DCist: "DC Water approves contract to build 1st Street Tunnel in Bloomingdale"

Okay, here is the DCist post on the DC Water 1st Street Tunnel contract award announcement:

DC Water Approves Contract To Build First Street Tunnel In Bloomingdale

Photo by heather.dyan

Remember last summer, when intense rainstorms left the Bloomingdale and LeDroit Park areas in need of Noah's Ark? Well, yesterday, the DC Water Board of Directors announce that they've approved a contract to begin construction on a First Street Tunnel.
According to a press release, the proposed tunnel, which will run under First Street from Channing Street to Rhode Island Avenue NW, is a "key medium-term measure to address localized flooding in the Northeast Boundary neighborhoods including Bloomingdale and LeDroit Park." The idea for the tunnel came from a recommendation by the Task Force on the Prevention of Flooding in Bloomingdale and LeDroit Park, which was created by Mayor Gray last year, after the series of floods plagued the area.
DC Water has hired Skanska/Jay Dee Joint Venture to construct the 19-foot-diameter tunnel, which will cost an estimated $157 million for the design and construction. The release states that the project will be completed in 2016.

Slated for completion in 2016, the tunnel will store eight million gallons of stormwater, capturing it before it can make its way to the combined sewer system. The stormwater will be stored in the tunnel during rainstorms and pumped into the sewer system once the storms subside. This should help alleviate some of the sewer backups and overland flooding experienced in the low-lying neighborhoods; however, relief during the more severe storms will come in the final phases of the DC Water Clean Rivers Project.

"This is a significant component to the medium-term relief from flooding in these neighborhoods," said Chairman of the DC Water Board of Directors and Co-chair of the Mayor’s Task Force, Allen Lew. DC Water General Manager and task force co-chair George S. Hawkins elaborated further, saying that "It is imperative that we quickly initiate the second step in our three-step infrastructure plan to mitigate localized flooding."