Leaders around the Washington area are worried that the region’s crumbling water and sewer pipes will flush away their ambitious development plans.
“We’ve not been making those investments for the last 20 years,” said Rich Parsons, former president of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce who now consults for developers. “And there’s going to be a price for that until we have the political will to step up and fund the infrastructure that we have to.”
From Montgomery to Prince William counties, residents are relying on water and sewer pipes that are many decades old. Some predate the Civil War.
The age is already telling: Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, for instance, saw nearly 2,000 water main breaks or leaks in fiscal 2009 — including 611 breaks in January 2009, a one-month record — Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission spokeswoman Lyn Riggins said in an e-mail.
About half of the system’s pipes will be out of date by 2025, Riggins said.
Developers usually foot the bills for new water and sewer pipes in new developments, passing the price along to homeowners or office renters, Parsons said.
The Washington region is in the midst of its most ambitious development programs in decades, with major new projects having started or being considered in Gaithersburg, White Flint, Tysons Corner and the massive base realignments in Bethesda, Fort Meade and Northern Virginia. But new offices or housing developments put extra pressure on the already struggling systems. And newly paved surfaces keep rain from soaking into the grass, which means they flood local sewers.
When the sewer system fills up, raw sewage is dumped into area rivers. That means it gets into the drinking water, and water authorities have to work harder, experts say.
“You move very quickly to Third World conditions when you don’t have good water and sewer systems,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
Experts agree that something must be done — quickly. The question is, who will pay for it — taxpayers or customers? The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority and the WSSC are seeking steep rate increases for next year.
“The infrastructure is in pretty sorry shape,” D.C. WASA chief engineer Leonard Benson said.
At the rate WASA is replacing old pipes in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, the oldest pipe in the system will be 276 years old before it’s finished, Benson said.
Flushed away? The D.C. region’s aging water and sewer pipes, by agency:
» Baltimore City: Average age, 100 years
» Virginia American Water: Average age, 80 years
» D.C. Water and Sewer Authority: Average age, 74 years
» Arlington County Water, Sewer and Streets Bureau: Average age, 65 years
» Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission: 23 percent of pipes are 50 years or older
» Fairfax County (Drinking) Water Authority: Average age, 30 years
