Could McMillan’s subterranean filtration cells again hold water? (Claire Bedat - ASLA)
Residents of the
Bloomingdale and LeDroit Park neighborhoods took their complaints about frequent flooding to the
D.C. Council on Tuesday. Denizens of those low-lying neighborhoods renewed their
pleas for relief more effective than backflow preventers and rain barrels but more immediate
than the 10- to 15-year project to dig a massive underground storage
tunnel.
But there was a novel
medium-term solution discussed that could help alleviate drainage issues that
led to three major flooding incidents over 10 days
in July.
D.C. Water General Manager
George S. Hawkins said his agency is exploring whether the historic McMillan Sand Filtration Site north of
Bloomingdale could be used as a place to store storm runoff during major storms,
easing the aging and overloaded sewers downhill.
Storing water at McMillan, which hasn’t filtered water since 1985, would be
unlikely to prevent all flooding, Hawkins said. But in combination with other
efforts, such as installing a “relief sewer” or transferring some flow to other
“trunk” sewers, he said, “we’ll be able to get a dent.”D.C. Water spokesman Alan Heymann said Wednesday that engineers are exploring whether the subterranean sand filtration facility is structurally sound enough for the job and whether it could hold the millions of gallons of storm runoff necessary to provide meaningful relief to the downhill neighborhoods.
The concept is that, during major storms, storm sewers upstream from Bloomingdale would dump runoff into McMillan’s filtration cells, where it would stay until the weather passes. Once downstream sewers were less taxed, the runoff would then be pumped though to be processed at Blue Plains.
Without endorsing the McMillan idea specifically, City Administrator Allen Y. Lew said Tuesday he would work up a medium-term relief plan within 30 days, with an eye toward implementing it in about a year. Hawkins indicated money shouldn’t be a problem: “I am confident that the financing element will not be as much a challenge as some of the other elements will be,” he said.
The McMillan-as-stormwater-impound idea has won fans among some area residents. Russell Kinner, who testified at the hearing, suggested that it would be using the site for “its original industrial purpose.” That is: “Keep it more or less the way it is, and store water there during storms.”
But keeping it more or less the
way it is could mean tossing aside, or at least modifying or delaying, grand redevelopment plans for the site.
If D.C. Water and city officials decide they need to use McMillan’s
underground filtration cells until the planned storage tunnel is complete in
2025, that stands to affect how redevelopment will proceed — perhaps it could be
done in phases, or perhaps it would have to wait until the tunnel is fully in
service. Jose Sousa, a spokesman for the city economic development
office, said only that there have been “conversations” about using the McMillan
site for stormwater impoundment.D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie (D-Ward 5), who has both been intimately involved in the McMillan planning and has been crusading for storm-ravaged residents, said it’s “a little too early to get residents’ hopes up” about McMillan. But he said his first priority would be using the site for flood relief: “Given the devastation that the residents have experienced, the costs and the toll that been taken, then all options should be on the table.”
But McDuffie said he hasn’t given up on development, either. “The question I will have is, can we do both?” he said. “I haven’t heard that the two are mutually exclusive at this point.”
By | 03:15 PM ET,
09/26/2012
2 comments:
I am pleased that people are connecting the dots and realizing that the flooding rain water can be pumped up the hill to the Macmillan plant, which, after all, is a water filtration plant. In fact, DC WATER George Hawkins expressed that possibility during an August neighborhood meeting. The key now is to keep pushing for this interim measure. We've got the momentum to make it happen.
The possibility of using some portion of the McMillan Site, designed to handle millions of gallons of water for filtration (but unused since 1986) is the single most creative use of the site proposed by the city in a long time and it would mirror the miracle of its original design: industrial water use hidden below ground, park above ground. While I fully understand DC Water's Hawkins' concerns that it might only address part of the problem, easily most of the water flowing into the Northeast Branch Sewer during storms is creek (Tiber Creek which has several branches running through this area) and the stormsewer water, and I think may be a much larger solution to the problem than Mr. Hawkins initially suggested, depending on exactly where he pumps water from. I have wondered for years why the Tiber Creek water, funneled into the sewer system in the 19th century to get it off the surface, isn't daylighted and at very least run into the McMillan Reservoir -- pre-treatment side of the reservoir. I believe it would be found that Tiber Creek water is at least as clean if not cleaner than Potomac RIver water from the Chain Bridge area, as it originates in underground streams at the top of the Catholic University and Soldiers' Home hill, which has never been industrial and has not been the site of septic tanks in my lifetime. -Kirby Vining.
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