DC Water has announced a second source and outlined plans to make the region’s water supply more resilient.
Nine years after WTOP reported D.C. only has a one or two-day supply of drinking water if the Potomac River became unavailable, DC Water has announced a second source and outlined plans to make the region’s water supply more resilient.
The second source is recycled water from the utility’s Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, the largest of its kind in the world.
David Gadis, CEO and general manager of DC Water, in unveiling the Pure Water DC initiative to a room full of stakeholders, said any disruption of the Potomac River would result in a national security emergency and cause a massive economic impact to the region.
“D.C.’s particular situation requires both storage and a second source,” said Rabia Chaudhry, the utility’s director of Water Supply Resilience.
Until now, the Potomac River has been the sole source for water processed at the Washington Aqueduct, which is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Over the past 9 years, the Travilah Quarry in Rockville, Maryland, which yielded crushed stone to build the Intercounty Connector and widen Interstate 270, has been considered as part of the solution.
“The quarry is a really great long-term storage solution, but it’s not in the near future,” Chaudhry said. “Right now, the understanding is it might be 30 years into the future.”
However, Gadis, Chaudhry and others said the need to harden the area’s water supply can’t wait.
“We are advancing a second source through water recycling — that’s an opportunity that can come online, maybe within the next decade or so,” Chaudhry said. “Water recycling is an opportunity that’s being used around the world, in the Western U.S. — California, Texas, Utah and Colorado — to make communities drought-resistant.”
The wastewater that will be recycled currently flows to the Blue Plains facility.
“It uses water that’s already been collected at sewage treatment plants, treats them to near-distilled-quality levels, and then allows that water to be mixed in with drinking water sources,” Chaudhry said.
One challenge of the project is demonstrating to the public that recycled water is safe to drink.
“There’s a name for the idea — it’s called ‘the yuck factor,’” Chaudhry said, citing a common initial response to the idea of purifying wastewater for drinking. “There’s a known process, on how you engage with the public to overcome the ‘yuck factor.’”
With $21 million of seed-funding approved by DC Water’s Board of Directors, ground is expected to be broken early next year for the Pure Water DC Discovery Center on the grounds of Blue Plains.
The facility will be used to pilot technologies to create purified drinking water, conduct research and communicate with regulators, and provide a chance for the public to see and learn about the process up close.
Even without taking the purification to the next level, Chaudhry said many would be surprised by the quality of wastewater that is currently processed at Blue Plains.
“Blue Plains water, when it’s discharged into the Potomac River, is cleaner than the receiving water,” she said. “You can see it in the satellite imagery.”
The receiving water is processed upriver at the Aqueduct located on MacArthur Boulevard.
In fact, Chaudhry said about 5% of the Potomac River water which reaches the Aqueduct’s intakes to begin the purification process for customers in the District and Arlington, comes from upstream wastewater facilities.
“We’re all downstream of somebody,” she said.
DC Water plans to provide its water reuse feasibility findings to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is in the midst of a three-year study funded through Congress to bolster the region’s water supply.
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