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

DC Water beginning Brandywine Street project in May

by Marlene Berlin

In May, DC Water will begin replacing the water main and hook ups on Brandywine Street between Connecticut Avenue and 31st Street, and along 31st between Brandywine and Gates Road.

This is part of a city-wide program. DC Water is replacing 12-inch and smaller cast iron water mains throughout the system, with the end goal of improving water quality and pressure.

This project will require tearing up Brandywine Street, which, for a time was considered as a detour for Beach Drive’s second phase of rehabilitation beginning in August. Concerned about the overlap between this and the water main projects, ANC 3F asked DDOT and the National Park Service to route Beach Drive detour traffic to Military Road instead. Those agencies have agreed to do so.

Although the DC Water information sheet states the Brandywine Street project will last through July 2018, John Hamilton of Fort Myer Construction, the contractor for this project, told me on the phone that the project will more likelytake eight to nine months.

This is how the project will be staged and impact the roadway on Brandywine Street:

First Phase: Putting in the new main while keeping the old main running (4 to 5 months)

  • Workers will dig up to 200 feet a day and install each section of new main as they go.
  • A temporary patch will be placed in the roadway at the end of each day.
  • The south lane of this section will be closed during normal business hours.
  • Access to water should not be impacted during this time

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    Second phase: Testing and hooking up the new main (no new road work)

  • Testing the new main while the old main is still operating separately should take 2 to 3 days with additional time required to get the test results back.
  • Hook the new main into old main at one end, which will take 8 hours.

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    Third phase: Reconnecting houses and apartment buildings to the new main. (8 weeks)

  • Dig up roadway again at each residence/apartment building and hook them up to the new main. Residents will have 48-hour notice of water service disruption.
  • Replace pipes from main to property line with copper pipes.
  • Disconnect the old water main.
  • Repave the roadway.

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    Comments

    1. ANC 3-F and the property owners should individually and jointly demand that DC WASA remove and REPLACE ALL LEAD PIPES that may exist on any of the affected properties between the main and the residential structures. Such pipes are known as “lead supply lines” and “partial lead supply lines.”

      The lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan, and many other parts of the country, is caused in part by Lead Supply Lines (LSLs) and Partial Lead Supply Lines (PLSLs). The Washington Post has reported extensively on this issue.

      Our housing stock in this part of Ward 3 is relatively newer than in many other Wards but there is no guarantee that LSLs and PLSLs have been removed completely. It is NOT ENOUGH for DC WASA to “Replace pipes from main to property line with copper pipes,” as stated in the second bullet point of Phase 3 of the construction plan, above. Allowing any lead to remain in any water supply lines will ensure that the residents in those structures will eventually suffer lead poisoning.

      Allocation of cost is a separate issue. Public health requires DC WASA to GET THE LEAD OUT.

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