In a little-noticed defeat for District home rule, Congress passed a bill on Monday rejecting the District’s attempts to assert more control over the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority. Both houses approved the measure by unanimous consent. The bill awaits President George W. Bush’s signature.

“I’ve been on the council 10 years, and I know of no other example that is more blatant of both houses of Congress dismissing the people of the District of Columbia,” said Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham, whose public works and environment committee has oversight of WASA.

LL has pretty much been the only reporter in town following this District-suburban squabble, which has roots going back years, to when then-Mayor Marion Barry raided the WASA budget when it was part of District government to make ends meet citywide. In the aftermath, WASA because a quasi-independent authority, governed by a board that includes members from suburban jurisdictions. (WASA provides water service to the District only, but it does treat sewage from the suburbs.) In recent months, attempts by Graham, with the support of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, to bring the agency under closer District control have generated suburban ire and threats of congressional intervention. (For more background, check out LL’s column on the matter from earlier this year.)

The bill, sponsored by Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen and co-sponsored by Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, has two parts: One makes it perfectly clear that financial oversight of WASA lies with its interjurisdictional board, rather than with the District’s chief financial officer, as Graham and Fenty have asserted. The other part strips out a D.C.-resident hiring preference for the agency (which employs mostly Marylanders) set out in a bill pushed by At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz last fall.

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If you were already wondering what organ to sell to afford next month’s bills, get this: The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority is proposing a spike in water and sewage rates to start by the end of the summer. If the proposal goes through, all D.C. residents are expected to see an almost 8-percent jump, averaging a $60 more per year (based on an average monthly usage of 6,231 gallons of water).

WASA officials have been toying with the idea of the rate increase since late last year and have been making the rounds at the ANC meetings. The next step starts tonight 6:30 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library, the first site in a series of public meetings.

An 8-perccent increase for Prince George’s and Montgomery counties has already passed and will go into effecty by July 1, raising the average customer’s quarterly bill by $11.25.

WASA chief financial officer, Olu Adebo, says many D.C. residents have seemed receptive to the idea of a higher water bill once they find out the reasons, but not all residents are jumping to the idea. “Keeping D.C. water clean is going to be expensive no matter what.”

If you can’t make it to the MLK tonight, you’ll have other chances to sound off:

TUESDAY, MAY 20 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Washington Center for the Aging
2601 18th St., NE

TUESDAY, MAY 27 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Cleveland Park Library
3310 Connecticut Ave., NW

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Southwest Neighborhood Library
900 Wesley Place, SW

THURSDAY, MAY 29 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Anacostia Senior High School Auditorium
1601 16th St., SE

WASA’s also hosting public hearings Wednesday, June 11, 6:30-8:30 p.m., and Monday, June 23, 10 a.m.-noon at Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, 777 North Capitol Street, NE (within walking distance of Union Station).

—Whitney Boyd

(photograph by unReelfx)

Back in February, LL detailed a horribly complicated but tremendously juicy jurisdictional squabble over the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority. Long story short: The suburbs, which hold five of 11 seats on the WASA board, were pissed that District had asserted control over the agency’s finances and passed a law granting hiring preferences to District residents. To settle things, suburban congressional interests had nearly tacked a rider onto a federal appropriations bill late last year.

The meddling isn’t over.

Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen introduced a bill last week that inserts language into the Home Rule Act that explicitly takes WASA out from under the CFO’s oversight. It’s the sort of bigfooting that the District hates, and usually the District’s congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, finds a way to make these things go away.

Not this time, though: Norton isn’t going to be on the District’s side. Yesterday, in a congressional hearing, Norton revealed she had sent a pair of letters to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray urging them to ease their hard line on WASA governance, citing her efforts to balance jurisdictional interests when the agency was established back in the mid-1990s.

“I write now to alert you that congressional action is imminent if recent Council bills remain in effect,” Norton wrote on March 14. “In the interest of maintaining WASA as a D.C. agency, I urge you to take the necessary steps that have allowed the Council to have continuing oversight of WASA as a D.C. agency.”

Outside the hearing yesterday, City Administrator Dan Tangherlini, also a member of the WASA board, said he still holds out hope that the dispute can be resolved without congressional intervention. “The [Van Hollen] approach is different than one we’d advocate,” he said. “We’d prefer that changes come through the D.C. Council rather than Congress.” Such changes to the Home Rule charter, he says, are not uncommon—the council, for instance, did so when authorizing the mayoral schools takeover.

Van Hollen told LL he doesn’t see that solving anything: “What we’re all looking for is clarity. The only way you can clarify federal law is through congressional action.”

As for overturning the District-resident job preferences, Tangherlini says, “That’s something we’re going to talk to the council about.” The draft fiscal 2009 Budget Support Act submitted to the council last month includes a provision to exempt WASA from any job preferences.

At the hearing yesterday, Van Hollen said, “We need to put the conflicts regarding governance behind us.” Republican committee members Tom Davis (Va.) and Kenny Marchant (Texas) submitted statements in support of Van Hollen’s bill; suburban reps—including Fairfax County Executive Tony Griffin; Timothy Firestine, Montgomery County’s chief administrative officer; and Jacqueline F. Brown, Prince George’s County’s chief administrative officer—also spoke in support of it.

For her part, Norton didn’t question the suburban board members about the governance dispute during the hearing. Afterward, she told LL that congressional intervention is permissible in this instance because WASA is not a “true home rule agency.” Rather, she said, it’s more akin to an interjurisdictional entity like the Metro board. “The only difference,” she said, “is that this was once a D.C. agency.”

And, Norton says, her stand on Van Hollen’s bill doesn’t reflect any attenuation of her usual fieriness. “If it’s a home rule issue,” she says, “I may go down, but I’ll go down fighting.”

This doesn’t sound good.

WASA just put out a press release about a possible rupture in a 60-inch sewer line underneath the Anacostia River. The pipe runs from the O Street pumping station on the west bank of the river (near the baseball stadium) down to the Blue Plains treatment plant in the city’s southern corner.

Press release after jump.

UPDATE, 8:12 P.M.: Latest from a WASA release:

The leaking pipeline is one of three that cross the river carrying sewage from WASA’s Main Pumping Station on O Street S.E. to the Blue Plains wastewater treatment plant. The problem was discovered around 2 p.m. Monday by workers who were drilling in the area to stabilize a 40-foot stretch of seawall along the Anacostia waterfront near the Southeast Federal Center.

Tonight, divers will determine the exact nature of the problem. Until repairs can be made, WASA is protecting the river with the installation of a bypass pipeline that will divert the sewage flow to an adjacent pipe.

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Two D.C. firefighters were injured when the roof collapsed in a raging fire at 2627 Adams Mill Road, a condo building that was almost certainly destroyed this morning. Things could have gone worse, of course, since no residents were hurt or killed, but things could have decidedly gone better. But don’t worry, folks. Jim Graham is on it.

The councilmember, who lives around the corner at the Ontario, got the call around 2:30 a.m., about an hour after D.C. Fire and EMS got it, and, per his usual, was at the scene shortly thereafter to assess things. By 10 a.m. he was ready to sum up: D.C. has crappy infrastructure. Well, to be fair, he did not say “crappy.” What he said to me this morning was “ancient,” but what he meant is crappy. To fight a four-alarm fire, you need a good amount of water pressure, something the 8- and 12-inch lines running under Adams Morgan can’t really provide. So firefighters were forced to line hose all the way from Connecticut Avenue, where hydrants are hooked into 20-inch lines, across Ellington Bridge, down the length of Calvert Street and around the corner to Adams Mill–some 2,000 feet of hose–which consequently closed all those well-traveled streets, as well as the intersection at 18th and Columbia.

While that was happening, flames powered through the red-tiled roof of the building, which has roughly 30 units, according to Graham. Residents of 2627 Adams Mill and those in the buildings on either side were evacuated; the Red Cross was called in. The two injured firefighters were hit by falling debris and possibly went though roof; at least one, says Graham, had to pass directly through the fire in order to get out. Another one had to climb down two strung-together ladders: The 45-foot one firefighters had on hand wasn’t long enough.

“A four-alarm fire is unusual,” Graham said, “but we have to be prepared for the unusual. This is a warning for us.” Next up: Graham vs. WASA.

Yesterday, the D.C. Fire Fighters Association—the union representing members of the District fire department—announced it was asking the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority to pay the city $900,000 to cover the costs of inspecting more than 10,000 city fire hydrants.

Good idea, but how come it’s the union asking—not, say, fire Chief Dennis Rubin?

Dan Dugan, the union’s president, says he was forced to take the lead on the issue because negotiations between WASA and the department over paying for hydrant inspections had stalled. He doubts that WASA General Manager Jerry N. Johnson is interested in making a deal. “This guy’s all fluff,” Dugan says. “When it comes down to signing the [agreement] to make it all happen, he doesn’t want to sign it.”

Dugan says the dollar amount came from a source with knowledge of the negotiations between WASA and the fire department.

An Aug. 30 closed-door meeting ended without an agreement, but both department spokesperson Alan Etter and WASA spokesperson Michele Quander-Collins say that negotiations are ongoing, with a another meeting likely before the end of the month.

Quander-Collins says Dugan has no basis to make any demands. “He’s not part of the discussions,” she says. “I’m not gonna make him part of the discussions now.”

When I got back to D.C. after a visit to my parents last weekend, I noticed that my shower smelled different. First I thought I was crazy or that I had been spoiled by my parents’ well water. Then, taking a bath last night, I realized the water was more like that of a public pool than a tub. Turns out that as of Saturday, April 7, WASA and the Washington Aqueduct have switched from disinfectant chloramines to chlorine. Tough luck if you are on dialysis, have pet fish, or just hate smelling like pool, but they say the change is only temporary and that things should switch back on May 7.

For now, consider investing in some of this stuff.

In October 2005, the 2800 block of 28th Street in Woodley Park got some crucial utilities upgrades—the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) replaced the block’s lead service lines, and shortly afterward, Washington Gas made some repairs of its own. All this construction left the pavement pockmarked, with a huge gash running along one curb. It was more trench than pothole, threatening to shred tires and making it difficult for parked cars to pull out.

When utility work is done that requires pavement to be torn up, and the D.C. Department of Transportation (DDOT) hasn’t also scheduled a regular repair, the outfit doing the digging must also repair the street. But almost a year after the repairs, neither had happened.

Bill Mankin, who lives on the street, says a DDOT employee told him repairs weren’t coming because the water and gas companies were fighting over who’d pay. “I was told this was done in a very chaotic way,” Mankin says. “We kind of all lived with the chaos.”

Jane Davis, spokesperson for Washington Gas, says her employers didn’t set new asphalt because DDOT had already planned to repair the road. She said that WASA, which didn’t return calls for comment, held off for the same reason.

DDOT spokesperson Erik Linden wouldn’t say why the repaving has taken so long. “We are actively working to have the road repaved right away and will keep the community posted on when that occurs,” he says in an e-mail.

As of Monday, DDOT is finally paving the block. Workers are busy destroying old pavement, dispensing workmen, rolling things flat. Says Jane Jones, a longtime resident of the block, as she stands on her steps, drinking a cola: “Our homes have been reassessed into the stratosphere. Having the streets so crummy adds insult to injury.”

Nearly 100 city fire hydrants were out of service as recently as Aug. 23, according to D.C. Water and Sewer Authority records. That represents more than 1 percent of the 8,700 city-owned hydrants.

One of them was involved in a fire two weeks ago in Stanton Park. On the afternoon of Aug. 12, firefighters responded to an electrical blaze on the 1300 block of Emerald Street NE. According to witnesses, when firefighters tried to tap the nearest fire hydrant, located just a few doors down, nothing came out. A second company of firefighters ran down the block, across 13th Street, and connected the hose to another hydrant about 600 feet away.

That the only mid-block fire hydrant on the street didn’t work came as no surprise to residents. Of the five hydrants in the vicinity, Lacey Bigelow, a resident since 1971, says he knew of only one that worked. “We used to joke that if there’s a fire, it’s gonna be hell,” he says.

The hydrant misstep didn’t prevent firefighters from successfully extinguishing the fire. Once the scene had calmed down, another neighbor asked a fire technician to test the hydrant. No water. The technician told her that it wasn’t uncommon for there to be dead hydrants in the city.

According to fire department spokesperson Alan Etter, WASA has sole responsibility of inspecting and maintaining the city’s hydrants. When WASA finds a hydrant in need or repair, it notifies the fire department’s communications division, which then relays the information over the radio. Firefighters at the affected stations typically write down the location of the hydrant on a chalkboard. The same process occurs then the hydrant comes back online.

“Obviously, we’d like to have all of them working, but it’s not a perfect world,” says Etter. “We understand that when you maintain 8,700 hydrants, some will go out of service. You do the best you can.”

But, as Lt. L.A. Matthews of Engine Company 21 in Adams Morgan says, “Even one [inoperable hydrant] is too many, especially if it’s in front of my house.”

WASA currently has a two dedicated crews repairing and replacing hydrants on a daily basis, supplemented by six crews that flush the water mains, which involves opening up fire hydrants. Last August, the agency embarked on a massive evaluation of the city’s hydrants, hiring an outside contractor to inspect and make minor repairs. The goal is to maintain over 99 percent operational.

After the fire, a WASA crew investigated the Emerald Street hydrant, along with hydrants at 13th and E, 14th and F, and 16th and E, and found all to be in good order. Spokesperson Michele Quander-Collins says she could find no record of any of them malfunctioning. “I just don’t know what they’re talking about,” she says. “We cannot find any inoperable hydrants in that area. We can’t explain why it was reported as not working. We didn’t get a call from fire department or a citizen, which is usually how we find out about these things. That’s not something we’d leave as a longstanding problem.”

Look for a detailed investigation into the city’s broken hydrants in next week’s City Paper.

Whenever it rains, it seems like everywhere you walk is a giant puddle. I heard that the reason is that some District sewer pipes are wooden. Any truth to that?

The sewer pipes aren’t wooden, but they are old. In fact, some have been around since Teddy Roosevelt was in the White House, according to D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) spokesperson Tamara Stevenson.

And although WASA has no records that the District ever had wooden sewer pipes, the area did have wooden water lines throughout the 19th century. Sewer pipes can be made of terra cotta, cast iron, concrete, or plastic.

Since many sewer lines were built around 1900—when the District’s population was a far less dense 278,000—rather than the 2000 population of 572,000, the lines are old and ill-equipped to accommodate present conditions. WASA replaces deteriorated and failing lines soon after officials discover the issue, Stevenson says.

However, the real need for the District, she says, is a long-range plan for District’s sewer system. As such, WASA recently began a $10 million assessment of the District’s sewer pipes.

Every Monday, the ‘Huh?’ Bub takes your questions. Got one?