The Kojo Show.

George joined guest host Paul Brown of NPR to discuss the District's hidden infrastructure on WAMU-FM's The Kojo Nnamdi Show.

• Shaping the City: (Re)Building Sustainable Infrastructure (WAMU-FM, 01/19/2012)

Radio Interview on Infrastructure

• General Manager Hawkins on Infrastructure (WPFW-FM, 01/04/2012)

Front Page News

Happy New Year! You may have seen yesterday's Washington Post article, “Billions needed to upgrade America’s leaky water infrastructure” on the front page of the paper. Reporter Ashley Halsey used a recent, complicated sewer repair in Adams Morgan to illustrate the challenges DC Water and other utilities face in maintaining aging systems.

This media attention is welcome and overdue. As one of my colleagues recently told a United States Senate committee, water and sewer infrastructure are underfunded by more than $600 billion nationwide. This is how much it would cost to keep pipes from breaking and to ensure quality service in the years to come.

The online version of the Post story drew hundreds of comments, many posing the legitimate policy question of how large a role the federal government should play in infrastructure funding. A number of commenters suggested the cities, or the end users, should pay the bill for needed upgrades.

I disagree. The federal government installed water and sewer systems in many cities, not just the District, and for years invested large sums in their upkeep. The infrastructure we maintain and operate is every bit as important as the roads, rails and bridges that are included in federal appropriations every year and were a major part of the recent stimulus package.

Roads, rails and bridges matter because they provide jobs and support society. Yet we can have no jobs – or society – without reliable, reasonably priced clean water. In an era of deficit spending and continued military involvement overseas, it’s easy to argue that we can’t afford to spend more on pipes. But I would argue that we can’t afford not to do so.

With increased federal spending on water infrastructure, we have the chance to ensure clean water for the next generations and put people to work today. Now is the time.

Front Page News

The Washington Post's Ashley Halsey covers aging water and sewer infrastructure on the front page of today's paper. This is a national problem with a bill that has come due. We have the chance to ensure a clean water future and put people to work. Now is the time!

• Billions needed to upgrade America's leaky water infrastructure (Washington Post, 01/03/2012)

Clean Rivers Groundbreaking.

DC Water broke ground this week on the Clean Rivers Project, a 20-year, $2.6 billion project to reduce combined-sewer overflows in the District by 96 percent. Senator Benjamin Cardin, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Mayor Vincent Gray and others joined the ceremony.
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• To clean the rivers, tunnels aren't the only solution (Washington Post, 10/13/2011)
• D.C. Officials: Sewage Project Will Raise Rates, Bring Jobs (WAMU-FM, 10/13/2011)
• D.C. Breaks Ground On $2.6 Billion Sewage Tunnel (WAMU-FM, 10/12/2011) 
• The Biggest Infrastructure Project You've Probably Never Heard Of (Huffington Post, 10/12/2011) 
• D.C. Water Breaks Ground on Massive Tunnel Project (DCist, 10/12/2011)
• DC Water Press Release

Environmental Leadership Award

Recently, I was pleased to accept the 2011 Environmental Leadership Award from the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. I’m personally honored, having run watershed organizations in the past and being very familiar with the Alliance’s great work. Moreover, I am well aware that no personal honor can come except when many people have worked together to a common goal.  I have been blessed to work side by side with some wonderful and talented people throughout my career - and share any honor I receive with them.

But to me, the award has another and perhaps a more significant meaning. It means the proper recognition of the work my 1,100-strong team does as environmental stewardship.

For years, environmentalists and regulators viewed wastewater treatment plants, such as the one I operate, as “polluters.” It is easy to attack what’s easy to see, and the world’s largest advanced wastewater treatment plant is indeed the Chesapeake Bay’s largest point source. However, Blue Plains and similar facilities aren’t producing pollution at all, as a plant that makes cars or cameras would. Instead, we take what the water that society has used in their bathrooms, kitchens, washing machines, car washes and everything else, and cleanse it out their behalf, ultimately recycling water back into the environmental while preventing the pollutants we remove from contaminating the receiving water body.  We are the original recycling operation and do more to green any place we exist than any other single enterprise.  But we are no more a polluter than everyone and anyone who discharges to us -- which is everyone who lives, works and visit the Washington DC region!

This change in perspective is most welcome. Environmental advocates and those of us in the water and wastewater business can be powerful allies on the next significant pollution-control front: nonpoint sources. Blue Plains could reduce its nitrogen and phosphorus outputs to zero, and the health of the Chesapeake Bay would still be impaired from farm field and parking lot runoff.  The costs of doing are not even calculable at the present time.  Yet we know the more significant sources are no longer our wastewater treatment, I mean water reclamation, plants.

Meanwhile, the costs of that reduction would be hard to contemplate. The existing regulatory and legal framework governing DC Water means my customers are already facing $100 monthly water and sewer bills by the end of this decade. Reducing nutrients from 15 milligrams per liter to 5 milligrams per liter cost us $100 million.  Going from 5 to 4 milligrams per liter costs almost $1 billion dollars.  That is ten times the cost for one tenth the protection.  There are much cheaper and more equitable ways to reduce pollutants -- which will also enable us to achieve the next level of protection.  So I believe it’s time for a wholesale re-examination of clean water issues – including who should be responsible for paying for what and when.

I welcome our customers, as well as our friends at the Alliance, into that conversation.

Hurricane Irene

Today, George took part in Mayor Gray's briefing about hurricane preparedness in anticipation of Irene's arrival this weekend.

• D.C. area readies for Hurricane Irene recovery efforts (DC Examiner, 08/27/2011)
• D.C.'s "Most Unusual Week" Continues (WRC-TV, 08/26/2011)
• Gray says D.C. is 'as ready as we can be' for Irene (Washington Times, 08/26/2011)
• State-by-state developments related to Hurricane Irene (CNN.com, 08/26/2011)
• D.C. Water Urges Residents to Report Drain Problems, Stock Up on Water (WAMU-FM, 08/26/2011)