WASA Knew of Problems With Size, Age
By Sylvia Moreno and Allison Klein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
A public agency has known for at least seven years that many of the District's water mains need to be replaced but failed to make upgrades in such areas as Adams Morgan, where firefighters had trouble drawing enough water to fight a major fire early yesterday.
A century-old six-inch main was unable to supply water quickly enough to put out a fire in a four-story condominium building, fire officials said. Crews then unfurled 4,000 feet of hose to Connecticut Avenue and 3,000 feet of hose to Columbia Road, where 20-inch mains are located, to get more water, officials said.
No one was seriously hurt, but dozens were left homeless, and damage to the stately brick building was estimated to be in the millions. Residents either escaped unaided or were evacuated. The fire's cause is under investigation, but the blaze apparently started outside, probably on the roof deck, authorities said.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin called for immediate action to address aging, undersize mains across the city. Both faulted the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, a quasi-independent public agency, for not moving fast enough to replace some 170 miles of six-inch mains, which make up 13 percent of WASA's underground system.
"Lines need to be replaced just as soon as humanly possible," Fenty said. "There's nothing more to say. The lines aren't big enough."
The water mains are the responsibility of WASA, which this year was criticized by city officials for not acting quickly enough to fix broken fire hydrants. Those complaints came after a major fire at the Georgetown public library, in which the first two hydrants tapped by firefighters were not working. They wound up using hydrants about two blocks away.
For the past seven years, WASA has been systematically replacing inadequate water mains as part of a 20-year plan to overhaul the system, officials said. WASA also has started replacing lead pipes and water main valves and making improvements to the city's drinking-water storage and wastewater treatment facilities -- areas that were neglected for decades prior to 1996, when the agency was transferred from the D.C. government, said WASA General Manager Jerry N. Johnson. Many older cities are dealing with similar issues.
"We've known [water mains] have been a problem for a number of years. The infrastructure had been neglected for a large number of years," Johnson said. "We were in survival and catch-up mode. Now we are in sustainability mode."
Johnson said that the agency has budgeted $15 million yearly for water main replacement and that the condition of the pipe, not just the size, determines which areas get on the priority replacement list. "If somebody else has a better idea, we'll certainly listen to it," he said.
But Fenty said a 20-year plan was unacceptable. "You cannot measure a time frame like this in decades," he said. "There is no accountability in that, no responsibility."
The fire, reported about 1:20 a.m., destroyed the roof and top floor of the 30-unit condominium building in the 2600 block of Adams Mill Road NW. Firefighters worked more than six hours to bring it under control. At its peak, it was a four-alarm blaze. By comparison, the fires this spring at Eastern Market and the Georgetown library were three-alarm blazes.
Hampering the firefighters, officials said, was the aged and inadequate subterranean maze of water mains across Adams Morgan.
"You have to have [water] pressure and volume," Rubin said as he stood in front of the building at noon, smoke still wafting out of the gaping hole left when the red tile roof collapsed into the fourth-floor condos. "Here we had none. You have to have both."
D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who represents the neighborhood, also blasted WASA, which has come under public scrutiny in recent years over safety issues.
High lead levels in D.C. drinking water posed a potential health hazard from 2001 to 2004, and WASA was faulted for failing to alert its more than 1 million Washington customers about the problem for several years. The agency later agreed to replace all lead pipes in the city. This year, after the library fire, WASA stepped up repairs to hundreds of hydrants.
Rubin criticized WASA this spring for not marking hydrants that were broken. He made a similar complaint yesterday, saying firefighters have no way of knowing whether areas have adequate water pressure and supply. The chief, who took over in April, said he did not know until yesterday of the problems with mains.
Graham, who as chairman of the council's Committee on Public Works and the Environment has oversight authority over WASA, said he will demand answers about whether the water supply in Adams Morgan, one of the city's most densely populated neighborhoods, is adequate.
"We had a tragedy here, but God smiled on us here last night. The residents got out," Graham said at a midday news conference outside the building. "But the major question here is relating to the Water and Sewer Authority. There was a period of time when we did not have the water pressure we needed to fight this fire. . . . Four-alarm fires are admittedly rare and unusual, but this neighborhood and all neighborhoods need to be assured we can fight them."
The difficulties in Adams Morgan quickly became apparent after firefighters arrived on the scene. They opened four hydrants but were able to get only about 600 gallons of water per minute, far less then the 3,500 gallons per minute needed to fight the fire, Assistant Fire Chief Lawrence Schultz said.
"We had absolute minimal amount of water in the beginning stages when we first started," he said. "We barely had enough."
Within 30 minutes, the water slowed to a trickle. Firefighters tried without success to open more than a dozen hydrants around the building, Schultz said. Extra fire engines were called in with special water-supply functions, including one from as far away as Anacostia.
For the next 25 minutes, firefighters scrambled around Adams Morgan, looking for a hydrant that had an adequate water supply. Finally, firefighters ran 3,000 feet of fire hose east to 16th Street and Columbia Road NW and another 4,000 feet west to Connecticut Avenue and Calvert Street, hooking up to two fire hydrants that gave them the water they needed. The fire was declared under control about 5:30 a.m., Schultz said.
The Red Cross assisted some residents, including several who were placed in a downtown hotel. Many residents talked about their efforts to get out and the firefighters' attempts to put out the flames.
Sam Edwards, 29, and her fiance had just returned from a weekend away and were catching up on reading and correspondence in their top-floor duplex when Edwards heard a noise, she recalled. "In hindsight, it sounded like crackling," she said.
"When I looked out of our windows, the adjacent building was glowing. I ran out into the hallway, but there was no smoke, but when I went on the stairwell, it was hazy," she said. "There's a fire!" she said she shouted to her fiance. The two split off and starting banging on their neighbors' doors. As they ran down the stairwell, she said, firefighters were pouring into the building.
In her haste, Edwards left behind her engagement ring, given to her only a few weeks before. Somehow, firefighters managed to recover it, she said, showing off the three-diamond band glinting on her left ring finger. "It was a very tiny item in a very big fire," Edwards said.
Staff writers Delphine Schrank and Debbi Wilgoren contributed to this report.
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