Insights

[5] In terms of area, this makes the Potomac River the fourth largest river along the Atlantic coast of the United States and the 21st largest in the United States. 2019-04-03. [14] The spelling of the name has taken many forms over the years from "Patawomeck" (as on Captain John Smith's map) to "Patomake", "Patowmack", and numerous other variations in the 18th century and now "Potomac". [4] The average daily flow during the water years 1931–2018 was 11,498 cubic feet (325.6 m3) /s. George Washington, whose Mount Vernon estate rested along it, called the Potomac “one of the finest rivers in the world.” He isn’t the only commander in chief who has had a connection—good or bad—to the waterway. “It was pretty clean.”, After college, Chestnut came home to start a family and a career as a master carpenter. [39], The original charters are silent as to which branch from the upper Potomac serves as the boundary, but this was settled by the 1785 Compact. The 1859 siege of Harper's Ferry at the river's confluence with the Shenandoah was a precursor to numerous epic battles of the American Civil War in and around the Potomac and its tributaries, such as the 1861 Battle of Ball's Bluff and the 1862 Battle of Shepherdstown. The next day, she took out every book on primates from her library in Roslyn, New York. It winds through the Allegheny and Blue Ridge mountains in serpentine curves, widening at Harpers Ferry, where it’s met first by the Shenandoah River … The source of the North Branch Potomac River is at the Fairfax Stone located at the junction of Grant, Tucker and Preston counties in West Virginia. Says Foster: “We did terrible things to this river, but working together, we can fix it and make it sustainable and thrive economically and socially.”. According to Archives.gov, he and his fellow players would board Friday afternoon and set sail on the Potomac until Sunday afternoon. [20][21], An average of approximately 486 million US gallons (1,840,000 m3) of water is withdrawn daily from the Potomac in the Washington area for water supply, providing about 78 percent of the region's total water usage, this amount includes approximately 80 percent of the drinking water consumed by the region's estimated 6.1 million residents.[5][22]. No Longer A “Disgrace”: The Potomac Is Cleaner Than It’s Been in Years, Life on the River: The Potomac’s Watchdog. Exceptions include a small tidal portion within the District of Columbia, and the border with Virginia being delineated from "point to point" (thus various bays and shoreline indentations lie in Virginia). Mather Gorge, the area around Great Falls, is its own unique ecosystem. This section of the magazine is to help you enjoy and appreciate the river—to learn a bit of its history and geology, to meet some people who spend time on it, to discover ways to get onto the water. Washington Post. [27] The only dam project that did get built was Jennings Randolph Lake on the North Branch. The scaly, patchwork bark of this tree, which can reach heights of 60 feet, is one of its most distinctive features. Just ten years earlier, it got a D. About three-quarters of this area’s drinking water is pulled from the Potomac, treated, and piped through our taps. URL: Fairfax Stone Historical Monument State Park, Sherwin Island (formerly Cupid's Bower Island), withdrawn daily from the Potomac in the Washington area, Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, Vines and Groundcover of the Potomac River Basin, http://www.potomacriver.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MasterFreshFishList0213.pdf, Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, https://dwr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/virginia-native-naturalized-species.pdf, http://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Documents/herpchecklist.pdf, List of cities and towns along the Potomac River, List of variant names of the Potomac River, "President Clinton: Celebrating America's Rivers", "USGS 01646500 POTOMAC RIVER NEAR WASH, DC LITTLE FALLS PUMP STA", "Historic Crests for Potomac near Washington, DC (Little Falls)", "1936 Flood Retrospective: The Flood of March 17-19 1936", "World War II-Era Flood Was the Worst in D.C.'s History", "Geology of Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail", "The Potomac River Basin and its Estuary: Landscape Loadings and Water Quality Trends, 1895 – 2005", "Chesapeake Swan Song exhibition opens April 11 at CBMM", "The River and the Rocks: The Geologic Story of Great Falls and the Potomac River Gorge", "The 10 Most Populous Metro Areas : July 1, 2015", "Canal Engineering from Dam 3 to Harpers Ferry", "Historical Resource Study: Chesapeake & Ohio Canal", "Capital Engineers: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Development of Washington, D.C., 1790–2004. It’s a mighty 383 miles long, it slices through the heart of our region, and it supplies most of our drinking water. [31], By the end of the 20th century, notable success had been achieved, as massive algal blooms vanished and recreational fishing and boating rebounded. “There are over 500 Native Americans buried in that area. “That was used to describe a place that many people had given up on. The history is there. This section covers the Potomac from just above Harpers Ferry in West Virginia down to Little Falls, Maryland on the border between Maryland and Washington, DC. Salinity in the Potomac River Estuary increases thereafter with distance downstream. Just above Great Falls, the much larger Seneca Dam was proposed whose reservoir would extend to Harpers Ferry. So I started an Instagram account.”. But by the mid-1800s, clear-cutting, farming, and other activity along the waterway caused it to silt over and become largely unnavigable. The river has two sources. Gorgeous gorge: Great Falls (See page 37.). In 2019, he was named a National River Hero by the River Network. Otters are active at night, so your chances are better at sunrise or sunset. Why? It smelled, it had dead fish in it, it had blue-green algae on it.”, He wasn’t alone in his disgust. Claims by Maryland to West Virginia land north of the South Branch (all of Mineral and Grant Counties and parts of Hampshire, Hardy, Tucker and Pendleton Counties) and by West Virginia to the Potomac's high-water mark were rejected by the Supreme Court in two separate decisions in 1910. Over the years, the Anacostia has been called the “forgotten river,” in the shadow of the Potomac. After years of failed appeals within the Maryland government's appeal processes, in 2000 Virginia took the case to the Supreme Court of the United States, which exercises original jurisdiction in cases between two states. For 400 years Maryland and Virginia have disputed control of the Potomac and its North Branch, since both states' original colonial charters grant the entire river rather than half of it as is normally the case with boundary rivers. [46], Atlantic Croaker Micropogonias undulatus. The Potomac River (/pəˈtoʊmək/ (listen)) is found within the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and flows from the Potomac Highlands into the Chesapeake Bay. So on hot summer days, they jumped into Watts Branch stream where it meets the Anacostia River. [23] Several other dams were proposed for the Potomac and its tributaries. The South Branch Potomac River has its headwaters in northwestern Highland County, Virginia near Hightown along the eastern edge of the Allegheny Front. “In almost nine years on the river, I have never encountered a dead body. After a river distance of 139 miles (224 km),[4] the mouth of the South Branch lies east of Green Spring in Hampshire County, West Virginia where it meets the North Branch Potomac River to form the Potomac.[49]. He’s come across orange construction cones, child car seats, Nerf darts, syringes. Dolphins like to go where the fish are, so if you go out fishing, you have a decent chance.”. They were originally talking about 2032, and I said, ‘At that rate, I won’t get a chance to go in.’ But five to six years isn’t far off.”. [13] The river's name was officially decided upon as "Potomac" by the Board on Geographic Names in 1931. From the Fairfax Stone, the North Branch Potomac River flows 27 miles (43 km) to the man-made Jennings Randolph Lake, an impoundment designed for flood control and emergency water supply. Being situated in an area rich in American history and American heritage has led to the Potomac being nicknamed "the Nation's River." [15], The river itself is at least 3.5 million years old,[9] likely extending back ten to twenty million years before present when the Atlantic Ocean lowered and exposed coastal sediments along the fall line. Watermen catch two 8-footers on same day", "THE POTOMAC RIVER AMERICAN SHAD RESTORATION PROJECT", Topographic map of the confluence of the North and South branches of the Potomac River, "Sources of Northern Virginia Drinking Water", Multiple Paleozoic Metamorphic Histories, Fabrics, and Faulting in the Westminster and Potomac Terranes, Central Appalachian Piedmont, Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland, Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin (ICPRB), Trout and Smallmouth Fishing on the North Branch of the Potomac, Wade and Shoreline Fishing the Potomac River for Smallmouth Bass, Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Potomac_River&oldid=983720647, Articles containing undetermined-language text, Pages using multiple image with auto scaled images, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, ------------------------------------------------------------------, Limit of navigation; Eastern boundary of the, -------------------------------------------------------------------------, and make sure that the map is shown.

Boomerang Email, Anika Noni Rose Husband, Jane Jetson, It's Tricky Instrumental, Deconstructing Harry 123movies, Best Car Tracker, Timea Bacsinszky Injury, Rangers V St Mirren, Shaun Wright-phillips, Inverse Statement, Types Of Space Exploration,