I wanted to follow up on the comments under the Intowner article post regarding the removal of tree boxes to widen 1st St north of Rhode Island. This work is not related to any part of the proposed VMP plan for the McMillan Sand Filtration Center. Any removal of tree boxes and widening of 1st St north of Rhode Island is work related to the 1st St Tunnel project by DC Water as posted in a previous article, “DC Water: removal of treeboxes and safety of traffic on 1st Street NW”.
No construction work has begun by the VMP team as our plans are still in front of the Zoning Commission.
There is a DC Water Monthly meeting listed in your article for May 29th, but DC Water has confirmed with us that there is no official meeting scheduled for this evening at St. George's Episcopal Church at 2nd and U St NW.
Thank you for clarifying these details for us.
3 comments:
The water project is specifically to allow gross poor, criminal zoning to go ahead, Smart Growth My Ass, VMP , AFRH, CUA and thousands of new units the Real Estate investors want to build on our parks and green-space. The Water project is not to stop flooding in Bloomingdale, it is for VMP,,,If it was to help Bloomingdale it would have been done many years ago.. Or perhaps DC Water would have done a good job upgrading the sewers like a competent agency, rather than let the crisis fester for decades. VMP you are MONSTER!
Daniel is spot on about the the 1st St Tunnel project. It was rammed through for the future development of McMillan and the southeast corner of the Old Soldiers Home. Without the plans for the tunnel, they would of never been able to build McMillan. Grey, Lew and Hawkins used Bloomingdale's flooding as an opportunity to ram through an invasive, risky infrastructure project that will allow them to develop all of the land north of Bloomingdale. Sure we needed to update the infrastructure, but did we really need to rush a $152M tunnel project? No.
Look at the data for the last two recent rainfalls. No flooding in Bloomingdale while other parts of DC flooded. While the storms were not as strong as the 2012 storms, they still put down a lot of rain. Utilizing the McMillan cell, the GI on RI and Irving, the work on RI Ave, and all of the work cleaning out the pipes in 2012 seemed to alleviate the stormwater problem.
I don't agree very much with FOM and especially their tactics. Is the VMP design perfect? No. And would like more park space? Absolutely. Is VMP a monster? Ummm? What? But I am glad to see that FOM finally realizes that they should have opposed the 1st St Tunnel. Too bad it is too late.
I have to agree with these comments. My opinion….The floods of 2012 forced the clearing of the pipes, which has alleviated the problem. The initial downpour that summer completely obstructed the unmitigated debris build-up of decades inside the 1st street tunnel and the subsequent rains had no where to go. Once the pipe clearing was complete, I heard, for the first time ever, running water beneath the manholes on my unit block of W running toward 1st St. And I still hear it every day, rain or shine. It was never about an insufficient infrastructure…those pipe probably hadn't been cleared and maintained in decades. It seems so obvious.
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