Hickey Run is a tributary of the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. It enters the National Arboretum via a culvert under New York Avenue. Prior to this the Hickey Run traverses a highly urbanized area in Washington, DC which subjects it to large amounts of non point source pollution such as oil, grease and trash.
The Alice Ferguson Foundation and the Anacostia Riverkeeper have worked tirelessly on trying to solve the trash problem of the Hickey Run and the Anacostia River.
New York Avenue has been identified as a "chronic trash hot spot area". It is at this location that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, District Department of Environment, DC Water and Sewer Authority and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the owner of the National Arboretum, chose the Terre Kleen with specially designed trash boxes, to intercept the massive amounts of trash that are carried by the Hickey Run.
In September 2010, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) , the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland announced a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for Trash for the Anacostia River, making the Anacostia River the first river in the nation to have a Trash TMDL under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) regulations under the Clean Water Act (CWA), 33 U.S.C. } 1251, et.seq. . The TMDL requires the capture of 600 tons of trash from the Anancostia watershed annually. The TMDL helps contribute to attainment of the goal of the Trash Free Potomac Watershed Initiative and implementation of the Potomac River Watershed Trash Treaty and the Anacoatia River Cleanup and Protection Act of 2009.
After a rigorous vetting process the interested parties unanimously chose the Terre Kleen specially modified to contain two large trash boxes. The water from the Hickey Run is directed into the Terre Kleen where oil, grease and sediment are first removed and then the trash is captured in the trash boxes. Terre Kleen's proven sediment removal capabilities, using inclined plates, and its fully enclosed baffled trash boxes provides an optimum solution for the trash plagued Hickey Run tributary to the Anacostia River.
