Re-Introducing D.C. Water
The District runs on a series of tubes, and D.C. Water is responsible for maintaining them. Last week, D.C. Water -- formerly (and still legally) D.C. Water and Sewer Authority -- brought in some bloggers to explain how those tubes work. Better still, D.C. Water explained how the utility is making sure customers know how they work.
Here's an example: In December of last year, Shepherd Park experienced a drop in water pressure. As D.C. Water general manager George Hawkins explained at the blogger roundtable, a pump backup such as the one Shepherd Park experienced can lead to water flowing from residences and other water customers back into the system -- which can lead to leeching through the pipes. So D.C. Water sounded the alarm, issuing a precautionary boil water advisory, before it had one iota of evidence that any leeching was happening.
Transparency -- be it for water quality levels or utility pricing increases -- is a factor that Hawkins emphasized as one reason behind the rebranding campaign. Certainly, the utility would like to shed its reputation for lead-enhanced drinking water. If you don't know, D.C.'s water lead levels have fallen below federal standards for quite some time. (Lead may still enter your drinking water through the pipes in your home, there at the consumer end, mind you. Don't put away your Brita filter.) The more difficult problem D.C. Water/WASA faced was repairing its reputation for obscuring problems rather than solving them.
During a presentation that included a tour of the amazing Bryant Street Pumping Station as well as a schematic explanation of how gravity makes water run in D.C. -- both were an engineer's dreams come true -- Hawkins described the city's infrastructure problems. They are real. This year, D.C. Water is set to replace one-third of one percent of its aging water infrastructure -- including pipes that are, on average, 75 years old. The new pipes they would be using to replace the old pipes have a depreciated age of 60 years, so, if my math is right, D.C. Water could spend the next 400 years completely replacing its pipes and wind up a system that needed replacing.
The national replacement average for infrastructure is half a percent. D.C. Water is going for a more ambitious rate: One percent. In order to do that, D.C. Water wants to raise its rates -- that is, your water bill. Hawkins describes water and sewer services in D.C. as "under priced." In September, the board will rule on a utility rate increase that would raise the average D.C. household's water bill from $51 to $60.
That's the most immediate change that D.C. Water is talking about. But it's far from the most dramatic one. (It wouldn't be a meeting with the water authority if it didn't include a pipe dream, would it?)
The first project on the horizon involves building 26-foot-high capture tunnels to manage combined sewer overflow in the older parts of the city. These tunnels would help to curb some 3 billion gallons of wastewater that flow into the Anacostia River each year. (Note, for perspective's sake, that D.C. Water treats 322 million gallons of wastewater every day.)
The second project -- one that could take the place of several of those water towers -- is bound to make urban development geeks swoon. D.C. Water hopes to propose a $400 million plan for low-impact development. For D.C., this would mean greening thousands of roofs and medians, establishing street-side water capture systems that would feed treeboxes, and other small-scale neighborhood development projects. It would create hundreds if not thousands of blue-collar jobs, some of which would make for permanent maintenance jobs. And it would utterly transform the look and feel of the nation's capital.
It is easy to fall optimistic about D.C. Water's proposals. In truth it's also easy to feel totally snowed by the technical nature of the discussion. For D.C. Water to move forward with more ambitious plans, the utility will need to prove not just that its ideas make sense from an engineer's perspective but from a customer's viewpoint.