The Potomac River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States that flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It is 405 miles (652 km) long, with a drainage area of 14,700 square miles (38,000 km2), and is the fourth-largest river along the East Coast of the United States and the 21st-largest in the United States. More than 5 million people live within its watershed.
Theodore Roosevelt Island is an 88.5-acre (358,000 m2) island and national memorial located in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. During the Civil War, it was used as a training camp for the United States Colored Troops. The island was given to the federal government by the Theodore Roosevelt Association in memory of the 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt. Until then, the island had been known as My Lord's Island, Barbadoes Island, Mason's Island, Analostan Island, and Anacostine Island.
The George Washington Memorial Parkway, colloquially the G.W. Parkway, is a 25-mile-long (40 km) parkway that runs along the south bank of the Potomac River from Mount Vernon, Virginia, northwest to McLean, Virginia, and is maintained by the National Park Service (NPS). It is located almost entirely within Virginia, except for a short portion of the parkway northwest of the Arlington Memorial Bridge that passes over Columbia Island within the District of Columbia.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge, more commonly known as the Key Bridge, is a six-lane reinforced concrete arch bridge conveying U.S. Route 29 (US 29) traffic across the Potomac River between the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington County, Virginia, and the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Completed in 1923, it is Washington's oldest surviving road bridge across the Potomac River.
Washington, D.C. is located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States at 38°53′42″N77°02′11″W, the coordinates of the Zero Milestone, on The Ellipse. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a geographical area of 68.3 square miles (176.9 km2), 61.4 square miles (159.0 km2) of which is land, and the remaining 6.9 square miles (17.9 km2) (10.16%) of which is water. The Anacostia River and the smaller Rock Creek flow into the Potomac River in Washington.
Dalecarlia Reservoir is the primary storage basin for drinking water in Washington, D.C., and Arlington County, Virginia. The reservoir is fed by an underground aqueduct in turn fed by low dams which divert portions of the Potomac River near Great Falls and Little Falls. The reservoir is located between Spring Valley and the Palisades, two neighborhoods in Northwest Washington, D.C., and Brookmont, a neighborhood in Montgomery County, Maryland.
The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority(DC Water) provides drinking water, sewage collection, and sewage treatment for Washington, D.C. The utility also provides wholesale wastewater treatment services to several adjoining municipalities in Maryland and Virginia, and maintains more than 9,000 public fire hydrants in Washington, D.C.
The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission is a bi-county political subdivision of the State of Maryland that provides safe drinking water and wastewater treatment for Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland except for a few cities in both counties that continue to operate their own water facilities.
The McMillan Reservoir is a reservoir in Washington, D.C., that supplies the majority of the city's municipal water. It was originally called the Howard University Reservoir or the Washington City Reservoir, and was completed in 1902 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Georgetown Reservoir is a reservoir that provides water to the District of Columbia. Part of the city’s water supply and treatment infrastructure, it is located in the Palisades neighborhood, approximately two miles downstream from the Maryland–D.C. boundary.
The Aqueduct Bridge, also called the Alexandria Aqueduct, was a bridge that carried traffic between Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and Rosslyn, Virginia, from 1843 to 1923.
Fort Ward is a former Union Army installation now located in the city of Alexandria in the U.S. state of Virginia. It was the fifth largest fort built to defend Washington, D.C. in the American Civil War. It is currently well-preserved with 90-95% of its earthen walls intact.
Fort Corcoran was a wood-and-earthwork fortification constructed by the Union Army in northern Virginia as part of the defenses of Washington, D.C. during the American Civil War. Built in 1861, shortly after the occupation of Arlington, Virginia by Union forces, it protected the southern end of the Aqueduct Bridge and overlooked the Potomac River and Theodore Roosevelt Island, known as Mason's Island.
Little Falls Branch, a 3.8-mile-long (6.1 km) tributary stream of the Potomac River, is located in Montgomery County, Maryland. In the 19th century, the stream was also called Powder Mill Branch. It drains portions of Bethesda, Somerset, Friendship Heights, and Washington, D.C., flows under the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O), and empties into the Potomac at Little Falls rapids, which marks the upper end of the tidal Potomac.
Castle Gatehouse, Washington Aqueduct is a pumping station at the Georgetown Reservoir on the Washington Aqueduct in The Palisades neighborhood of Washington, D.C., United States. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and contributes to the Washington Aqueduct National Historic Landmark.
McMillan Sand Filtration Site is a twenty-five acre decommissioned water treatment plant in northwest Washington, D.C., built as part of the historic McMillan Reservoir Park. It is bound on the north by Michigan Avenue, on the east by North Capitol Street, on the south by Channing Street and on the west by McMillan Drive; which runs along the edge of the reservoir, to which it was formerly attached. Two paved courts lined by regulator houses, tower-like sand bins, sand washers and the gated entrances to the underground filter cells provided a promenade for citizens taking the air in the park before it was fenced off in WWII.
Battery Cameron was a Union Army defensive site during the Civil War. Battery Cameron was one in a chain of fortifications in the Civil War Defenses of Washington, D.C., also known as the "Fort Circle". The battery was located atop a hill on Foxhall Road at what is now the intersection of Foxhall and Whitehaven Parkway, NW. The battery included two 100-pound Parrott rifles, placed in such a way as to sweep Aqueduct Bridge, and Virginia beyond.
MacArthur Boulevard is a road in Montgomery County, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. The road follows a northwest–southeast route from the Great Falls area of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park in Potomac, Maryland, to Foxhall Road NW and 44th Street NW in the Foxhall neighborhood of Washington, D.C., near the Georgetown Reservoir. MacArthur Boulevard runs parallel to the Clara Barton Parkway and the C&O Canal for most of its route, passing through the Palisades area of the District. In Cabin John, traffic is reduced to a single alternating lane as it passes over the Union Arch Bridge, the longest span masonry arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere, and which also carries the Washington Aqueduct.
Seneca Dam was the last in a series of dams proposed on the Potomac River in the area of the Great Falls of the Potomac. Apart from small-scale dams intended to divert water for municipal use in the District of Columbia and into the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, no version of any scheme was ever built. In most cases the proposed reservoir would have extended upriver to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The project was part of a program of as many as sixteen major dams in the Potomac watershed, most of which were never built.
