D.C.’s Flush Problem: Raw Sewage in the Anacostia

WASHINGTON - Every time a federal worker flushes a toilet in the District, what's flushed has the potential to end up in the Anacostia River, especially if it's raining heavily.

That may sound extreme, but it's a fact.

Last year 1.4 billion gallons of raw sewage ended up in the Anacostia River, according to the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority. More than 70 times during the year sewage overflowed into the river.

Some 740 million gallons of sewage flowed into the Anacostia between Jan. 1, 2005 and June 24, 2005.

The numbers are even more dramatic when you factor in the Potomac River, Rock Creek and the tributaries of all three. According to 2004 WASA data, 2.4 billion gallons of raw sewage flowed into those waterways.

Raw sewage is sewage that has not been processed at D.C.’s Blue Plains Treatment Plant, the largest advanced wastewater treatment plant in the nation.

While the treatment plant uses advanced technologies to treat waste, the problems with sewage occur on the way to plant.

OLD INFRASTRUCTURE

“Basically, we've got a very old infrastructure throughout the watershed,” says Edward Graham, director of water resources for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. “It's some of the oldest development in the metropolitan area. We're paying the price for problems that were introduced decades, maybe even a century ago.”

About one-third of the District, including the Capitol and most federal government buildings, is served by a combined sewer system built at the end of the 19th century. A combined sewer system takes sanitary sewage and storm water to the treatment plant through one piping system. The rest of the city has separate systems – one for sewage from homes and businesses and another for storm water. See graphics about how each system works in the photo gallery.

It takes 0.5 inches of rain to cause overflows at 11 of 16 outfalls. When it rains really hard, sewage gushes into the Anacostia River at these locations.

So how often does D.C. see more than 0.5 inches of rain?

This year -- up through June 26, 2005 -- it's rained at least that much on nine days.

Through June 26, 2005, the District has received 20.11 inches of rain, compared with 17.14 inches for the same time frame in 2004.

Along the Maryland portion of the Anacostia watershed, there are no problems with combined sewer overflows. Instead, Robert Boone, director of the Anacostia Watershed Society, says there are leaky sewer pipes.

“They have a lot of leaking sewer pipes because so much runoff has eroded the soil around the sewer pipes,” Boone says. “These pipes aren't designed to be exposed, so they're cracking and breaking and leaking into the streams.”

HEALTH RISKS OF RAW SEWAGE

D.C.’s problem with human sewage is not unique.

In a report to Congress last summer, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated the volume of combined sewer overflows nationwide to be 850 billion gallons a year and the volume of sanitary sewer overflows to be 3 billion to 5 billion a year. D.C. and 31 states have 9,348 outfalls for combined sewer overflows. Most of those systems are in Northeast and Great Lakes.

According to the report: "Microbial pathogens and toxics can be present in CSOs (combined sewer overflows) and SSOs (sanitary sewer overflows) at levels that pose risks to human health. Human health impacts occur when people become ill due to contact with water or ingestion of water or shellfish that have been contaminated by CSO or SSO discharges. In addition, CSSs (combined sewer systems) and SSSs (sanitary sewer systems) can back up into buildings, including private residences. These discharges provide a direct pathway for human contact with untreated wastewater.”

While the EPA has limited data on how many people get sick nationwide, the watchdog group American Rivers estimates that 3.5 million Americans get sick every year after coming in contact with contaminated waters.

"Not only is it disgusting and it's stinky and smelly, it's a serious public health because with that raw sewage comes all kinds of bacteria and dangerous pathogens which can cause serious illness,” says Jim Connolly, executive director of the Anacostia Watershed Society.

A tip out of a canoe or kayak and the gulp of water a child takes once he's in the water could be enough to make him sick, says Doug Siglin, director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Anacostia River Initiative.

For people with impaired immune systems, contact with contaminated sewage can be deadly.

“If people aren't aware of the impact, it could seriously impair their health -- and that's just wrong,” Connolly says. “It's as if our rivers are held hostage by the sewage. We need to stop this problem so we can reclaim the use and enjoyment of these resources.”

On its Web site, WASA advises the public to stay away from any sewer pipe discharge, and says when it rains more than 1 inch, “the effects of CSO on water quality can last up to three days.”

Swimming in the Anacostia in D.C. is off-limits. There also are advisories about what fish not to eat out of the river. The latest advisories have been in effect since 1995.

WHAT’S BEING DONE?

The problem isn’t going unnoticed by public officials.

“WASA is actually working hard right now on addressing the problem,” says Connolly.

By 2008, WASA has a plan to reduce by 40 percent the combined sewer overflows in the Anacostia.

And Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., has introduced federal legislation aimed at fixing the Anacostia’s storm water overflow problems. She’s seeking $150 million to help improve D.C.’s outdates sewer system.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., says the Anacostia has received roughly $30 million for improvements over the last 10 years. Congress recently appropriated $400,000 for an assessment plan for the Anacostia.

Nationwide, the EPA estimates capital replacements at sewer and wastewater treatments would cost between $331 million and $450 billion – about $17 to 23 billion per year for the next 20 years.

"If you really wanted it to instantly go and upgrade everything and get our infrastructure in order, you're going to spend $20 billion,” says Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. “We're not even providing $1 billion per year amongst the 50 states.”

Federal funding for any Anacostia-related project has come in drips and drabs to the city. Yet, other cities have received federal funds to completely fix their combined sewer overflow problems, Norton says.

WASA has developed a long-term strategy to reduce 98 percent of the city’s combined sewer overflows, but that plan faces serious funding problems, officials say.

That plan, Connolly says, calls for building underground tunnels the size that Metro uses for the subway. During times when there is too much sewage coming into WASA's pipes, those tunnels would receive the sewage overflows – instead of the river. After the pipes clear out, the waste would be pumped back to the Blue Plains Treatment Plant.

D.C. Mayor Tony Williams says it would cost between $1 billion and $1.5 billion to fix the city's sewage problems.

“Rate payers cannot do it by themselves,” Norton says. “Other parts of the country have gotten hundreds of millions of dollars, even though the federal government hasn't had any role in polluting their rivers or in their storm water overflow."

"Remember this was built by the Corps of Engineers," Norton says of the system designed to send raw sewage into the Anacostia during heavy rains. "Much of the pollution comes from federal facilities, and indeed from the Congress itself. Congress ought to have a role in cleaning it up.”

The D.C. Watershed Society and the mayor agree with Norton that the feds aren’t paying their fair share for all the flushing they do. The General Services Administration does not have an exact count of how many toilets are located in federal buildings, but federal facilities occupy 40 million square feet of real estate in the District.

“The federal government played a leadership role in creating the mess that is the Anacostia, and they're going to have to play a leadership role in helping us fund our way out of it,” says Williams.

Hoyer agrees with the mayor that the investment needs to be made.

“We can't accept the fact the financial hurdles are too great, because the financial hurdles of cleaning it up are not, frankly, as great as the pollution and its adverse impacts downstream and into the Chesapeake Bay, in terms of the destruction of shellfish, finfish and recreational activities,” Hoyer says.

“In the long run, no one is going to be next to a river that's as polluted as the Anacostia,” Williams says.

WTOP Reporter Darci Marchese and interns Emily Miletello, Erin Reilly and Patricia Xavier contributed to this story.

(Copyright 2005 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)