Three months after more than 240 million gallons of raw human sewage spilled into the Potomac River, businesses and clubs that depend on the waterway for making money — and for having fun — are hurting.
Marina operators, charter fishing captains, and kayak and water-sport trainers said they have lost thousands of dollars in revenue due to the stigma caused by the largest environmental spill in modern times, with customers and members continuing to believe the river is unsafe despite testing that has deemed many areas safe.
“We have had some people leave the marina or not put their boats in, and some people are contemplating whether to put their boats in,” said Tom Kyle, service manager at the Washington Marina in Southwest Washington, which has about 125 boat slips. “People are still asking the question, ‘Is it safe?’
“I tell them based on what I’m hearing and seeing, it’s gone,” he said of the sewage.
Several agencies and environmental groups in the D.C. region have been testing and monitoring the water quality of the Potomac since the mid-January collapse of part of a 54-mile-long pipeline, called the Potomac Interceptor. The pipeline carries 60 million gallons of wastewater daily from Maryland and Virginia to a treatment plant in Washington.
The catastrophic sewage spill caused by a rupture in the pipeline came after years of delay on repairs to the interceptor pipeline, a Washington Post investigation found.
It took several days for crews to fully stop the sewage spill. Emergency repair of the pipeline and the environmental cleanup is still underway.
Most of the advisories against recreating on the affected portions of the river have been lifted after the water was tested for E. coli and other toxins and found to be safe, though some portions in Montgomery County remain off-limits. Drinking water in the area was not affected.
Still, perceptions about the water’s safety differ from the reality, say those who make their living off the river, which has hampered their businesses from making a full recovery.
Capt. Tim Blanchard, who owns a charter fishing business called Fish the Potomac, said he submitted a roughly $130,000 claim to D.C. Water, reflecting the loss in revenue after customers canceled and he had to temporarily shut down due to the spill. Blanchard said he hopes the spring and summer seasons will pick up with business. But, he said, he had to take out a small-business loan “simply to maintain our operations” and move forward with a previously planned expansion of his business, which will include a new bait-and-tackle shop along the Southwest Waterfront.
Blanchard said the sewage spill and the subsequent advisories for the public to stay off the river happened in the middle of his winter club fishing season.
“We were in full swing, and then the advisory was issued, and we had to cancel everything and do refunds,” Blanchard said. He said he had to give back about $12,000 to customers. Blanchard had also bought a new 23-foot-long boat to take anglers out to fish for shad when they swim up the Potomac — what he calls a “fisherman’s paradise.” But he got very few bookings, and the boat, named King Louie, remained docked.
“It’s totally unheard of to not have bookings for the shad run,” Blanchard said in interview at the Yards Marina. “We had three vessels tied up to the dock, just sucking money out of my pocket.”
Eli Geisenberger, operator of Potomac Paddlesports — which offers kayaking and stand-up paddleboard lessons — said his business lost at least $30,000 in revenue over the last few months.
“It’s impacted across the board,” Geisenberger said one recent afternoon as he came back from kayaking along the river. “Everything’s down slightly.”
For Geisenberger, winter is a time to presale for outings in the spring and summer, but that didn’t happen this season. “When people think the river is a sewer, they’re afraid to sign up,” he said.
Some who use the river have made adjustments of where they get in the river — avoiding some points near Lock 10 of the C&O Canal, near where the interceptor pipe broke.
Geisenberger, too, still has some unease about the safety of the water and is diverting some of his routes. He canceled his popular kayak tours showcasing the monuments of D.C. and relocated some of his training clinics off the Potomac to tributaries in surrounding states, including the Susquehanna, Cheat and Youghiogheny rivers.
“I don’t want people to capsize or splash around the water in areas where there’s slower-moving — or nonmoving — water in the Potomac,” he said. “I don’t want to be the reasons someone who’s immunocompromised — or not — gets sick after being in the Potomac.”
D.C. Water said it has received three claims from businesses for financial loss they said they suffered as a result of the sewage spill. The requests “remain under review,” agency spokesman John Lisle said. The utility said it has increased its own daily water quality sampling on the river, which shows “bacteria levels have returned to normal range for recreation.”
Lisle said in an email that D.C. Water is “supporting local businesses by working with government partners and organizations to monitor water quality in the river and post data to allay concerns about any potential residual impacts from the spill on the Potomac, and to restore public confidence that the river is again safe for recreational use.”
The Justice Department and Maryland sued D.C. Water in April over the Potomac sewage leak, alleging years of neglect on the pipeline before it collapsed Jan. 19 and seeking civil penalties. That comes on the heels of a class-action lawsuit filed in March against the water utility by a group of land and boat owners who allege harm was done to their businesses and property from the disaster.
Jim Ross, president of the Washington Canoe Club — which has about 250 members — said he’s gradually seen people come back out on the river to recreate, though a drought is keeping water levels low, which hasn’t allowed for a large-enough flush to come through to wash the sewage remnants downstream.
“Spring rains would have washed away a lot, but we haven’t had that, so all that stuff is just going to be sitting there, and it affects the creatures that live under rocks and in the river,” he said.
Last month, a report from several conservation and environmental groups listed the Potomac as the country’s most endangered river because of the impacts of the recent sewage spill and data centers in the region.
“We are grateful there was a ton of action, and it was a big project to get it all contained,” said Tyler Westfall, a coach and athlete with Potomac Whitewater Racing Center, which has about 100 members and regularly uses the river. “The reaction was good, but at the same time there was some mistake made because it happened, and it was the largest spill in environmental history — so we need to think about how we make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
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