The sewers of DC..........................swamp things..............etc..........



Although the shoreline of the Potomac River in the District of Columbia was likely to have been littered with shoals, sandbars, and marsh flats, no documentation of these was undertaken until 1834. At that time, the United States Army‍‍ '​‍s Corps of Topographical Engineers identified extensive tidal flats below Long Bridge (the predecessor structure to the 14th Street Bridge). These varied in size, but the largest was 100 acres (400,000 m²) in size at low tide. By 1881, these extended from about the Old Naval Observatorydown to Buzzard Point. Near the modern intersection of 17th Street NW and Constitution Avenue NW, the city's sewer system discharged into an extensive tidal flat, known as Kidwell's Meadows. Exposed to the air about half the time, the sewage began decomposing, creating a powerful, rank smell.^[5]