Record of Determination Extending the Closure of Certain Restrooms and Picnic Areas in National Capital Parks — East

May 20, 2025: Pursuant to 36 C.F.R. § 1.5, the National Park Service is imposing a temporary closure of certain parkland within National Capital Parks — East. Specifically, the restrooms and picnic areas listed below will remain closed from April 15, 2025, through November 15, 2025. The same restrooms and picnic areas listed below will be closed after November 15, 2025, based on the existing closure schedule in the Superintendent’s Compendium, which is unaffected by this Record of Determination. The following restrooms and picnic areas will remain closed from April 15, 2025, through November 15, 2025:

Closed Areas:

Anacostia Park
- Nicholson Street (Park Node/Pirate Ship Playground) Restrooms
- Aquatic Resource Education Center Restrooms
Fort Dupont Park
- Ridge Road Picnic Area and Restrooms
- Lanham Estates Restrooms
Fort Washington Park
- D1 Picnic Area
Greenbelt Park
- Holly Picnic Area Restrooms (picnic area open)
- Laurel Picnic Area Restrooms (picnic area open)

This closure is necessary to protect public health and safety and to implement the management responsibility of maintaining these restrooms and picnic areas. Each of the above restrooms has severe plumbing issues that prohibit the proper function of human waste disposal, creating a public health hazard for any visitor who would use the restrooms. The D1 Picnic Area is flooded by a broken pipe posing a hazard to individuals walking in the area. Additionally, these closures will allow maintenance staff to attempt to repair the restrooms and leaking pipe in the D1 Picnic Area during the summer, when completing the work is more feasible. The plumbing issue is so serious that its hazards extend to, and it requires the closure of, the entire picnic area at Ridge Road in Fort Dupont Park. As the toilets in these restrooms are not working properly, the hazards from the plumbing issues extend to the entirety of the restrooms and picnic area listed above, and it will take a significant amount of time to secure contractors to repair the plumbing issues, lesser restrictive measures will not suffice.

This temporary and partial closure is not of a nature, magnitude and duration that will result in a “significant alteration in the public use pattern.” Indeed, other nearby park areas, including the other seasonal restrooms and picnic areas throughout National Capital Parks — East opened to the public on April 15, 2025, as scheduled. The closure will not adversely affect the park's natural, aesthetic, or cultural values; nor require significant modification to the resource management objectives; nor is it of a highly controversial nature. To the contrary, the work will provide for a better visitor experience by addressing needed maintenance, thus benefitting visitors.

Accordingly, the National Park Service determines that publication as rulemaking in the Federal Register is unwarranted per 36 C.F.R. § l.5(b). This is consistent with hundreds of earlier partial and temporary park closures, the legal opinion of the Office of the Solicitor, and judicial adjudications. E.g., Picciotto v. United States, No. 99-2113 (D.D.C.); Picciotto v. United States, No. 94-1935 (D.D.C.); Picciotto v. Lujan, No. 90-1261 (D.D.C.); Picciotto v. Hodel, No. 87-3290 (D.D.C.); Spiegel v. Babbitt, 855 F. Supp. 402 (D.D.C. 1994), aff’d in part w/o op. 56 F.3d 1531 (D.C. Cir. 1995).

Pursuant to 36 C.F.R.§ 1.7, notice of this temporary and partial closure will be made through the posting of signs at conspicuous locations in the entrance of the closed restrooms and picnic areas and web alerts. Finally, pursuant to 36 C.F.R. § 1.5(c), this determination is available to the public upon request.

Tara D. Morrison
Superintendent