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Monday, September 10, 2001; Page B02

One year ago, underwater hockey was still a fringe sport in a fringe suburb of the D.C. area. About a dozen devotees showed up weekly to a dank pool in Severna Park, in Anne Arundel County, for the privilege of holding their breath, searing their lungs and skimming a puck across the bottom of a swimming pool.

While smaller cities such as Charleston, S.C., and Gainesville, Fla., had established big underwater hockey followings, D.C.'s team leaders, Tom Treakle and David Sun, were having trouble luring recruits. The out-of-the-way location of the pool was one reason. The other was that "90 percent of people think this is pretty weird," as one aficionado put it. As Treakle said, "The only thing between you and scoring . . . is the need to breathe."

Yet nearly 12 months later, the D.C. area has surfaced as one of the premier places to play the sport, which started in Australia and has commanded a worldwide following.

The D.C. players now have a name -- the Beltway Bottom Feeders -- and they've gotten two pools going in much higher-traffic areas: One is in Rockville, and another is about to be used for practices in Fairfax County. The ranks of players have swollen to about 50, with nearly 30 showing up on a regular basis.

And this summer, the Beltway Bottom Feeders hosted a big tournament, drawing aficionados from as far away as Dallas, Chicago, West Palm Beach, Fla., and Britain.

The team, started by former players from Virginia Tech, has gotten so busy that members haven't even had time to return a call to Jay Leno's producers at "The Tonight Show."

"They asked us to come up with something fun and exciting" -- a zany video or something similar -- "and pitch it to them," Sun said. "But we haven't followed up on that."

They have, though, made time for expanding their ranks even further. (Hey, Leno is merely national television. But if the Beltway Bottom Feeders rope another pool into their already busy schedules, well, that's a night of underwater hockey they didn't have before.)

The scuba team at George Mason University is looking to expand its season beyond the open-water months of summer. And because underwater hockey exercises lungs and gives aqua-lovers a chance for more water play, slews of puck-pushers are also divers. If talks between George Mason and the Bottom Feeders work out, yet another day of play may be added to a schedule that was once almost as empty as their practices, giving the scuba team needed winter exercise in the pool and the Bottom Feeders another chance to play.

-- Darragh Johnson

Eleven weeks after some Southeast Washington residents were evacuated from their homes because of a fuel spill at a BP Amoco gas station, they are still living in hotels and wondering when District health officials will determine that their homes are safe to return to.

After the June 19 spill, 13 families were evacuated, and three others were asked to move out of their homes near the station at 41st Street and Alabama Avenue SE. BP Amoco reported last month that it had recovered 95 percent of the fuel that leaked out of a faulty underground fuel line and into the soil and sewers. The company also said its tests showed that the gas vapors were low enough for the families to live there and use the nearby Fort Davis Recreation Center. But residents didn't trust the gas company, which did not catch the leak for many weeks. Facing residents' complaints, the D.C. Health Department agreed early last month to hire its own company to test the levels of gasoline fumes in the air and soil.

But, as residents grow increasingly frustrated at living in tight quarters and BP Amoco grows frustrated at the lack of a resolution, the residents' attorneys and the Health Department are now debating what kinds of tests the city should be conducting. Joseph H. Koonz Jr., whose firm represents the families, said that the city should perform a test for benzene, the carcinogenic component of gasoline, but that it does not plan to. City health officials said they are discussing what tests are appropriate and are waiting to receive signed access agreements to all the properties.

Meanwhile, residents hope BP Amoco will eventually settle the dispute by buying their homes. The block is abandoned, and one family's home was recently ransacked and burglarized; a lawn mower was stolen at another home. Antoine Marshall, a city firefighter, said he, his wife and three children are going stir-crazy at the Hyatt, accommodations that are paid for by BP Amoco.

"We're still waiting to hear," he said. "The [city officials] said they'd get us better housing -- we're still in this hotel, cleaning baby bottles in a sink and warming them up in the microwave. Everything is getting old."

-- Carol D. Leonnig