River restrictions lifted but pet safety alerts announced, retirement of a Potomac advocate, river flow is looking up, and more in this week’s Potomac News Reservoir.

Five Years of Implementing the Comprehensive Plan

Our Potomac River Basin Comprehensive Water Resources Plan describes a shared vision for the basin, identifies water resources issues of interstate and/or basin wide significance, and recommends actions for achieving the shared vision. ICPRB recently released the 5-year progress report on the plan’s implementation. The report includes project highlights, such as the webinar series and Chessie BIBI, as well as ongoing activities, such as planning for the 2023 Potomac River Conference.

This year, ICPRB has assembled an advisory committee once more to evaluate current progress and update the plan for the next 5-year planning cycle.

Learn about the plan and the projects on the One Basin, One Future StoryMap.

Potomac River Conditions

River levels were heading south last week, but have since changed trajectory. As our director of CO-OP operations Cherie Schultz, exclaimed, “We are in the black!” as our 30 day precipitation is 23% above average. The 90 day average is still in the negative, but that speaks to how dry our spring was.

Current flow: 3910 cfs

Median flow: 3090 cfs

90 day precipitation: -1.6 inches

Groundwater levels are still low, causing some areas of Maryland and Virginia to remain under drought watch.

Thank you, Penny

A stalwart supporter and champion of ICPRB, Fairfax County Supervisor Penny Gross, is retiring. We would like to take a moment to acknowledge her decades of taking a comprehensive and collaborative approach to water resources in the region. She’s featured in two pieces linked below, both as a well-deserved recipient of the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay’s Fran Flanigan Award and as a subject of MWCOG’s podcast highlighting her expansive work on their board of directors.

Penny, from all of us at ICPRB, thank you and we hope you have a happy and healthy retirement!

The monthly Water Supply Outlook by ICPRB’s Section for Cooperative Water Supply Operations on the Potomac (CO-OP) has been released.

In the Washington metropolitan area, we anticipate a higher likelihood of water releases from the backup reservoirs during the summer and fall of 2023. Despite receiving some relief from heavy rains, the Potomac basin has experienced unusual dryness over the past few months, resulting in ongoing challenges with low stream flows, groundwater, and soil moisture.

Notably, July 4th marked the hottest day ever recorded on Earth, underscoring the necessity of regular reassessment of the current conditions.

Although the water flow in the Potomac River currently satisfies the region’s demands, comprehensive contingency plans have been established to prevent shortages in the event of low-flow conditions.

Click here to see the most recent Water Supply Outlook.

Find information on the continued historical low flows, US Navy sued, mussels, eels, and more in this week’s Potomac News Reservoir…

Rain returns, but we’re not out of the (dry) woods just yet

If you caught last week’s newsletter, you saw that we started actively monitoring drought conditions on June 12 due to low flows in the Potomac River. Staff in ICPRB’s Section for Cooperative Water Supply Operations on the Potomac (CO-OP) were able to stop drought monitoring 5 days later after subsequent rain storms across the basin.

The Potomac River is known as a “flashy” river, meaning it can rise and fall suddenly. That has been particularly evident over these past few weeks when we went from drought monitoring to possible minor flooding in only a week or so. If we get the upcoming several inches of rain predicted by the NWS Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center, some areas of the Potomac basin will experience flow levels of minor to moderate flooding.

Even with the rain, we may continue to experience a hydrological moderate drought in the watershed. See the video by NBC4’s meteorologist Ryan Miller for an explanation of the difference between a hydrological and meteorological drought in the Potomac watershed. Both the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and officials in Front Royal, Virginia, have recently made the call for voluntary water conservation.

According to our Director of CO-OP Operations, Dr. Cherie Schultz, “If we get 2 inches of rain in the next few days, it is not going to erase the [rain] deficit but we will be out of extremely dry conditions and it will help. We still face the likelihood of drought operations this summer unless we continue to get more rain events.”

The graph above shows Potomac River’s adjusted flows at Little Falls (black line) headed in the right direction, but still on the low end.

What would happen to our water supply during a drought? The DC Metro area is well protected due to careful planning and coordination among ICPRB and our partners. See a video of Dr. Schultz’s presentation during yesterday’s quarterly business meeting on the status of the current drought, how it relates to historical droughts, and what would happen if flows drop very low.

Current Potomac River Conditions

Several inches of rain is predicted over the next few days and should bring us closer to the median (gray line) for this time of year. However, despite the expected rain, we will most likely remain below average. (Graph: USGS gage at Point of Rocks)

Current flow: 2280 cfs

Median flow: 4970 cfs

90 Day Precipitation:

3.6 inches below average