It's been nearly four months since the Interceptor Potomac pipeline spill that poured millions of gallons of sewage into the river but the effects are expected to last beyond the immediate end to many of the health advisories. In our weekly series with the Bay Journal Delmarva Public Media's Don Rush talks with reporter Jeremy Cox about the impact of the incident. The full interview can be heard on this Friday's Delmarva Today at noon on WSDL and WESM.
RUSH: It's been almost four months since the Interceptor pipeline burst, allowing a massive amount of sewage to flow into the Potomac River. This is Don Rush. It's still having a lasting impact on the image of the nationally known river near the nation's capital. One estimate found that it poured some 300 million gallons of raw sewage into the river, and while some advisories have been lifted, may have a much longer impact. In our weekly series of a Bay Journal, we talk with reporter Jeremy Cox about the implications of the spill.
COX: The sewage has a pretty long life and extended life in terms of the nutrients that it discharged into the river. Nutrients that can cause algae blooms once the weather warms up and impacts from the bacteria, namely E. coli... [you've] probably heard of that, it comes from the guts of animals, mammals in particular, and obviously you come into contact with that or ingest it or you have open cuts and that sort of thing, and you can become sick, get infections from that. These pathogens can fly in the sediment for a while and be stirred up by a storm later on and come back to bite you, as it were months, weeks after the fact.
RUSH: Now, I understand that the river, I guess, has been declared safe, but perhaps portions are not. What are we looking at there?
COX: From a public health perspective, all of the health advisories that were placed on the river, miles of the river downstream, those have been lifted. The only area that's currently under advisory is the immediate area right there in Montgomery County where the spill occurred, so around, if you want to be local about it, it's around Lock 10 of the C&O canal. There's active remediation restoration going on there right now by contractors, the Army Corps and with DC Water, which owns the pipe right there. So otherwise, yeah, it's not enough right now to say, okay, we need a health advisory for broad parts of the river, but monitoring is continuing at least for the next few months and perhaps even longer, and those come back high again. You can expect to see health advisories in the future.
RUSH: As I understand it, in terms of public perception, a lot of people may believe that this is sort of all over. Certainly as the summer season gets underway, is it just simply that people perhaps forget how bad it was and may indeed for that matter, contaminate themselves?
COX: Oh yeah, certainly. I mean, a lot of people do recreate on the river. In fact, this area where it happened is a park in the entire length actually, of the C&O Canal... it's a national park. These are places people depend on, and I'm sure in a lot of people's minds they'll think twice. And to be honest, there's no advisories right now, again, except for that immediate area. So there's nothing really to stop you. Of course, in DC proper, there is a prohibition long before this, and unfortunately [it is] probably going to continue for long after against swimming in the Potomac River and the Anacostia. But in other places you could swim and so experts are saying think twice, maybe don't swim right after a good heavy rainfall, wait 72 hours or so and pay attention to the monitoring that's going on. You can go to DC Water's website and look up the latest results and make sure that the water is safe.
RUSH: Bay Journal reporter Jeremy Cox on lasting impact of the sewage spill into the Potomac River. The full interview can be heard on this Friday's Delmarva Today at noon on WSDL and WESM. This is Don Rush for Delmarva Public Media.
