back to main navigation
back to main navigation
back to main navigation
back to main navigation
back to main navigation

Clean Rivers Project

Everything you need to know about the Clean Rivers Project and how it affects...

your water
your neighborhood
your rivers
your life
The Clean Rivers Project is DC Water's ongoing program to reduce combined sewer overflows (CSO's) into the District's waterways - the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers and Rock Creek. The Project is a massive infrastructure and support program designed to capture and clean wastewater during rainfalls before it ever reaches our rivers.

Just the facts
98%
reduction
CSO volume to the Anacostia River
96%
reduction
System-wide CSO volume
498
acres
of land managed by Green Infrastructures
15
year storm conveyance
For areas served by Northeast Boundary Tunnel
1mil
pounds
reduction of nitrogen to Chesapeake Bay
18miles
of tunnels
over 100 ft below ground

Keep Up to Date With the Project

Related videos

A Drop's Life

Learn all about DC Water's Clean Rivers Project

A Drop's Life - The Sequel

The sequel picks up the story with a new twist - new green methods to keep that drop and its buddies out of the sewers altogether. It's a story with a happy ending.

Director Carlton Ray

“Hi, I’m Carlton Ray, Director of the DC Water Clean Rivers Project, a $2.7 billion water quality improvement program that dramatically reduces combined sewerage overflows (CSOs - a mixture of raw sewage and rain water) into our District's waterways - the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers and Rock Creek.”

DC Water

Current Combined Sewer Overflow Controls

The Clean Rivers Project is comprised of a system of deep tunnels, sewers and diversion facilities to capture CSO's and deliver them to DC Water’s Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant.  The Project is also installing Green Infrastructure to assist with the reduction of CSO's to the Potomac River and Rock Creek. The Anacostia River and Potomac River tunnel systems include more than 18 miles of tunnels that are larger than the Metro tunnels and are constructed more than 100 feet below the ground.

Combined Sewer Overflows

Green Infrastructure

DC Water’s Clean Rivers Project involves the construction of innovative green infrastructure technologies that include bioretention (rain gardens) in planter strips and curb extensions, permeable pavement on streets and alleys, and downspout disconnection (including rain barrels).  These practices will manage stormwater by taking advantage of the earth’s natural processes, such as allowing water to infiltrate into the soil, evaporate into the air, or for plants to use the water and expire it as vapor.

​

Green Infrastructure

How the System Works

The Clean Rivers project is installing "diversion facilities" at strategic locations to capture untreated sewage from wet weather events and divert it to the new 157-million-gallon tunnel system and conveyed to the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant. Diversion facility components include a Diversion Chamber to intercept flow from the existing sewers, an Approach Channel to direct the flow and create a vortex, a Drop Shaft to drop the flow approximately 100 feet and an Adit to connect to the main tunnel system. The entire system works by gravity. During dry weather conditions, the existing sewer system uses its existing Dam and Interceptor system to deliver flow to Blue Plains for treatment.

​

Blue Plains

Clean Rivers Projects

The DC Clean Rivers Project will reduce CSOs annually by 96 percent throughout the system and by 98 percent for the Anacostia River alone. In addition, the Project will reduce the chance of flooding in the areas it serves from approximately 50 percent to 7 percent (equivalent to a 15-year storm) in any given year and reduce nitrogen discharged to the Chesapeake Bay by approximately 1 million pounds per year.

Do you have a question or comment?

Email Us Today
OR
Call our DC Clean Rivers Outreach Coordinators:
For Tunnel Projects: Hadiah Jordan at (202) 787-4717; For Green Infrastructure Projects: Amanda Zander (202) 787-4142