Environmental Groups Target PFAS Contamination of Potomac River

Charlottesville, VA

In December 2025, two environmental groups, Wild Virginia and the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, launched lawsuits naming the Commonwealth of Virginia and the EPA. The effort is designed to combat per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS/PFOA) contamination of the Potomac River, its tributaries and ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay.

The former lawsuit, filed on December 1 in Charlottesville Circuit Court, challenges a stormwater discharge permit granted to Fort Belvoir by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The latter, filed on December 22 in the Eastern District of Virginia, challenges the EPA’s approval of Virginia’s 2024 water quality report, which failed to identify any waters as impaired by PFAS despite the state’s own data showing widespread contamination.

PFAS exposure has been reliably linked to a host of human illnesses. Much attention has focused on the personal injury lawsuits that seek to bring financial relief to those whose health has been damaged. The environmental lawsuits take a different approach – literally moving upstream to compel federal and state regulators to act in accordance with existing law to protect individuals from harm.

Widespread contamination

The EPA has linked PFAS exposure to metabolic disorders, decreased fertility in women and developmental delays in children, as well as increased risk of some prostate, kidney and testicular cancers. PFAS seep into groundwater, contaminating streams, rivers, private wells, municipal water supplies and coastal waters. It’s not just in the drinking water; PFAS have contaminated the food supply, too.

Wild Virginia v. Virginia DEQ

The lawsuit challenges a permit issued by Virginia’s DEQ that authorizes industrial stormwater discharges from Fort Belvoir into Accotink Creek and the Potomac River. The permit’s critical flaw, according to the environmental organizations, is that it includes no requirements to monitor or limit discharges of PFAS. The lawsuit asks the court to declare the permit invalid and send it back to DEQ with instructions to require PFAS monitoring and limits.

Fort Belvoir has documented PFAS contamination across the installation, particularly from aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) used for decades to extinguish aircraft fuel fires during emergencies and training exercises. The Army’s own studies have confirmed high levels of PFAS in groundwater, soil, and surface water at various locations on the base.

The contamination sits close to stormwater outfalls that discharge directly into tributaries of Accotink Creek and eventually flow into Pohick Bay and the Potomac River. PFAS travel readily in stormwater runoff, these outfalls likely discharge detectable levels of the chemicals into some of the region’s most important waterways.

The Potomac River stretch near Fort Belvoir serves as critical spawning habitat for rockfish and shad, and provides essential habitat for the endangered Atlantic Sturgeon. Downstream, the river supplies drinking water to millions of people.

The DEQ, according to the plaintiffs, violated both federal Clean Water Act requirements and Virginia’s State Water Control Law by failing to limit PFAS discharge in the Ft. Belvoir permit. Federal regulations require permits to control pollutants that have “reasonable potential” to violate state water quality standards, including narrative standards that prohibit substances “harmful to human, animal, plant, or aquatic life.”

Wild Virginia v. EPA

A separate lawsuit challenges the EPA’s approval of the state’s 2024 water quality report. The EPA’s draft recommended water quality criteria are designed to protect public water supplies and fish consumption over a lifetime of 70 years.

Wild Virginia asserts that the federal agency should have intervened after concluding that Virginia did not do enough to address contaminated waterways. State data allegedly shows that several rivers and streams are polluted with PFAS, including the Middle Chickahominy River, which has been under PFAS investigation since 2021.

The complaint points to six years of PFAS data collected by the Virginia DEQ that identified multiple streams with elevated levels of the chemicals. Despite those findings, the lawsuit alleges, some waterways were not classified as “impaired” in the state’s water quality report.

In one case, plaintiffs argue, PFAS levels were so high in the Chichahominy River and White Oak Swamp that DEQ issued a fish tissue consumption advisory in May 2025. The lawsuit claims that despite those warnings, the waters were not identified as impaired in the report submitted to the EPA.

Environmental Groups Target PFAS Contamination of Potomac River

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