An event to allow swimming in the Anacostia River was postponed again after water quality tests failed.

After being postponed due to water quality issues related to rainfall, the Anacostia Riverkeeper’s first-ever Splash! event would have been Saturday at the Kingman Island Dock near the National Arboretum.

But it was postponed again this morning when samples came back with too high levels of E. coli. The event is now slated for Saturday, July 13.

Swimming has been illegal in the river since 1971 due to pollution, but infrastructure improvements and other efforts have improved water quality enough that D.C. is allowing the sanctioned swim.

The river passed water quality tests on Wednesday, and it hasn’t rained since then, so the event is going ahead today.

A small number of preregistered guests over the age of 18 will be allowed to jump in the water for 20-minute time slots.

The city has been slowly moving to improve water quality in the Anacostia since the 1970s, with lawsuits against chemical manufacturers and agricultural companies and the new Anacostia River Tunnel, which directs sewage overflow to a wastewater treatment plant.

The Anacostia Watershed Society has also long promoted an effort to make the river swimmable and fishable by 2025.

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