The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC WASA) supports the Anacostia River Watershed Restoration Plan launched today at Bladensburg Waterfront Park, where federal, state and local officials discussed the plans eight strategies and more than 3,000 projects to clean the Anacostia River – one of the nations slowest and most polluted rivers.

“Bringing together leaders who represent the entire watershed will be key to creating a healthier Anacostia,” said DC WASA Chief of Staff Christopher Carew, who spoke at today’s event on behalf of General Manager George Hawkins. “Only by addressing all of the polluters to the river will we be successful. This plan, and the commitment of these supporters, is a great step forward.”

DC WASA has been working for years toward a cleaner Anacostia. The Authority developed a Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Long Term Control Plan, at a cost of $2.4 billion, to reduce CSOs to the Anacostia River by 98 percent. (DC WASA has already reduced CSOs to the river by about 40 percent.) In addition to the Long Term Control Plan, DC WASA is investing in low-impact development, stormwater management, catch basin cleaning and removing 400 tons of trash per year with a skimmer boat fleet five days a week.

The full Plan is posted on the Partnership’s website at http://www.anacostia.net/Restoration_Plan/download/Anacostia-Report-Web…

About The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority
The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC WASA), is an industry leading multi-jurisdictional regional utility that provides drinking water, wastewater collection and treatment to more than 500,000 residential, commercial and governmental customers in the District of Columbia, and also collects and treats wastewater for 1.6 million customers in Montgomery and Prince Georges counties in Maryland and Fairfax and Loudoun counties in Virginia.

DC WASA’s service area covers approximately 725 square miles and the company operates the world’s largest advanced wastewater treatment plant with a capacity of 370 million gallons per day and has a peak capacity of 1.076 billion gallons per day.

About the Anacostia Watershed Partnership
The In June 2006, the COG Board adopted a resolution that established a new Anacostia Watershed Restoration Partnership. The key elements of the Partnership are: (1) the Anacostia Watershed Restoration Leadership Council; (2) the Anacostia Watershed Steering Committee; (3) the Anacostia Watershed Comprehensive Restoration Plan; and (4) a refreshened AWRC (a.k.a., the Anacostia Watershed Management Committee). The Council is responsible for the adoption and periodic revisions to a Comprehensive Anacostia Watershed Restoration and Protection Plan, which quantifies the restoration goals, specifies an implementation timeline and provides explicit measurements of progress, with appropriate recognition and incorporation of related planning activities. More information can be found at: http://www.anacostia.net/index.html