Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin

The ICPRB mission is to enhance, protect, and conserve the water and associated land resources of the Potomac River basin and its tributaries through regional and interstate cooperation.

Complementing the commissioners is a professional staff that has gained a strong reputation for delivery of sound science and analysis that arms decision-makers at various government levels with the facts and technical data to resolve issues concerning the watershed.

Project expertise includes: Staff in the aquatic life section of ICPRB work to evaluate and report on biological communities and how they respond to stream, river and estuarine conditions.

To that end, the Commission: The ICPRB works with numerous partners throughout the basin using cooperative skills for encouraging multiple jurisdictions to coordinate actions on water resource issues.

Concurrent to Congress enacting the first Federal Water Pollution Control Act (1948), ICPRB initiates a continuous water-quality sampling program in the basin.

By 1949, ICPRB is given credit for coordination with local authorities to "radically" improve conditions on the Potomac's Shenandoah River tributary, recently referred to as a "biological desert" due to pollution from industrial waste.

1950s - ICPRB issues a major report describing the polluted Washington area Potomac and publishes the results of a study it sponsored on North Branch industrial wastes (1954).

Chairman Harold A. Kemp indicates Potomac River pollution has reached a "critical condition" with urgent need for additional sewage treatment facilities.

The following year, ICPRB publishes its first "Potomac River Water Quality Network," holds a "first-of-its-kind" silt control conference and sponsors a study of sediment sources in the basin with the U.S. Geological Survey.

[6] 2000s– In 2001, the ICPRB combined decades of data into a consistent and usable format for researchers and those working on the watershed in the Tidal Potomac Integrative Analysis Project.