Direct Testimony of Thomas M. Hildebrand - Consumer Advocate ...

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Komr US. Business Worid Entertainment Sports Tech Politics Elections Scieiire Health Most Popular
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Group gives Potomac River a D-plus
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SCIENCE VIDEO
Over the Moon
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- The fast-paced development of the Washington region and increased
are now the biggest threats to the long-struggling Potomac River, according to
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Animal Shelter Silver Sprmg, Md., river a
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grade of 0-plus in its first "State of the Nation's River" report
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Beginning in the 1960% the river made a remarkable comeback from years of contamination
by raw sewage and industrial pollutants. But more paved surfaces, rooftops and the loss of
forests in the Potomac watershed are now straining the health of the waterway, which
supplies nearly 90 percent of the Washington region's drinking water.
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point the cause of one of the clearest signs that something is '.,
sex" fish, which have both male and female attributes. Possible
mica1 pesticides, animal hormones in manure or human hormones in //
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Previously, studies had found that male bass in Dist~~ct.of.Co!umbia waters were growing
eggs. Recently, females Caught near the Blue Plains sewage treatment plant in southwest
D.C. have been found with what seem to be abnormally low levels of estrogen, researcher
Vicki Blazer of the UtS..Geolo.~!gjca!.Su.~e~ said. . . .. . I
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( - z n z x intersex fish, as well as high lev of sediment, nitroiii'
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"We've plateaued," said Hedrick Belin, president of the conservancy. "The improvements that
we've made, the progress, has stalled out."
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson called the Potomac a "national disgrace." At the time, it
had been fouled by centuries of contamination by raw sewage and industrial pollutants.
Major improvements at wastewater treatment plants since then helped the Potomac become
clean enough to support numerous bald eagles and a stock of smallmouth and largemouth
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otornac, where it feeds algae
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Closer to Washington, forests have bee
rainwater carries pollutants into streams without being filtered by soil and plant roots.
"More people means more rooftops and more roads," Belin said. And that, he said, "leads to
greater contaminated runoff, coming off those hard surfaces."