Your plan makes sense..........Maj Haines.................but..........if it were true............that the tidal basin water............is being flushed South........into Washington channel............then why is the flow of water.......inside the tidal basin........north.........and west........................?????



In 1882, Maj. Peter Hains of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers submitted a plan that called for the dredging of the flats to create a large parkland with the reclaimed fill. A key feature of the plan was a tidal reservoir to serve both as a visual centerpiece and a means of flushing out the Washington Channel, a harbor separated from the river by the new fill lands. The reservoir would release 250 million gallons of water captured at high tide twice a day, flushing the channel free of sediments and impurities. The Reservoir and the Outlet Bridge, the structure that released the water to the channel, were completed in 1889; an Inlet Bridge to control the stored water was added in 1909.