It isn’t just your imagination — the D.C. metro area’s underground water pipe system is in fact busting more often than Elliott Gould. This morning’s WaPo has the details on the record-setting rates at which Montgomery and Prince George’s counties’ water pipes have leaked and broken down in the past month. In may in those two counties, 42 water pipes have broken, including the two water main breaks yesterday that left 2,200 residents in Bethesda and Chevy Chase without water.

The Maryland situation comes closely timed with increases in water main breaks in WASA’s system as well. The Post article says that the recent experiences of D.C. and Maryland’s water pipes are not surprising, since it’s a problem older urban areas are struggling with nationwide. Of the 5,300 miles of freshwater pipes that the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission maintains in Montgomery and Prince George’s, one-quarter are more than 50 years old. Sixty percent date back more than 30 years.

Clearly, these older pipes willl need a lot of replacing over the next decade if we’re to continue having reliable water service. The problem? First of all, it takes a long time to replace that many miles of pipe, and the price tag is a hefty one — around $1 million per mile. WASA already instituted a rate hike this year, but as record numbers of water main breaks continue and customers get more and more fed up, it’s easy to imagine water prices going up even further across the region in order to pay for the replacement of these rundown older systems.

Photo by christaki