Forest Hills Connection || News and Life in Our DC Neighborhood
Covering Forest Hills, Van Ness, North Cleveland Park and Wakefield
Our last major update on the Soapstone Valley sewer rehab project was in early August, when the public comment period on the environmental assessment closed. DC Water’s plan to reline the existing 110-year-old pipes is now in the National Park Service’s hands, and its blessing will come via a finding of no significant impact, or […]
by Marlene Berlin While hiking the Soapstone Trail in mid-December, I noticed a weathered plaster cast of an angel. It was sitting atop one of the many manhole covers that mark the location of the 110-year-old sewage pipe that winds through and about Soapstone Creek. I wondered who had placed it there and welcomed the […]
by Marlene Berlin I went to explore our creeks after a storm dropped just under 1.5 inches of rain overnight Saturday and Sunday morning. Here’s what I found. After a long dry spell, it felt refreshing to be out on wet trails. Streamlets reappeared. And the sound of roaring water made a comeback. Rock Creek […]
(Updated 8/4/2019 with ANC 3F’s final resolution and a link to DC Water’s 2011 report) We have done a lot lately with the Soapstone sewer project and realize it could be difficult to keep track of it all. So we thought it might be helpful to have the latest information and opinion in one place. […]
The 2011 DC Water report referenced in David Jonas Bardin’s July 22nd piece (Opinion: I’ve seen a rich, thoughtful analysis of the Soapstone sewers. The 2019 EA isn’t it.) is now available for download at DCWater.com. From David: In 2013, DC Water dialogued with a group of us about sewers in Soapstone Valley. We used […]
by David Jonas Bardin Ten years ago, when I served on its board of directors, DC Water started focusing on aging, gravity-flow sanitary sewers laid in beds of creeks. DC Water gave sewers in Soapstone Creek a high priority. To inspect those sewers and assess their condition, DC Water turned to a pair of engineering […]
by Marlene Berlin We’ve been warned in the past that the Soapstone Valley Trail is endangered due to steady erosion of the stream banks. The erosion accelerates whenever we have a major storm event, and the storms have not decreased in frequency or impact since that warning in 2014. Take last Tuesday’s powerful deluge, so […]
by Marlene Berlin At the June 26th public meeting on a project that would address the century-old sewer system running through the Soapstone Valley, no one challenged the need for relining the pipes and repairing manholes. DC Water’s presentation made it clear that the pipes and manhole covers, now more than 110 years old, have […]
by Marlene Berlin If you’ve come across volunteers working on the Soapstone Valley Trail in the past year, you’ve run into JoAnn Shaner’s crew. Shaner has been the Soapstone Trail supervisor for the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club since mid-2018. (PATC maintains many of our trails and is currently rebuilding a footbridge on the Melvin Hazen […]
by Marlene Berlin At the public meeting this Wednesday on the Soapstone Valley sewer rehabilitation project, at least one member of the community will be asking the National Park Service and DC Water if the work has to be so invasive. As described on page 6 of Appendix E, Statement of Findings: Approximately 6,100 [linear […]
