The quality of the Potomac River, the source for drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas, is improving quicker than regional conservationists expected, but they warned the public should not try to go for a swim just yet.
The river scored a “B” in the Potomac Conservancy’s 2018 State of the Nation’s River report released Tuesday. The grade is the highest it has received in the 10-year history of the study.
Just seven years ago, the river’s high pollution levels — based on the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment — had earned in a “D.” The body of water saw improvement in 2013 when it scored a “C,” and again in 2016 as it hit a “B-.”
“The Potomac River is making a comeback and is on its way to joining the Charles, Willamette, and other urban rivers that have made remarkable recoveries in recent years,” Hedrick Belin, president of Potomac Conservancy, said in a statement.
“But that progress is fragile. We’ve reached a critical turning point for the river, and we can’t backslide now. We must strengthen — not weaken — water protections so fishermen can eat their catch, children can safely swim, and we can drink water without worry.”
The Potomac is set to the west of Washington and divides the District of Columbia from Virginia. It also serves as the natural border between Maryland and Virginia north of Washington. Its conditions have slowly improved over the past three decades as a result of changes in agricultural practices, better wastewater treatment practices, and a decrease in industrial pollutants.
The river is not only much healthier than in years past, but also supporting American shad, rockfish, white perch, small-mouth bass, and even bottlenose dolphins further south.
Birds, including bald eagles and waterfowl, are also returning to the region. The report cited several eagle pairs nesting in D.C., the first time since 1946.
“We have entered into a golden era in terms of eagles, osprey, and great blue herons. The tidal reach of the Bay now supports 2,000+ pairs of eagles, 15,000+ pairs of great blue herons and 10,000+ pairs of osprey. The Bay is a crowded place that now supports waterbirds in numbers likely not seen since colonial times,” Bryan Watts, director of the Center for Conservation Biology of The College of William and Mary & the Virginia Commonwealth University, said in a statement.
The Potomac Conservation cited the Chesapeake Bay Program, a multistate clean-up effort overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, as the primary organization behind these improvements.
However, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said he is concerned that a second year decrease in the amount of federal funding to the program could hurt the progress experts have made in recent years.
“Decades of hard work and investments to restore the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay are starting to pay off. If we truly want to protect these national treasures for future generations, we cannot stop now,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “I will continue fighting to protect full funding for clean water initiatives that are vital to improving the health of our waterways and the Bay.”
Going forward, conservationists are most concerned about urban polluted run-off, which they call the “number one threat” to the Potomac.
