I won't tell you what we called the river between the base at Subic Bay and the city of Olongapo just across from it.
But it did have its own distinctive l'odeur nauséabonde reminiscent of the outhouses at Girl Scout camp if you mixed it with dead chickens, monkeys, and soy sauce.
There were urban legends abounding concerning liquored-up sailors who'd scaled the twenty-foot-high fences on either side of the river - put there to prevent precisely this sort of thing but only serving to make the dive more challenging - doing their best Johnny Weismuller into the fetid waters off the top ropes. And then, hopefully, surviving the cascade of anti-viral, anti-protozoan, anti-bacterial shots they received if anyone fished them out, or if they managed to crawl out on their own.
I guess the canals in Venice were in much the same state years ago, as I remember a foreign movie personality of some note scoffing at warnings not to dive off a gondola, only to die of whatever he'd ingested days later.
Water can be pretty nasty, even when it looks okay.
It seems the Potomac River in Maryland now has the distinction of being a 'Perfume' River, thanks to a busted 78-inch sewer pipe carrying flushables from Maryland and Virginia, known as the 'Potomac Interceptor.'
EW
As my girlfriend Leslie Eastman reported back in January, there had been a major rupture of the 1960s-vintage line, which sent hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage flowing into the Potomac River. The frigid conditions and snow events, which were a major cause of the break in the aged pipe, were now hampering repairs.
'Keep your fingers out of the water' was basically the message from DC Water, as they warned of higher-than-normal fecal coliform counts (go figure, right?) while trying to reroute as much of the effluent as possible away from the broken pipe and the river.
...A major sewer line rupture in Maryland is sending tens of millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River just upstream of Washington, D.C., prompting severe public‑health warnings and emergency repairs.
The collapse happened on Monday in a section of the Potomac Interceptor, which carries up to 60 million gallons of wastewater each day from parts of Maryland and Virginia to a pumping station in Washington.
John Lisle, a spokesman with DC Water, a water and sewer utility company serving Washington, said in an email on Saturday afternoon that the company estimated that 40 million gallons of untreated sewage a day had spilled into the river since the rupture of the reinforced concrete line...
No one paid much attention to the story at the time because it was cold everywhere, and we all have problems, chicky baby. Although there were grumblings about 'priorities' when it emerged that D.C. Water had spent $55M on a new Taj Mahal headquarters for themselves, but not fixed any infrastructure.
The Potomac Interceptor got people's attention this month, however, when it turns out there'd been another one of those sort of 'oops' #mathz problems that often accompany the bad things that happen when Democrats and progressives are in charge for any length of time.
This one was a doozy of Somali fraud proportions on a bacterial scale.
Basically, it went from 'wash your hands' to, 'ackshually, there's so much poo in the water you could walk across it.'
...There is a troubling update to this story. Washington, D.C.‘s Water and Sewer Authority appears to have significantly miscalculated the level of E. coli emanating from this incident. Note that MPN in this context means “Most Probable Number” (a value calculated by recording the tested concentration of bacteria at various stages of dilution, then using standard MPN tables and the dilution factor to convert that pattern into an estimated number of organisms per unit volume of the original sample).
The agency just announced a correction to the initial E. coli levels reported, indicating they are actually 9,900% higher.
On Friday, Feb. 6, DC Water initially reported levels of E. coli at 2,420 MPN/100mL, then changed it to the actual level of E. coli present, 242,000 MPN/100mL, which is 9,900% higher than the initial report. The numbers came from a drainage channel at Swainson Island, adjacent to Cabin John, Maryland, in the Potomac River...
D.C. Water's terrific 'rerouting' plan is diverting effluent away from the Interceptor and dumping it into adjacent canals.
That's helpful.
E.Coli levels are 10,000 times safe levels.
— Rob Alberts (@robertjalberts) February 16, 2026
UMD team finds E. coli, MRSA in Potomac River after sewage spill | University of Maryland | School of Public Health https://t.co/zLeVZmKbXp
The amount of raw sewage flowing like gangbusters into the nation's capital river is mind-blowing. My friend Commander Salamander breaks it down for comparison's sake with other disasters that were considered nearly 'end of the world' category.
It is easy to make the calculations to come up with a spill exceeding 1 Billion gallons of sewage and climbing every day. Driving home from Dulles last night crossing the American Legion Bridge "Welcome to Maryland" and the most God awful stench. Like Djibouti.
— King TomAnon de Bailleul (@TomAnon) February 16, 2026
...The Exxon Valdez oil spill was 11 million gallons.
That means that there has been 27.7 Exxon Valdez spills.
Another way to look at it, a John Lewis class Navy oiler can carry 5.5/6.5 million gallons of fuel. Let’s call that 6 million gallons.
What we are looking at is 50 John Lewis class oilers dumping a full load of sewage in the waters around the nation’s capital.
1000 feet upriver from where the break in the pipe is pumping raw sewage at an unfathomable rate into the Potomac, D.C. Water crews are trying to rehabilitate an 800-foot section of the old pipe by lining it with a smaller, newer section that slips inside of it.
That is raw sewage flowing around the pipe.
EW
Unreported: 1,000 ft upriver from the Potomac Interceptor sewage spill - largest in US history - is where @dcwater has been rehabilitating the sewer line since Sept 8, 2025, via Sliplining
— NOVA Campaigns (@NoVA_Campaigns) February 16, 2026
78 inch pipe, installed in 1962, is lined with 72 inch pipe… as wastewater STILL FLOWS https://t.co/OSRIbX5OU6 pic.twitter.com/ykl76T2PvT
Had this happened but a few miles north, the nation's capital would be poop out of luck for drinking water as 100% of theirs comes from the Potomac.
DC just had the largest sewage spill in US history into the Potomac.
— Jonathon P Sine (@JonathonPSine) February 12, 2026
If that spill had been just a few miles north DC could have been without drinking water for days.
100% of Washington DC's drinking water comes from the Potomac river via just TWO points of intake, and its… pic.twitter.com/5QufEDTqFG
...100% of Washington DC's drinking water comes from the Potomac river via just TWO points of intake, and its three reservoirs can hold only ~2-3 days storage.
The spill happened a few hundred meters north of the Little Falls intake, which DC Water closed off immediately and has yet to re-open.
But had the sewage spill occurred just a few miles north it would likely have forced the second and main intake at Great Falls to close as well, and DC could have easily be without running water for a sustained period.
And now the warnings are flying to residents, including with their pets, not to even TOUCH the Potomac's water - it is that dangerous.
Almost 4 weeks after sewage spill put hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage into Potomac River, DC issues its strongest warning. “Residents and pets should not touch the Potomac River, or engage in any Potomac recreational activities including fishing”@nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/gxuuaRAA2k
— Mark Segraves (@SegravesNBC4) February 12, 2026
Residents well downstream of the vile flood are already reaping the rewards of the years of neglected maintenance and complacency.
💯. I have been shaking the “tree” since Monday and not getting much response. Local and state level politicians and agencies. We live 20-25 miles south of the spill. Here are a few pics. Sure looks like and smells like sewage. pic.twitter.com/G4THAV6bhc
— Kem Clawson (@KemClawson) February 12, 2026
It is the largest single sewage spill in the country's history, and it's still spewing poisonous effluent by the millions of gallons.
Right through Jamie Raskin's district.
But no one's heard anything from him.
The break occurred inside the congressional district represented by Jamie Raskin.
Nearly a month later?
No high-profile press conference.
No emergency hearing demand.
No federal infrastructure oversight push.
No visible call for Army Corps intervention.Just silence.
Not a word from Spanberger or Van Hollen, the D.C. mayor.
The Potomac River is full of FECAL BACTERIA and you can SMELL IT before you even see the river.
— Frankie Stockes (@realStockes) February 12, 2026
A BILLION GALLONS of raw sewage have poured into the river since last month and officials say it’ll take at least 6 more weeks to fix.
This is the biggest wastewater spill in US… pic.twitter.com/TXqcGiMdtD
...This is the biggest wastewater spill in US history and the environmental impact is and will continue to be massive, yet politicians in and around DC have remained quiet.
At this point, the Potomac River is almost as filthy and disgusting as Capitol Hill!
Maryland fabulist Wes Moore never said a word until Trump unloaded on him.
— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) February 16, 2026
And then those words were that it's 'Trump's problem' because it's D.C. Water's pipe, not Maryland's.
“Apparently the Trump administration hadn’t gotten the memo that they’re actually supposed to be in charge here,” Moussa says.
Never mind the impact that it could possibly have on Marylanders and the fragile Chesapeake ecosystem.
The large sewer pipe that collapsed on Jan. 19, resulting in millions of gallons of wastewater being spilled into the Potomac River, is going to take four to six weeks longer to repair.
That’s because D.C. Water has discovered a giant rock dam south of the site of the original collapse.
“This will require us to bring in additional equipment to remove the obstruction,” said D.C. Water spokesperson Sherri Lewis, adding the sewage flow has been successfully bypassed around the failed pipe, known as the Potomac Interceptor.
“These giant industrial vacuums that we use can’t suck the boulders out because they are so big,” she said.
Personnel will have to go into the pipe to remove the rocks manually. Additional pumps are being brought in from Texas and Florida to complete the task, but that will add more time to complete the repairs.
In the meantime, water quality tests conducted by the University of Maryland and the Potomac Riverkeeper Network have found alarmingly high levels of E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus, which causes staph infections, in several samples taken from Jan. 21 to Jan. 28.
Contamination levels are much higher near the break site, which is in Montgomery County along the C&O Canal and Clara Barton Parkway. But bacterial contamination has been detected nine miles down river.
The Governor of Maryland has nothing to say about that. None of them have had anything to say about it.
The river's not the only thing that stinks.
Beege ADDS:
There a large construction site right where 495 crosses over the C&O; that’s where @dcwater crews are working to fix the broken portion of the pipe, which they say will take between 4 and 6 weeks.
— Martin Austermuhle (@maustermuhle) February 17, 2026
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