Months After a Jet Fuel Leak, No Agency Tested Waters Downstream of Piscataway Creek. So Community Groups Are Doing It Themselves.

In the five months after jet fuel started leaking from Joint Base Andrews into Piscataway Creek, no agency tested the water or sediment some 20 miles downstream, where the creek empties into the Potomac River and the shoreline community and anglers gather to fish and boat along the riverbank.

The leak was detected on Dec. 11 at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County. Of an estimated 32,000 gallons that spilled into the headwaters of the creek, only 10,000 gallons were recovered, while the remaining 22,000 entered the environment. Environmental leaders and activists have criticized the base for waiting more than three months before notifying state regulators.

From the headwaters, the creek runs 18.6 miles before slipping into the Potomac at Fort Washington Park. The public access point there, along the shoreline of the adjacent Piscataway Park, is known for drawing anglers from across the Washington region; the parkland around it is managed by the National Park Service.

The base said it has no plans to do sampling at Fort Washington Park. “We have not conducted water sampling in those specific locations,” said Matt Ebarb, Joint Base Andrew’s media operations chief, in emailed comments. “We have, however, completed multiple joint water-sampling events with the Maryland Department of the Environment at sites on and just off the installation.” The sampling was conducted on April 13, April 20, and May 18 in Piscataway Creek, Ebarb said, adding that the extent of contamination was decreasing over time. 

Asked whether it would extend testing to the tidal mouth, the base was unequivocal. “The base does not intend to conduct assessments at the tidal mouth of the creek,” Ebarb said, adding that testing on and immediately surrounding the installation already provides relevant data. “We have fully coordinated our sampling plan with MDE.”

The National Park Service, which manages the land around the river’s edge, has not communicated with Maryland regulators on the matter even though its parent agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior, was notified of the leak in March. The MDE, which has been sampling closer to the base, has extended its monitoring downstream after residents asked for it during the agency’s visit to the site on May 9.

“The U.S. Department of the Interior was among the entities that received initial notification of the incident March 23 from the National Response Center,” said MDE spokesperson Jay Apperson. “The National Park Service has not reached out to us. If they, or any others with concerns, reach out to us we will work with them.” 

The Interior Department and NPS did not respond to Inside Climate News’ multiple requests for comment. 

Sensing the institutional inertia around downstream sampling, the Indigenous community along Piscataway Creek and another organization that stewards its shoreline have begun taking steps to move on their own.

The Accokeek Foundation, which manages Piscataway Park under a longstanding agreement with NPS, is partnering with the Potomac Riverkeeper Network to launch independent water quality monitoring at the park, near where the contamination would likely flow.

“Once operational, trained volunteers will collect weekly water samples that will be analyzed through Potomac Riverkeeper’s community science program and Sea Dog floating laboratory at National Harbor,” said Anjela Barnes, the foundation’s executive director and a member of the Piscataway people.

In emailed comments, Barnes said the effort is meant to fill a gap: “Our goal is to provide residents, anglers, visitors and park stakeholders with consistent and accessible information about local water quality conditions.”

MDE said its upstream focus reflected standard practice. “It makes sense to initially sample closest to the source of contamination and, if needed, work away and further downstream to measure the extent of any contamination,” Apperson said.

The agency expected to begin downstream sampling within roughly two weeks of the May 9 community meeting. Results will come 10 to 14 days later, and will be posted to a page on its website dedicated to the Joint Base Andrews release.

For Barnes, the testing gap is the latest episode in a long-running pattern of neglect.

“The need to account for cumulative impacts began more than 400 years ago,” she said. “The environmental story of the Piscataway homeland cannot be separated into isolated incidents.” 

She traced a line from the decline of beaver populations in the fur trade of the 1600s, through forest clearing for plantation agriculture, shoreline alteration, industrialization, overfishing, stormwater runoff and wastewater failures to PFAS contamination and now the jet fuel release, calling them “all chapters within a much longer story of cumulative ecological change.”

For Indigenous communities, she said, “waterways are not simply environmental resources; they are part of an interconnected cultural landscape.”

Piscataway Park is one of the few public fishing access points along that stretch of the Potomac. The foundation has posted advisory notices at the public fishing pier and visitor center, Barnes said.

But she made clear that the ultimate responsibility does not lie with organizations like hers. The foundation can bridge relationships built over years with residents and tribal communities, Barnes said, but “responsibility for environmental monitoring, enforcement, remediation and public notification ultimately rests with the agencies and entities charged with those duties.”