Metropolitan Branch Trail water stations get upgrades

Back to Basics on Bike Walk Trail Water Stations

Over the past few years, my community volunteer work has focused on The Friends of Metropolitan Branch Trail (FoMBT). I started FoMBT in 2022 to serve users of the 5-mile, north-south trail in Washington, D.C., which will soon stretch 8 miles off-street or within protected bike lanes from Union Station to Downtown Silver Spring. In 2023 and 2024, FoMBT deployed and maintained drinking water stations on the trail between the rare, permanent installations. Looking ahead to 2025, FoMBT is testing new water filtration and purification methods. But let’s go back to basics: the D.C. government and National Park Service should be installing essential trail amenities like drinking fountains, trash and recycling, public restrooms, and shaded seating when they design and construct trails like the MBT. Our volunteer work has shown high demand for all these essentials along the trail.

My water station research made the algorithm think I’m a doomsday prepper

This week, I will deploy the sizeable blue water filtration station you see in this post’s lead image. It’s a Lifestraw Community, a 13-gallon purification vessel designed and intended for disaster relief and community use in places where connected and treated drinking water isn’t available – and where nearby groundwater isn’t safe. It costs $400 per unit, and I paid for it with my credit card. FoMBT’s fundraising is doing well this year but cannot cover the more significant infrastructure investments. Right now, we’re hand-to-mouth on donations for water cups and water purification tablets. Any help would be appreciated to get us through the three months remaining in this year’s warm month water deployment. We’re looking for volunteers, too!

Since I deployed the first water station in March 2023 — a folding table and a 5-gallon IGLOO water jug — we’ve upgraded each station, adding human drinking cups, trash cans, and dog water bowls. I brought on water purification tablets designed for camping, which we use when we refresh the water and clean each station. We tried the cups you’ll often see used for snow cone treats, but they are very flimsy. We tried several different plastic cup dispenser systems, and they all broke quickly. This year’s experiment with the office coffee stand-style cup stations failed because of feeble construction. 

I’m thankful to the dozen FoMBT volunteers who’ve stepped up this year to help me maintain the water stations, do marketing at public settings like farmers' markets, and assist with our group's financial and legal formalization. This has given me more time to plan improvements to our drinking water stations that will win over some folks from the local government who remain skeptical of supporting our effort. Perhaps continued innovation in our station designs will convince the government to invest in the engineering and construction of permanent drinking fountains. That brings me back to that large blue Lifestraw water system we will test this autumn.

A problem with FoMBT’s current water station system isn’t so much that the quality of water we dump in is poor, as that comes straight from the nearest permanent drinking fountain. But, the jug water could attract contaminants if it sits too long. Our first line of defense for that has been refreshing the water as often as possible. Our volunteer contributions have made it so the southernmost two of our four water stations are refreshed four times per week. But, it’s been more challenging to get volunteers for the northernmost two stations; those are refreshed twice per week this year. It doesn’t help that the nearest public drinking fountain to our northernmost station is 1.8 miles away.

The quest to keep that jug water clean and safe – enticing to passersby on a hot day – has led me to explore corners of the internet for off-grid adventurers, public health missionaries dealing with unsafe groundwater in far-away places, and fish tank minders. Yes, I’ve considered aquarium filter pumps, but of course, those aren’t designed for potable water. I’ve considered pump handle-based systems, but I’m unsure how robust those handles are for high-volume outdoor use – perhaps this “military-grade” one. This other Lifestraw system might work, but it depends on a connection to pressurized hose water. Maybe a “self-cleaning” livestock water bucket, but it has the same hose connection problem. We bought this filtered jerry can to test, but it depends on pressure to push the water through a dense filter. And I’m not too keen on our water stations being pressurized in the open for possible tampering. What about a low-speed water disturber like this automatic pot-stirrer or an immersion blender? We don’t have power at our water stations, and it would be costly to rig up a weatherproof solar panel/USB battery bank contraption – at which point it may be only a few days before we burn out each blender from running it constantly at low speed.

All of the above leads us to high-volume gravity filters. Lifestraw Community is one option, but we could try the Berkey Gravity 6-gallon. Both are expensive and don’t interface well with our current cable lock security system to secure the stations and the water containers. We would like to build lockable enclosures for each station with dispensers designed for the water cups and spots for the trash bin and dog bowl. But that’s carpentry skill and fundraising we don’t have right now.

This research has led my online advertising algorithms to conclude that I’m a vanlifer, a tropical fish enthusiast, and about to depart for Africa. I share all of this in detail to highlight the ridiculousness that a community group has to resort to this length to provide for what I consider the basic human needs in one of D.C.’s largest and highest-usage public spaces outside the National Mall and Rock Creek Park. Bike/walk trails should be linear parks with a proactive design that plumbs drinking water, wastewater, and electric service in the original construction. That’s at the very least. We should install drinking fountains, bathrooms, and shaded rest areas for the initial ribbon-cutting. Thank goodness Throne Labs has thought ahead with their deployable public restrooms.

DISCLAIMER: All opinions and analyses in this newsletter are those solely of Gordon Chaffin and do not represent his employer or community groups with which he’s affiliated.