DC Wastewater Woes

[Kevin Chaney]

Just wanted to share an interesting link with video about an ambitious effort to solve the wastewater problems plaguing our waterways - 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/meet-lady-bird-a-massive-machine-digging-out-a-solution-to-dc-wastewater-woes/2014/02/15/e20b1c60-8dc3-11e3-98ab-fe5228217bd1_story.html

"No one will ever see this tunnel, but they’ll see that the river’s cleaner, and down stream in the Chesapeake, it will be a significant difference.”

[Carl Z.]

Nice article, but they were a bit hard on people making decisions in the 40's   The solution might have been ok then.  But with more paved areas (increasing the intensity of the runoff) and more people, it needs to be fixed.  Unfortunately it wasn't fixed 30 years ago.  

From my reading of the article, they arn't fixing any of the causes, just putting in a buffer (big holding tunnel).  If anyone knows if they are actually putting in a separate runoff drain system in any part of the city, it would be interesting to know.

It would be nice to get rid of raw sewage dumping into RockCreek park.

 

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[Sardman]

Carl, they are not separating the sewage system, just digging up the holding tank. It is not very clear to me how they are going to handle the sand and grit that will accumulate in the tunnels. They claim the tunnels will last 100 years, but I hope they have a way to maintain them and empty them from sand and stuff like that.

back in the days, dilution was the solution to pollution. not like that anymore. Back then the overflows were usually sized so that the overflow would contain only a certain concentration of pollutant (sewage measured as biodegradable organic matter) with the assumption that the river would take care of it. Sprawl and paving of more and more areas also did not help.

now it's not only the sewage, but the unreal amount of plastic and other junk that end up washed up in the rivers.

take a walk along the 4mr after a storm......

M.

On Sunday, February 16, 2014 2:08:50 PM UTC-8, Carl wrote:

Nice article, but they were a bit hard on people making decisions in the 40's   The solution might have been ok then.  But with more paved areas (increasing the intensity of the runoff) and more people, it needs to be fixed.  Unfortunately it wasn't fixed 30 years ago.  

From my reading of the article, they arn't fixing any of the causes, just putting in a buffer (big holding tunnel).  If anyone knows if they are actually putting in a separate runoff drain system in any part of the city, it would be interesting to know.

It would be nice to get rid of raw sewage dumping into RockCreek park.

 

On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 12:48 PM, Kevin Chaney <chan...@gmail.com> wrote:

Just wanted to share an interesting link with video about an ambitious effort to solve the wastewater problems plaguing our waterways - 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/meet-lady-bird-a-massive-machine-digging-out-a-solution-to-dc-wastewater-woes/2014/02/15/e20b1c60-8dc3-11e3-98ab-fe5228217bd1_story.html

"No one will ever see this tunnel, but they’ll see that the river’s cleaner, and down stream in the Chesapeake, it will be a significant difference.”

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[Ryan Payne]

I'm a TPFR member and an engineer on this project. This tunnel is the first to be constructed as part of the larger DC Clean Rivers Project. The long term plan includes a combination of gray (tunnels) and green infrastructure solutions to address the CSO problem in the city. Currently, DC Water is aiming to reduce some of the gray infrastructure by increasing the green infrastructure improvements in NW DC and in the rock creek watershed. You can read more about the overall program here: http://www.dcwater.com/cleanrivers and specifically the green infrastructure plan here: http://www.dcwater.com/education/green.cfm

As for long term maintenance and durability of the tunnel, a large screening shaft will be constructed at the termination of the tunnel at Blue Plains that will screen out all the debris that flows through the tunnel.  It will also be possible to clean the tunnels on a regular basis to ensure that they don't get silted up.

I'll grab a TPFR sticker next time I'm at a beer tie and slap her on the back end of Lady Bird. :)

R.

[Kevin Chaney]

Thanks for the info Ryan! 

[tperkins]

Today during the second hour of the Kojo Nnamdi show they will be talking about about this.

http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2014-02-18/dc-water-proposes-green-infrastructure