two main breaks in less than a week?
My county and the one to our east are under water use restrictions because of a massive water main break that took place Monday with no warning (despite a $20 million warning system installed several years ago). There was another water main break yesterday.
Another accident Monday caused thousands of gallons of sewage to overflow into a local creek. Which is nothing surprising, since in 2009 a clogged drain caused 30,000 gallons of sewage to spew into a different creek.
Seem like a lot of trouble with pipes? It's par for the course for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, our corrupt, inept local water authority.
In 2012, an article in the Washington Post celebrated that the WSSC "only" suffered 1,600 water main breaks. The city of Washington suffered 282 breaks, although their pipes are, on average, nearly 30 years older than WSSC's. The nearest county in Virginia, Fairfax County, suffered 327 breaks in the same period.
In January 2009, there was an outburst (so to speak) of 20 separate breaks in WSSC pipes. That December, another 15 breaks took place on one day.
2009 Post article on political deadlock on the WSSC board.
2009 Post article on how records were "inadvertently" thrown away just before an inquiry into a massive failure of a WSSC main.
2004 Post article on high rates and endemic corruption in WSSC
2009 article on how one county executive tried to have a WSSC board member dropped, without even telling her. (The same executive later pled guilty to federal extortion and witness- and evidence-tampering charge; his wife also pled guilty to federal corruption charges.)
I used to work for a wastewater industry association. WSSC had a bad reputation then within the industry. After living in their service area for five years, I see why.
Another accident Monday caused thousands of gallons of sewage to overflow into a local creek. Which is nothing surprising, since in 2009 a clogged drain caused 30,000 gallons of sewage to spew into a different creek.
Seem like a lot of trouble with pipes? It's par for the course for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, our corrupt, inept local water authority.
In 2012, an article in the Washington Post celebrated that the WSSC "only" suffered 1,600 water main breaks. The city of Washington suffered 282 breaks, although their pipes are, on average, nearly 30 years older than WSSC's. The nearest county in Virginia, Fairfax County, suffered 327 breaks in the same period.
In January 2009, there was an outburst (so to speak) of 20 separate breaks in WSSC pipes. That December, another 15 breaks took place on one day.
2009 Post article on political deadlock on the WSSC board.
2009 Post article on how records were "inadvertently" thrown away just before an inquiry into a massive failure of a WSSC main.
2004 Post article on high rates and endemic corruption in WSSC
2009 article on how one county executive tried to have a WSSC board member dropped, without even telling her. (The same executive later pled guilty to federal extortion and witness- and evidence-tampering charge; his wife also pled guilty to federal corruption charges.)
I used to work for a wastewater industry association. WSSC had a bad reputation then within the industry. After living in their service area for five years, I see why.