Congress Appropriates $585,000 to Study Health of Potomac River

The Potomac River, a water source that provides drinking water to about five million people in the Washington metropolitan area and is home to many living species, is on its way to getting healthier and being a sustainable resource for humans and other organisms.

Congress approved a measure to appropriate $585,000 to assess the long-term health of the river and its ability to provide water for the region’s residents and local wildlife. President Obama signed the measure on Oct. 29.

The project, called the Middle Potomac Comprehensive Plan, represents a multi-agency partnership. The Nature Conservancy, an organization that works around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people, will serve as the non-federal sponsor for this project and will contribute 25 percent of the project’s costs to leverage the federal investment from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The National Park Service is also funding a major project component. In addition, the D.C. area’s Potomac water supply utilities (together known as CO-OP) are funding demand forecasts. In Loudoun County, specifically, the project will work with the Loudoun County government, as well as Loudoun Water, to use their technical expertise on the water issues in the area. The Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin serves as a technical partner for the assessment, providing extensive biological and hydrologic analyses.

The Potomac watershed, which encompasses 14,670 square miles in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, is at risk due to increased population growth accompanied by increased surface and groundwater withdrawals. The project attempts to analyze the water quality and quantity present in the Potomac watershed and assess how to make it more sustainable. The project is looking long-term at the water needs over the next 50 to 100 years, according to Stephanie Flack, director of Chesapeake Strategies for The Nature Conservancy.

The watershed assessment will concentrate on the Middle Potomac River watershed, which consists of 175 river miles and is home to approximately 75 percent of the Potomac basin’s residents.

The project will assess the impacts of current and future human activities on the river’s hydrology, including water withdrawals, dam operations, changes in watershed land use and development, and projected climate change to determine how they might be balanced and mitigated to prevent conflicts of water use and ecological degradation of the Potomac River’s native species and natural communities, according to a fact sheet distributed by The Nature Conservancy.

“We are very pleased that the congressional delegations in Potomac watershed supported this,” said Flack. “It shows great foresight to look at the needs of watershed over time and to look at this as unified whole instead of dividing it by jurisdictions.”

Representatives and Senators from five jurisdictions weighed in on the measure, as their constituents rely on the Potomac River.

 “The Potomac River is the second largest tributary in the Chesapeake watershed and is critically important to the health of the Bay. This funding will allow for the development of an unprecedented, regional watershed assessment focused on defining the region’s water needs for people and nature,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, chairman of the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee. 

“This assessment will bring together the watershed’s five jurisdictions of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., in a coordinated effort to ensure that we can meet our water supply needs without degrading the aquatic systems that help provide and sustain that water supply,” said Representative Jim Moran (VA-8).

Representative Gerald Connolly (VA-11) added, “The services provided by a healthy and functioning Potomac River – recreation, drinking water, wildlife habitat – are critical for our quality of life and the economy in the region. This project provides a shared framework for incorporating ecological considerations as the watershed’s jurisdictions undertake their respective water supply planning efforts.”

The issue of clean and sustainable water goes across to Maryland, as well.

“The fate of the Potomac is inextricably linked to that of the Chesapeake Bay, as water and living resources flow between the Bay and its tributaries,” noted Representative Chris Van Hollen (MD-8). “The health and vitality of one affects the others, and the time is now to gain a more comprehensive, basin-wide perspective on the Potomac River’s water resources.”

 Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC) also weighed in.

“In Washington, D.C., our history and our future is intertwined with the Potomac and its tributary, the Anacostia River,” said Congresswoman Norton. “This watershed assessment will define environmental flows – the quantity, timing, and quality of water flows required to sustain aquatic ecosystems, and the human livelihoods and well-being that depend on these ecosystems.”

The project is expected to take about two and a half years; it began in May 2009 and is expected to be completed in December 2011, Flack said.