WASA Plans to Perform 'Blitz' of Hydrant Inspections

The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority announced yesterday that it will step up inspections of the city's fire hydrants after problems arose during the Georgetown public library fire last month.

All of the city's 9,086 fire hydrants will be inspected by the end of the summer, rather than by the end of the year as planned, said WASA General Manager Jerry N. Johnson. The speedup comes after firefighters could not draw water from the two hydrants nearest the D.C. library branch during the April 30 fire.

WASA said it is spending $26.5 million to fix and upgrade fire hydrants in the District to meet national standards. About 3,500 hydrants will be replaced in the next five years as the city phases out old ones, including some that date to the 1920s.

The city has nine kinds of hydrants, including the Lorton model, which was manufactured by inmates at the now-defunct Lorton prison. Each hydrant costs about $6,500 to replace.

Fewer than half of the hydrants have been inspected in the past two years, meaning broken hydrants often aren't discovered until a fire breaks out, as was the case in Georgetown, officials said. One of the broken hydrants was across the street from the burning building, at Wisconsin Avenue and R Street NW. Firefighters hooked up to hydrants two blocks away and said the problem did not hurt their response.

Last week, fire officials released a list identifying 53 hydrants in need of replacement. But Johnson said yesterday that WASA knows of just 29 that are still not functioning properly. WASA, a quasi-independent public agency, is in the process of hiring contractors to work with the fire department to inspect the hydrants, Johnson said.

"The Georgetown fire brought the fire hydrant issue to the attention of the public," Johnson said. "If the public is concerned about our knowledge of the conditions of hydrants, we want to take those concerns away." He said that the inspections were underway before the three-alarm Georgetown fire but that WASA decided to do a "blitz" of inspections in the aftermath.

Dan Dugan, president of the D.C. Firefighters Association, said his members are eager to continue testing the hydrants because it is a public safety issue for them and for the city. "It's a little bit of an additional workload," Dugan said, "but it's so vital to our job, it's just got to be done."

Dugan said that firefighters are used to dealing with the nine models of fire hydrants and that they do not pose a problem for firefighters. All firetrucks carry two nuts that can open any of the hydrants in the city, he said.

Firefighters from neighboring jurisdictions also carry with them the specialized nuts that can open District hydrants. He said problems are "extremely rare" when firefighters from neighboring areas help in the District.