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Potomac Report Card 2025 | Otter.ai

Potomac Report Card 2025

Peter Kelley37min

Speaker 1

00:00

right. Well, good morning, everybody. Appreciate everyone coming out today. I'm Hedrick Belin, Executive Director of Potomac Conservancy, and today, we are releasing our Potomac River report card. And so for the big reveal of this year,

Speaker 1

00:22

two it once again, the Potomac River received another B. It's the same grade it's earned over the last decade. It certainly is a big turnaround from the dismal D that it received in 2011 but it also means that progress is stalled. Now it's important because our River supplies drinking water to 5 million people, but that river still isn't reliably safe for swimming or eating fish. It's been a remarkable comeback, hard fought over decades to get to this point. Pollution is down thanks to extensive cleanup efforts. Wildlife like bald eagles are making a comeback. Recreation is up 10% on the river since the pandemic, and we see more people outside, picnicking, paddling, hiking and connecting with their hometown River, which is very exciting, and yet we still have not achieved the goal of a fishable, swimmable river. The biggest threat to the Potomac is urban polluted runoff, the dirty mix of street, oil, fertilizers, sediment and trash that flows off of our streets, lawns and parking lots, and it flows into all of our streams that ultimately go into the Potomac forest loss and extreme climate conditions are also making this worse. Now, healthy forests are natural infrastructure, and trees are really important because they capture pollution, they keep our streams cool, and they protect communities from the increased flooding we're seeing. But when forests disappear, so does our best defense against this polluted runoff. Now, the Potomac comeback is a great story, but it's still in progress, and to finish the job, to truly make it an A river, we need everyone, whether you're cleaning shorelines, signing letters or planting trees, everyone has a role to help protect the life blood of our region and also our communities. Right now, the Potomac conservancy invites the public to join us, to help us raise $8 million before the end of the year for our clean water Healthy Communities campaign. These funds are going to accelerate efforts to restore stream side forests, protect local land and strengthen natural defenses across the region. Every volunteer, every tree, every voice for clean water, moves us closer to an A to a Potomac that's fishable and swimmable for everyone. Now, this great progress we've described has been made possible thanks to a number of national, regional and local groups. They come from the business, government and nonprofit sectors, and a few of them are here today to share their perspectives on what the latest Potomac River report card means. So we're going to call I'm going to call them up individually, and then we'll certainly have time for questions. And first is Mike nada Lily, who is the Executive Director of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin. Mike, Mike I

Speaker 2

03:45

thank you very much. It's real pleasure to be here, and I want to just explain who we are. Most people don't know, the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin is an interstate compact of the five jurisdictions in the watershed, and those five jurisdictions got together and petitioned Congress, and Congress approved the interstate compact among those states with the goal of eliminating pollution, and the second one was securing drinking water supplies for the nation's capital. So this map over here, that map there shows the boundaries of the Potomac River watershed in connection with the Chesapeake Bay watershed. And to give you an idea, the Potomac River watershed is about the size of Switzerland. It goes from Staunton in the south to Gettysburg in the north, Point Lookout in the east, and Fairfax stone in the West, and it provides about 25% of the fresh water that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Now Hedrick hit the nail on the head. Takes all of us, way I like to think of it, it takes the entire watershed to conserve this precious resource. So what are we up to? We're trying to make the water supply of the nation's capital more resilient to spills and droughts. This is the third year we've been in daily drought monitoring, and we are really worried that the dry West conditions are moving east, and so we are really worried that we will have droughts, more droughts in the future. And the flip side of that is that when we do get rain, we get it all at once, and it comes down in buckets and it runs off into the streams and the rivers. And so the idea is that these flash flooding events also cause a lot of damage. You may have remembered back in the sino canal culvert number 82 which was around for almost 200 years out near Brunswick, blown through by a flash flood event that happened in that neck of the woods. So it's really an important idea that we work to try to ameliorate droughts and also flash floods. We are also improving aquatic habitats because we want to have the natural filters of the river restored, and one of those natural filters with fresh water mussels. And fresh water mussels are it's difficult for them to get upstream because they're in two dams that are still on the Potomac dams, four and five near Shepherdstown. And so we're building eel ladders to get the eels upstream. And why is that important is because they actually transport the little baby mussels so they can get upstream grow and actually help filter the water. And I saw in your report that shad are making a real strong comeback. There were no shad in the river in the early 1990s they were overfished, but icprb led the fight to restore shad to the Potomac River, and now the shad are doing very well. The third thing I'd like to mention is our land prioritization project, because not all lands have the same value, and so we value lands that provide a good source of drinking water for the DC area. And so we have a we rank, actually, parcels in terms of their contributions to drinking water. And as you can imagine, forests are right up there on the list, because the large forested areas, about 50% of the watershed, really critical to preserve that resource and improve water quality. And we also are urging people to have 50 foot buffers, vegetative buffers between their lands and the river or stream, because those buffers catch the pollution before it gets into the rivers and streams. And finally, this statistic here is really critical that we estimate about 50% of the freshwater streams are considered healthy, and that means they're either excellent, good or fair. And this is based on what we call the Chesapeake Bayson white index of biotic integrity, or Chessy Bibby, as we call it. And it's really designed to assess the health of all of the streams. And that 50% number is we continue to do this. Every year. We have a report that's coming out at the end of the month that suggests that maybe we're a little bit above that 50% and that that would be good news indeed. So stay tuned for that one. So I just want to say just how pleased we are to be a partner with the entities here. We are really pleased that we were able to work hand in glove with so many great organizations, and look forward to any questions at the end. Thank you. Thank

Speaker 1

08:51

you again. I think it's important to note we employ, as do, a number of partners, sort of two broad strategies. The first is, obviously to protect, whether it's protective good water quality that Mike noted, whether healthy streams and rivers and then areas where we've seen degradation or they're not measuring up to being healthy streams, what can we be doing to restore stream buffers, restore clean water and reduce pollution. So another partner of ours that we work a lot with is guest services and boating in DC that provides tremendous resources to the community, and we're pleased to have their CEO here with us today. So Nico, I

Speaker 3

09:45

thank you, Henrik, it's great to be here with all of you today. Is Henry vention, I'm the CEO of guest services, and we operate what's called boating in DC. It's a family of businesses all along the Potomac River for. Where we provide recreation and access to this great waterway. Henrik touched on it. One statistic that we're very proud and excited about is the growth in recreation, which we've seen at 10% over the last three years, and we recognize as part of that that the river is such an economic engine of this region and has allowed us as an operator in a business, to be a responsible partner, to recreate in a community and also deliver the river to so many guests and visitors in the region. More specifically, our portfolio of businesses, we have three full service marinas, that's essentially 1500 plus slips. We have two Riverside restaurants, and we have 10 non motorized boat rental operations with kayaks, row boats, sailing and pedal boats. And with that, we take a lot of pride with employing over 100 seasonal staff. We have 20 full time staff that are really career employees within our company. So as we think about responsible recreation and really appealing to all generational demographics, we now have four collegiate and 17 high school room programs. We host four collegiate sailing programs, and we're very proud to continue our summer camps where we cater to over 1000 youth, children, boys, girls, etc, over at Washington sailing. So something we're very proud of, but at the end of the day, as already iterated before, the mission is to be a good steward of the river, and we take that to heart. It's paramount for the continued health and strength of the river. We continue with our river and park cleanup efforts we instituted at the beginning of this year the elimination of single use plastics at all the operations where we operate, and then further through our conservation partnerships with the Potomac Conservancy and others, will continue To add progress into the future. So in closing, we really think and we're very grateful for all the great work that tone conservancy does in this area. We look forward to the future and health of tone river. So thank you.

Speaker 1

12:38

And as Nico noted, we're very we have a Community Conservation Program at Potomac conservancy that's designed to introduce and deepen the connection people have to their local lands and waters and being able to get out on the river in a really easy way. You don't actually have to own the kayak, you don't have to have the paddle, you don't have to have the PFD. Lowers the barrier to people getting out and experiencing the nation's river. And so it's a key partnership, and we appreciate it. Another key partner here, when we look at is on sort of the infrastructure side. And pleased to have Dr one here, who is the vice president of the clean rivers project for DC water. So want to invite you to the podium to share a little bit about this project.

Speaker 4

13:38

Morning. So I'm sorry. So we got lost a little bit here, so we apologize for that. And having said that, I just say, you know, thank you for the Potomac Conservancy for bringing us together this morning. So we are here today not just to reflect on the state of the Potomac River, but to recommit ourselves to its future as a clean, resilient and equitable resources for all at DC water, we recognize the important role we play The 2025 Potomac River report tells a story of broadness, but also urgency. We recognize that. So the Potomac health has improved dramatically in the past decade, but we are not at the finish line yet. So we 100% agree with that. That's a challenge we must meet head on. So rising threat to water quality remain real. That's why water resilience is not optional. It's essential. The Potomac sewer shed is more than 14,600 square miles in the district, Maryland, Virginia. And Perth Sylvania, but the portion of the district is just point 5% so our portion is very small. So despite that, DC water is leading with action. So the clean rivers project is to reduce storm water and sewage from overflowing into our waterways. This program started way back in 2005 since then, we have cut the amount of storm water and sewage released into Anacostia River, a major tributary to the Potomac, by 98% so the new tunnel had already provided over 19 point 5 billion gallons of sewage that could have gone to the river were captured by the new tunnel that what we built out there, and also more than 12,000 tons of trash That was prevented to go to the Anacostia River, which is, as I said, is a tributary. So that's a real impact. So the Potomac River tunnel is the next leap forward for us. It's 5.5 mile, the largest environmental infrastructure project in the district. It will reduce the sewer overflows by 93% Some may ask why 98 there and 93 because 93% based on our modeling, is what is needed to meet the water quality standard for the District of Columbia, because the Anacostia River was more impaired than the Potomac. So in total, DC water is on target to reduce overflows of combined waste water by 96% by 2030 if I talk again, I gave you another statistic. I said 9398 I hope I'm not confusing you. 98 is for the Anacostia. 93 is for the Potomac, and 96 is system wide, is Potomac Rock Creek, because we have also project for Rock Creek and anacosia. System wide is 96% and at a cost of about $3.3 billion all of which benefit the Potomac. We don't just treat water when we are done. When we are done treating what water, it is as good as drinking water, and we return it to the Potomac. So the water is treated to set a quality that you can drink, but we put it back to the Potomac DC. Water is planning also for the future. We identify a second source of drinking water for the region is a top priority for us. I don't know whether all you guys know, but the District of Columbia has only one source of water. It's a Potomac. Should something happen to the Potomac, we don't have a second source. So that's why DC world also is thinking for the future, and we will be planning for that. So redundancy and resilience go hand in hand, and we are working to ensure more healthy fatal moment is an economic engine. So clean water support jobs contract and revitalize revitalized neighborhood, from the wharf to Georgetown, we are seeing how environmental investment drives opportunities. A fishable and swimmable river is our goal. But since the district is such a small portion of the sewer ship, we cannot do it alone. So we need those also who are contributing to to put, you know, polluting the river also do their part. This work takes partnership from our local and federal partners, regional stakeholders and our communities to address other pollution sources such as urban and agriculture runoff. Let's keep pushing DC water is doing its path. Our clean rivers program is the largest environmental infrastructure project in the district since the metro system was built, the Potomac River tunnel is one of the large major steps in transforming the river and making a comeback for future generations. We need to keep the momentum going and to make it truly swimmable, fishable and resilient, we must stay bold, stay united and stay committed. Thank you.

Speaker 1

19:39

DC water has done amazing things, and one thing that and we appreciate the leadership and actually model, not just around the country, but around the world, blue planes, which is just downstream, one of the most advanced utilities in the world. So they do an amazing job. I'll note also, this work has taken decades. Rights and but over those decades, we've seen lots of changes, lots of changes to the river, lots of changes to how people interact with the river, and actually how it's changed people. And our next speaker grew up in the DC metro area, and the river shaped a lot of him. We'll hear about him, but we're pleased to have Akhil Abdullah with us again, who is a US Olympic rower and local river champion.

Speaker 5

20:35

I'm going to start by making myself a part of the river here. Always like to remind myself of that so clean water that we can recreate on is provides access, and Access provides opportunity. And as the first African American male rower to represent the United States in the sport of rowing at the Olympics, clean water and access and opportunity are very important to me now I know full well of what this access means to our local citizens, and I'm going to tell you a story of probably one of the toughest moments of my athletic career, and that is when I lost the Olympic trials by 33 hundredths of a second. Now that was in Camden, New Jersey, but as I had finished that race after losing 33 hundredths of a second, my aunt told me of a little boy that had been walking by the river, and he said to his parents, Hey, Mom, what's that guy doing on the river? And his parents replied, rowing. Now today, I'm proud to say that that kid, well, I have no idea where that kid is, but the point of that story is that there's a little kid that saw a black man rowing, and it sparked his imagination, without the opportunity and without the access that I had to participate in the sport of the Potomac River, I may not be standing here. I probably wouldn't be standing here with you as an Olympian. So access since 2023 has increased by 29 public access points, which is 320 which meets the goal 325 access points on the Potomac River. Now my wife is a swimmer, so I'm reminded that we need to keep pushing on. We need to keep making progress, because we want the river to be swimmable as well, and with the great work going on with partners like the Potomac conservancy Guest Services and the icprb. There we go. I know that we'll get there. I had the opportunity to talk to to someone about what is being done by DC water in particular, it's called green infrastructure. And what that does is that creates these local wells, basically where runoff can be sort of held, which prevents it from getting into our water, which makes it swimmable, which makes it accessible. Such a small thing has had a profound effect on us getting a B but we have a long way to go, but I know we'll get there, and I'm excited to see the future of this river, and I'm excited to see what access to this River brings and what Olympians it will create.

Speaker 1

24:06

Thank you. We'll take questions in a second, but obviously based on people describing just how large it is, the watershed, how many states, how many square miles, how many issues it faces, it takes lots of partners staying in their lanes, but also sharing with each other and communicating and collaborating to drive forward the progress. Not one entity can do it alone. And so, you know, we believe, at Potomac Conservancy, actually, that this is the decisive decade coming up. We need to redouble efforts to accelerate the progress that's already happened that I mentioned earlier, so that this B ultimately becomes an A and but more importantly, a river that you can splash around in 365 days a year, and a river where the fish that you catch you can eat and again, but it takes people, and it takes kind. Community, and we are very fortunate to have lots of great community leaders, including, I think a Kelley is your auntie here. Yeah, who it's, you know, family members as well. So it's great. So questions, if we've got some from the media, can pass them to anybody

Speaker 6

25:21

just over dollars by the end of

Speaker 1

25:28

this calendar year. Yeah, we want to. We're we've got this clean water Healthy Communities campaign, and it's underway, and we're closing it on the finish line, but we want to raise at least $8 million before the end of the year to accelerate some of these programs you describe in terms of protecting land, restoring more trees, and activating Community Voices. How likely is

Speaker 6

25:51

that, given we hear all the stories about people concerned about the economy, where things are locally, people do love the Potomac, that's clear. And there are other efforts to affect the entire day. What kind of reaction are you getting from people?

Speaker 1

26:11

Overall, very positive. And I think at the end of the day, at philanthropy writ large, people usually give very close to where they live. And so our opportunity as a collective movement for clean water, again, is the ability to connect people to a place, and whether it's getting out with guest services, whether it's participating in a rowing program or connecting them, and then they'll care, and once you care, you'll take action. So you know, we hope in January to be able to celebrate a big success, but it's why we're asking folks in the DC metro area, where the river is important to them, The lands are important, to join in and real

Speaker 6

26:51

quick follow up in terms of doing things like improving the buffer zone with More planting. Are you getting cooperation from corporations and developers? On doing that?

Speaker 1

27:04

Yeah, no, we work with all sorts of partners, depending on the particulars. It's often going on private land. In some cases it's going on publicly owned land. So for example, earlier this year and over the last 12 months, near Harper's Ferry and Shepherdstown. In partnership with several different groups, we planted 20 acres of trees that will be critical government funding and corporations also, again, the Potomac, like the Metro that was referenced earlier, the Potomac is a regional resource that we all have a role, whether you're on the Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, or DC side of the river. So encouraging people to go to potomac.org if they want to find out how they can get involved. Yes. Patrick, Alexandria,

Speaker 7

27:51

Virginia, a couple of quick questions. Number one, you and I met last year when you at the Kennedy Center, you launched a massive kickoff fundraising campaign. Now it's a year and a month later, when you and I sat down to talk, you talked about that we could reach a point of no return. Obviously, with a grade of B, you're not there, but it's the same grade. Is there still that danger that if things don't accelerate, really could reach that point of no return?

Speaker 1

28:26

Yeah, we could lose ground. I mean, certainly. And one of the challenges, one of the newer factors, compared to several decades ago, are the impacts from climate change we're seeing, and this was referenced earlier, more intense storms, delivering much greater volume of rainfall and also causing issues around temperature. So what can the water what's the water temperature and what fish can IT support? So, yeah, achieving a healthy river is in no way a guarantee. You know, we've made, again, great progress, but we also didn't get into a degraded river overnight, and we're not going to solve it overnight either, but that's why we want we need to redouble the effort. That's why this is a decisive decade. We believe we know what we need to do. We believe we can build the political will with the local and state governments and as well as the private sector, to and again, people are every day seeing the benefits and including here at the wharf and looking out on the Potomac about how the river is different thanks to the actions of local residents over decades. And a follow

Speaker 7

29:39

up question, I'm Alexandria. I'm delighted to be here. I love the excuse to come into DC to cover a story. This is very DC centric, but the river in Alexandria is very central to the city, no old town. People from the entire region, the East Coast, the world, come to Alexandria. But people look at that river just to look at it. We. Don't think about it in terms of fishing and swimming. It's restaurants on the waterfront being able to look out at the river. Do you think Alexandria is really keyed into the fact that it's also supplies of drinking water and that you want it to be more recreational?

Speaker 1

30:16

Yeah, I think similar to what DC water has done on this side of the river. The water utility balance renew has just completed, although it's not online yet. A similar project, smaller in scope, but a very similar project to capture polluted runoff before it goes into the creeks and streams. And I think the revitalization of that waterfront area that you referenced is going to bring more people down. We certainly bring a lot more folks down. And we've done events down along the river at restaurants and parks down there. And again, that's what it's going to take for people to appreciate you've got to first get introduced. And over my career, you know, fortunate to be able to take people out on trails, walking along the river, getting out and paddling, but in many cases, it's the first time they've been on that trail, or the first time they've gone into the Potomac to paddle at that particular access point. So you know, we've got great partners. Also, if you think about there's the water taxis and the Odyssey that bring people out. And so I do think it is connecting people and then letting them experience it in their own way. Not everyone has to swim in the Potomac, not everyone has to fish, but it's emblematic of a very healthy river. And again, we're pretty big east coast River, and so we want to try to be the first on the east coast to be able to say that we've achieved a fishable sonolule River.

Speaker 8

31:45

Yeah, as a resident, okay, born and raised in the Washington, DC area, and I said we used to live on the river here for a while, I really am appreciative

Speaker 8

31:58

of what you guys have done to improve the health quality of the river. The other thing that I wanted to do is I also, before I leave out here, I will try to see if I can get some information so I can help out doing that type of thing, to help out the rest of the community, to be able to understand it. Because, like he was saying that young child when I was in Baltimore, we had to even go on some of these trips, you know, from our classes and things like that. And some of the children that we would bring would not even know that they were, you know, you know, wildlife, eagles, other fishery, birds and things like that. So I'm hoping that I can help out, you know, to be able to inform the rest of the city about this, and again, seeing some of these boats down here, I'm hoping that these people understand how important the river is us to to the rest of the community. And

Unknown Speaker

32:50

that's pretty

Speaker 1

32:51

much it. Appreciate that. And it's those stories that I think are really, I find really inspiring. I mean, I get people share all the time about how they interact, how it shaped them, what they've learned, both positive and negative. And you know, we always we have unfinished business. There's unfinished business. And to make this community, to make this region truly outstanding, we need a healthy, healthy river. And but it doesn't happen on its own takes people and it takes it's a relay race. It's passing it on, as you sort of reference, to the next generation, and inviting them to join in the relay race, and that they'll be able to, because we're benefiting from what actions people took in the 1950s and 60s in terms of protecting the CNO canal. Thank goodness there were some smart people that did that in 2050 I hope people are saying, Thank goodness there was a group of people that also made the river fishable and swimmable. Don't know who they are, necessarily, but thank goodness they did it. And we're benefiting from actions taken in 2025 in 2050 so but appreciate the comment and the observations, and it's powerful, all right, so I think that ends the formal part of the press conference. Certainly there's materials if you want to, if you want to go deeper on any of the indicators and learn more. You can go to the website, certainly that has the report card, and you know people are going to be available if press want to do follow up questions with folks as well. And I think we've got a lot of food. I don't want to have to carry that out, so feel free to take some of it. Thank you very much. Everybody appreciate your comment.

Speaker 9

35:00

Like to make themselves available. Anybody last time I

Speaker 9

35:17

was like wanting to grab a glass and talk about, like, preservation. Do you want the question and answer portion

Unknown Speaker

35:37

is on YouTube.

Speaker 10

35:45

So Julia's not here because she lives in Chicago, but she's been working the president of working today.

Speaker 8

35:54

We kept pinging them and following up and sending out the Metro editor and said all the molders and

Speaker 8

36:08

out there that's actually the best. So how quickly can we get that? Usually, if we could do that today, just because it's large files, did you say

Speaker 10

36:22

you do? Well, we've got the transcript running on but we'd love to send out a link to the YouTube All right,

Speaker 10

36:38

that'll give us another answer. So we'll we'll probably hit him with the transcript right

Speaker 9

36:49

away, and then we're going to follow up tomorrow. Also, in case you missed papers, I don't think that

Speaker 9

37:02

you in the center for your five shots drive or whatever. Yeah, we have, but thank you, right, so

Unknown Speaker

37:19

let's just drop it on that side.

Speaker 9

37:23

And then in terms of, like, one on one interviews now.

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