Sewage and Fuel Leaks Contaminate the Potomac River, Source of Drinking Water for More Than 5 Million People
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- But even before that spill, another crisis had already begun to unfold elsewhere in the watershed.
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May 24, 2026 Share This Article Republish Pipes divert raw sewage into the C&O Canal around a broken section of the Potomac Interceptor on Feb. 16 in Cabin John, Md. Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Related Congress Grills Officials About the Potomac River Sewage Spill Nearly One-Fifth of Americans Are Consuming Water With High Levels of Nitrates Flooding Caused by Atmospheric River Over Maryland Shows How Climate Change Is Stressing Inland Communities Share This Article Republish Most Popular Wildfire Crews Race to Keep Fierce California Blaze From Former Nuclear Reactor Site Top Climate Scientists Accuse the Livestock Industry of Pushing Fuzzy Math to Downplay Its Climate Warming Emissions EPA Claims ‘Overwhelming Rejection’ of EVs as It Moves to Loosen Air Pollution Rules The warning signs were years in the making. And yet, regulators failed to heed the writing on the wall, according to Dean Naujoks.
An investigator with the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, Naujoks spent three years documenting what he calls a systemic failure that culminated in dual environmental catastrophes now threatening the health of the entire Potomac River system, which is already stressed.
In January, a 60-year-old sewer pipe known as the Potomac Interceptor, running along the Maryland shoreline of the Potomac, collapsed near the Clara Barton Parkway corridor in Montgomery County, releasing an estimated 243 million gallons of raw sewage into the river over approximately three weeks.