DC Water says it will soon begin emergency work on another section of the pipe that collapsed earlier this year — spilling hundreds of millions of gallons of sewage into the Potomac River — in an effort to prevent impacts to the area’s drinking water.
Inspections of the Potomac Interceptor revealed structural deterioration, significant corrosion and exposed rebar in a different section of the pipe at Muddy Branch near Pennyfield Lock in Potomac, Maryland, DC Water said in a release.
“It is located upstream of the WSSC Water’s Potomac Water Filtration Plant and the Washington Aqueduct’s intakes at Great Falls,” DC Water said. “Addressing the deterioration now is a necessary risk mitigation measure intended to reduce the likelihood of a more serious issue that could impact the Potomac River and downstream drinking water supply intakes.”
Crews will begin repair work on about 1,700 feet of the pipe on Monday, June 15. Repairs are expected to continue through the end of September, according to DC Water.
The rupture of the sewage pipeline on Jan. 19 sent more than 240 million gallons of sewage into the Potomac River. While a temporary bypass stopped further contamination into the river, more than 2 billion gallons of wastewater were still diverted through the C&O Canal until repairs were completed.
The federal government and Maryland filed lawsuits against DC Water three months after the spill. Maryland’s attorney general alleged that DC Water was negligent and asked the courts to hold the water utility company responsible for the cost of the ongoing cleanup and restoration of the river and parkland.
DC Water’s board of directors voted in early June to remove CEO David Gadis, who was the face of the agency’s response to the Potomac Interceptor break that sent millions of gallons of raw sewage into river.
Gadis was hired by DC Water despite being a central figure in the Flint, Michigan, water crisis as a top executive for Veolia, an engineering firm that later paid $53 million to settle civil claims alleging it contributed to and prolonged Flint’s lead disaster.
The board had placed Gadis on a performance improvement plan before the sewage spill because of concerns about his management, sources told News4.
Before Gadis’ ousting, members of Congress grilled him and National Park Service officials during a May hearing.
In the weeks after the collapse, DC Water officials acknowledged they knew in 2018 the 54-mile underground sewer line needed critical repairs. A Washington Post investigation found those repairs were delayed for more than eight years because the NPS did not issue the needed permits for the work.
“Isn’t it true that in 2018, eight years ago, DC Water requested fast-track permits to repair widespread corrosion and detach rebar at the side of the rupture?” U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo asked NPS’ deputy superintendent of the C&O Canal, Edward Wenschhof.
“We’ve been working with them on this initiative for a while,” Wenschhof said.
“Yeah, eight years,” the congresswoman said. “Do you dispute that?”
“The specifics of the prebreak are under the litigation,” Wenschhof said.
NPS and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers testified DC Water never told them there was any imminent threat of the sewer line collapsing.
“Okay, I think this is the famous movie line ‘a failure to communicate,’” said U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala. “Because this could have been avoided.”
from Local – NBC4 Washington https://ift.tt/ivuZTFI
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