It’s ironic that January’s 243-million-gallon Potomac River sewage overflow came from a break in the 54-mile-long Potomac Interceptor system. That pipe feeds wastewater into DC Water’s Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, arguably the finest wastewater treatment plant in the United States. That plant has played the major role in bringing The Nation’s River around Washington back to life, as anyone who has spent time on that portion of the river over the past forty years can attest.
In a funny way, this story is the reverse of last week’s Bay News, about Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind. That story focused on distribution of a valuable commodity—electrical power–that while produced in bulk at a wind farm, we humans need to have distributed in fine scale to our individual homes, businesses, and offices. On the other hand, this story is about fine scale collection of another, negatively valued commodity–human waste—from our individual homes, businesses, and offices for transport to a large treatment plant (which handles around 300 million gallons/day from all sources).
Yes, Blue Plains is a Star in the cleanup of the Potomac River, and has been for half a century. However, DC Water’s overall job is much larger, including approximately 1,800 miles of sanitary and combined sewers, 16 stormwater stations, 75,000 catch basins and manholes, 22 flow-metering stations, and 9 wastewater pumping stations. The authority also has responsibility for reducing stormwater runoff pollution, providing drinking water, and ensuring that more than 9,000 fire hydrants are ready for emergency at a moment’s notice…