Forest Hills Connection || News and Life in Our DC Neighborhood
Covering Forest Hills, Van Ness, North Cleveland Park and Wakefield
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 […]
by Marlene Berlin A deteriorating, 110-year-old sewer system runs through the Soapstone Valley. The National Park Service and DC Water have released the environmental assessment of DC Water’s preferred plan to rehabilitate the system. The federal and city agency will hold a public meeting on this subject June 26th at the Forest Hills of DC […]
The National Park Service has released the environmental assessment of DC Water’s plans for rehabilitating the century-old sewer system in Soapstone Valley. This sets in motion a 59-day public comment period on work that will keep Soapstone users out of the park for as many as four years. NPS has scheduled a public meeting on […]
