in the nation’s most-visited national park, many don’t realize the ground they’re standing on while taking in the blossoms is in such bad shape.'>>>

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