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Covering Forest Hills, Van Ness, North Cleveland Park and Wakefield

Century-old Soapstone sewers still two years from rehab work

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Exposed Soapstone manhole, from the cover of the June 2019 Soapstone Valley Park Sewer Rehabilitation Environmental Assessment

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 FONSI.

William Elledge from DC Water was at the January 21st meeting of ANC 3F to provide a brief update and an approximate timeline.

The Park Service is expected to release the FONSI in two or three months. The procurement process for the design will follow, and take about three months. Developing the design and obtaining permits will take approximately 12 months (and permit timing in particular is difficult to estimate). The procurement process for the construction contractor adds another six months to the timeline.

This all adds up to two years before work begins. And Elledge says the construction phase will be interrupted to accommodate some of the park’s residents. The long-eared bat mates in late summer.

As for public engagement, DC Water will have as many public meetings as requested by the ANC and apartment buildings that abut the Soapstone Valley.

New to the project or need to catch up? Here is a summary with links to our 2019 coverage of the proposals, the pros and the cons.

Correction: The original version of this article said the Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing the FONSI. The National Park Service is the agency responsible. We regret the error.

Comments

  1. Recent news about the larger project to clean up the Potomac and the Anacostia might be of interest to the Connection’s readers.

    Yesterday, Feb. 20, WAMU reported that DC Water was looking for a way to cancel the final phase of underground tunnels for catching combined sewer outfalls, but just in the past week DC Water finally gave up and promised Mary Cheh they would keep the Georgetown tunnel on track, as required by the current consent decree supervised by the U.S. District Court here in DC. Among other details, this is how WAMU described recent developments:

    “DC Water Recommits To The Potomac Tunnel

    “Earlier this year, DC Water officials backed away from the plan to reopen the consent decree.

    “According to people familiar with the decision, part of it was made after DC Water realized the timeline was too tight to get EPA approval. It would take at least 18 to 24 months to get approval for any modification to the consent decree and, in the meantime, DC Water would have to be well on its way toward building the Potomac Tunnel in order to remain in compliance with the current consent decree.

    “Maybe even more important than the timeline: There was blowback from local officials, once they got wind of DC Water’s plans.

    “Mary Cheh, who chairs the environment committee on the D.C. Council, wrote a letter to DC Water’s David Gadis on Feb. 6, urging him not to reopen the consent decree. She ended the letter with a threat: If DC Water decided to cancel the Potomac tunnel, she wrote, ‘I would be forced to introduce emergency legislation to prohibit you from doing so.’

    ” ‘It’s not going to get easier to fix,’ Cheh said in an interview. Reopening the consent decree, she said, would be ‘kicking the can down the road,” and shifting the burden to future generations. “It may even make the problem worse. The sooner we fix it, the less harm will accrue.’

    “Cheh received a reply from Gadis on Feb. 11.

    ” ‘Given the importance of the Clean Rivers Project, I want to assure you that we have no plans to deviate in any way from the terms of our existing consent decree,’ Gadis wrote.”

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