DC Sewage Spill Blamed on Years-Long Review Delay

Massive DC Sewage Spill Caused by Environmental Review That Dragged on for Years

Massive DC sewage spill caused by years-long environmental review delaying critical pipeline repairs.

hotair.com

By John Sexton

You probably remember the story of this massive sewage spill which happened near Washington, D.C. in January. The spill sent millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River.

On the evening of Jan. 19, D.C. Water officials — through security cameras at one of their nearby facilities — discovered the collapse of part of a large pipeline, known as the Potomac Interceptor, along the Clara Barton Parkway near the Capital Beltway in Maryland.

The interceptor is a 54-mile sewer line that is roughly 60 years old and carries up to 60 million gallons of wastewater daily from Virginia’s Loudoun and Fairfax counties and areas near Washington Dulles International Airport, Vienna, Herndon and Montgomery County, Maryland, to the Blue Plains wastewater plant in D.C. for treatment.

The break caused an estimated 40 million gallons of untreated sewage a day initially to spill into the Potomac River — an amount D.C. Water called a “significant overflow.”…