Potomac Riverkeeper Video

[Carl Z.]

I ran across this video 

https://vimeo.com/193480740?ref=fb-share&1

Which makes the situation in the upper Potomac look dire.  

I'm wondering if some of the people who float the river up there could let us know if the river that unhealthy up there?   While I am all in favor of getting the river cleaned up is the effect of this discharge really noticeable more than a couple hundred yards downstream?

Carl

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Carl Zmola

[Connor Donovan]

Thanks for posting that video, Carl.  Hadn't seen that one yet but without a doubt fully support the initiatives brought up in the that video.  

For several miles below the discharge, pretty much all rocks not directly in the current have that milky silty covering, especially the long pools and tail-outs.  It takes one long swooping bend run before it mixes completely but from there down the river is stained a reddish brown.  Once mixed, there's some clarity to it but not a whole lot.  Maybe they were atypically high-discharge days but the few times I've floated down to black oak, probably a half dozen miles below the effluent pipes, the river and it's bottom were still noticeably colored and choked out.

This is just tip of the iceberg for that area.  Georges Creek is another highly impacted stream which dumps into the North Branch in Westernport, a half mile above the waste water discharge. Depending on the flow, it mixes with the river at about the same point as the effluent.  In low water, it's a bizarre greenish yellow and all the rocks in it's path are stained. But moving upriver there's another one or two streams with mine runoff that dump in above Bloomington with limestone buffers at the creek mouths.  And there are apparently several above Randolph Jennings that are impacted as well.  Here's a link about George's.  It's an older article but still informative.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2006/11/03/a-mines-still-toxic-legacy-span-classbankheadsurge-in-polluted-water-sets-back-creek-cleanup-in-maryland-coal-countryspan/a6b88a10-f904-432a-a91a-2479711f8da7/?utm_term=.1a88eda7fc00

But back to the plant, and here's the kicker - the same paper company has an even bigger plant on the Jackson in Covington. Looking at that river above and below that Covington plant, you'd never think they were the same river.  Below the plant, it's the same color and choked out bottom as the North Branch, for miles.

All things considered though, I'd say the North Branch is healthier than I would expect given the impacts from mountain top removal and abandoned subterranean mining, acid runoff, and the paper plant but still has a long way to go.

[Andrew Sarcinello]

I can't watch the video at this moment but I have been fishing the upper potomac a bit this fall between Little Orleans and Hancock.  Maybe I just had bad fishing conditions, but I didn't find a whole lot of smallmouths, and I didn't notice much food for them either.  If you go to a river like the Monocacy you notice crayfish, darters, and minnows everywhere.  I just don't see much of that on the upper potomac.  A friend and I floated for muskies and the water was clear enough to see 8-9 ft down in the deep areas. There just weren't that many fish for what I would have expected given the physical habitat available.  Just upriver from Hancock there was a rapid increase in the numbers of fish though (suckers, catfish, and bass).

I don't know that this is a result of pollution, but several times now I have left the upper river thinking that something seems off.

On Monday, November 6, 2017 at 6:27:48 PM UTC-5, Carl wrote: