US Strengthens Support for Global Clean Water

WASHINGTON—On the occasion of World Water Day 2011, the U.S. government has signed an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with the World Bank—unleashing the knowledge resources of 20 government agencies and departments—to assist in providing clean water for the world’s needy.

The United States is known for its leadership in innovation and advanced technology. Therefore, using advanced knowledge and tools to solve some of the world’s most pressing water issues makes sense, and this includes taking care of our own backyard.

Anyone who has traveled to the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., has probably seen and enjoyed the majestic sights of the Potomac River, which winds along the region’s southwestern border with neighboring state, Virginia. One can enjoy the wide, 383 mile-long river from the Lincoln Memorial, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.

How many visitors know that the Potomac River is the source of drinking water for 90 percent of the watershed area’s 6 million residents? In fact, keeping the nation’s river clean is of utmost interest to elected officials and citizens alike.

According to Robin Broder, vice president of the Potomac Riverkeeper, a grassroots, citizens’ society that monitors the watershed for sources of pollutants and uses the Clean Water Act to hold the government accountable; there have been a lot of improvements in Potomac River water quality in recent years.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is responsible for enforcing the act, has “done a lot to catch up in the last two years, and we applaud that effort,” said Broder.

The area’s giant wastewater treatment facility, Blue Plains, has effectively reduced pollutants, such as nitrogen, a problem that had led to unwanted growth of algae in past years. The facility is also compliant with EPA regulations.

But now there is a new and looming problem that has people very concerned. It is a new source of pollutants, potentially damaging to humans, which has the effect of disrupting natural hormonal balance. The pollutants have already caused serious deformities in fish, and the EPA has only just started to try to identify these, said Broder.

“There is what you might call a soup of different chemicals in the water now that come from a variety of sources. They come from fertilizers. They come from pesticides. They come from pharmaceuticals. They come from us. They come from personal care products that have endocrine disrupters,” said Broder.

Once identified, it is unclear whether there is technology to remove the pollutants from our drinking water. It is a new challenge for water managers like George Hawkins, the energetic general manager of DC Water.

Hawkins and his team operate “the largest advanced wastewater treatment plant on the earth” at Blue Plains, located along the southernmost tip of D.C. The facility handles wastewater from 1.8 million homes in the area.

After the water is treated, it goes back into the Potomac from whence it came. “It is a giant recycling system,” Hawkins said Tuesday at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

Waste Treatment

Hawkins, a lawyer and a guest lecturing in environmental law at Princeton University, is a huge fan of science and innovation. He said engineers at Blue Plains are in the process of innovating the first ever methane digester in the world.

The process will remove harmful methane from waste biosolids, and in the process create 13 Mw of power that will provide power for thousands of D.C. area resident homes. It will also reduce 56 tanker trucks of solid “Class B” waste into 23 tankers of “Class A” waste.

The new waste is so clean that water experts predicted that they could brand the waste as fertilizer and sell it at Home Depot. “It is just as good,” joked Hawkins.

Alongside innovations such as these, the main problem with the river continues to be sources of pollutants entering the river without treatment.

The government has mandated a huge $2.6 billion dollar project to deal with storm water runoff. They plan to build metro sized tunnels to contain large volumes of rainwater runoff until it can be treated. Efforts are also underway to clean up Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the nation.

Read more…District of Columbia facing an enormous infrastructure problem