Potomac ‘most endangered’? Just hype.

Just because you’re promoting a worthy cause doesn’t justify distorting the truth.

That’s a principle violated in Washington perhaps more than anywhere, most recently in an attention-grabbing report by an environmentalist organization declaring the Potomac to be “America’s #1 Most Endangered River.”

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Steve Chaconas, who runs the National Bass Guide Service in Alexandria, and Derek Radoski, a client and snakehead fishing enthusiast, fish for snakeheads in the Potomac River. Together they hope to help promote the sport fishing of snakeheads both for fun and as a means of removing the invasive species from local waters. (Editor’s note: Video shot in 2007)

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Washington Post writer Amy Orndorff gets a one-on-one kayaking lesson from Sunny Pitcher of Potomac Paddlesports.

The top ranking wasn’t based on pollution levels or other scientific data. It wasn’t warranted by trends or policy changes that threaten our river more than any other. It isn’t as if the Potomac has been gradually creeping up the roster and finally reached the peak. This was the river’s third appearance since the annual list began in 1986.

No, the advocacy group American Rivers highlighted the Potomac this year primarily for slick political and public-relations motives. The group picked what it called “the nation’s river” in order to rouse citizens to fight efforts in Congress to weaken the Clean Water Act on the law’s 40th anniversary. It helped that it’s an election year, when Washington is in the news.

The strategy worked. Officials with American Rivers were pleased when local radio, television and newspaper reports gave the story a good ride. Most coverage omitted or buried that pesky detail that the No. 1 ranking was essentially a subjective judgment by a group with an agenda.

Public-relations experts faulted both American Rivers for hyping the story and the media for being too ready to bite.

“The number one ranking implies that the Potomac is worse than everything else. How is that not a lie?” said Paul Argenti, a corporate communication professor at Dartmouth.

“You have to have some sort of measurable justification when you do a ranking,” he said.

Kent Holland, a partner at the Plesser Holland public-relations firm in Washington, criticized American Rivers for being “disingenuous” but added, “The other side of the question is, where’s the skepticism from the Fourth Estate?”

Now, here are two important caveats. First, I am 100 percent behind American Rivers’ mission to reduce pollution in U.S. waterways. For the sake of all our region’s rivers, plus the Chesapeake Bay, I share the group’s concern about proposals that would cripple the Environmental Protection Agency.

Second, the Potomac is unquestionably at risk. Pollution washing off farms upstream remains a major problem. The river also faces a growing threat from dirty runoff from roads and other pavement in steadily expanding suburbs and urban areas.

Scientists still don’t fully understand how chemicals in the Potomac are causing male fish to start turning female, or what exactly that means for humans. Without improved controls, four decades of real progress could be reversed and imperil the source for drinking water for 5 million people.

Nonetheless, it was still maddening that nothing of substance in the American Rivers report justified proclaiming on its Web site that the Potomac is more “endangered” than every other U.S. river. Its announcement offered a fuzzy explanation that the Potomac’s problems are “emblematic of what’s at stake for rivers nationwide.”