The Potomac River Is America’s Most Endangered River. Here’s What We Can Do About It.

This year, American Rivers named the Potomac River the most endangered river in America. The designation came in April, following a January sewer collapse that released 240 million gallons of untreated sewage into the Potomac. American Rivers cited the spill, aging infrastructure, and a lack of watershed-level planning around data center expansion as some of the biggest threats to the river’s health. These threats add strain to a river already affected by climate change and runoff from heavily developed areas throughout our region. You can read the full report here.

The sewage spill brought water quality to the forefront of our minds, but these challenges to the Potomac are not new. For NVCT, the endangered river designation is more than a warning about what’s to come for our beloved Potomac; it’s a news flash we’ve been expecting for a long time. The Potomac’s water-quality problems stretch back decades. In 1957, the Public Health Service closed the river to swimming because of pollution from runoff. It hasn’t opened up for safe swimming since, and the ways in which the region has changed over the years continue to shape the health of the river. Over our decades of work in Northern Virginia, we have watched this landscape evolve as development has grown, climate change has intensified, and pollution has continued to enter our waterways. This summer provided plenty of examples of heavy rainfall across the DMV due to enhanced climate change conditions. During these intense storms, sudden runoff often overwhelms our outdated stormwater management systems and sends pollutants directly into our waterways.

American Rivers also identified the rapid expansion of data centers as a growing threat, particularly because individual projects are not always evaluated as part of a larger watershed. As American Rivers noted, “projects are often reviewed individually, rather than as part of a watershed-wide analysis,” which can mask their combined impacts on stormwater runoff, groundwater withdrawals, hazardous materials, and flood risk.

The Potomac's endangered-river designation shows the river's problems go beyond water quality alone. These pressures are interconnected. What happens on the land surrounding the Potomac ultimately impacts the river itself. That connection is central to our work at the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. Much of the nature we already safeguard lies along the river’s banks or in its watershed basin, but there’s much more to conserve. As part of our recent 5-year strategic plan, we used advanced mapping technology to identify land with the most potential conservation impact if protected. The identification criteria are based on qualities that uphold our mission to protect land in Northern Virginia for habitat, recreation, and healthy communities. Some lands border an existing park, meaning their protection would expand a publicly accessible natural  space. Others have perennial streams, old-growth forests, historical buildings, or even potential to be a new park or trail! By protecting land that both advances our conservation mission and contributes to watershed health, we can multiply the impact of every land parcel we protect.

Our Potomac partnerships are another way we are expanding this work. We aren’t water quality experts , but we work closely with other organizations who are. Together with current and soon-to-be Potomac partners, we can work to expand access to the river, organize stewardship events, and come together for river-related advocacy efforts. Partners touch almost every aspect of our work, from providing nature-based programming to helping us protect and manage protected lands.

Conserving the Potomac also requires advocacy. Decisions about development, data center siting and expansion, and funding for ecological restoration are just a few of the issues that will shape the future of Northern Virginia’s land and water. Our members, partners, and internal leadership have long wanted NVCT to be more involved in Northern Virginia’s environmental policy discussions. This summer, an internal Policy Committee was created and has already begun identifying where NVCT’s voice and expertise are needed.

You don’t have to own landvital to river health, or any land at all, to be a part of this mission. The Potomac River is shared by us all, and we must all do our part to protect it. Our stewardship events on NVCT’s nature preserves, at which we remove invasive plants, plant native species, and pick up trash, are free to attend and a great way to get started. This past weekend, we held a kayak trash cleanup  on Hunting Creek, launching from the waterfront in Alexandria. We welcomed a group of new volunteers, one of whom asked, “how else can I help improve the river’s health?”

It’s a question worth asking, and we are excited to answer. Our personal actions, voices, and ideas are just as valuable to river protection as boots-on-the-ground work. Much of what we put on the land or send down our drains can ultimately affect the Potomac and its watershed. Simple ways to reduce pollutants entering our waterways include picking up after your pet, limiting lawn chemical use, not using road salts in the winter, and being mindful of what you pour down the drain.

As we see crumbling infrastructure and a rapidly changing landscape, there has never been a more urgent time to act now and collectively do what we can to save our region’s lifeblood. For NVCT, that means thinking about land conservation, partnerships, policy, and individual action as interconnected parts of a broad protection strategy. For all of us, it means recognizing that the health of the Potomac is connected to the health of the place we call home. The Potomac belongs to all of us. So does its future.