Upgrades Planned for Rock Creek Sewage Points

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THERE ALWAYS SEEMS to be an odor coming from Rock Creek at the point where it meets a stream coming down from Dumbarton Oaks Park on the edge of Georgetown. A nearby sign warns of a sewage overflow discharge point. But pet owners nonetheless let their dogs run into the creek, seemingly without much worry.

There are a number of sewage overflow discharge points along Rock Creek and four of them, according to this week's Current newspapers, have been selected for major fixes by the D.C Water and Sewer Authority. The work, which is to begin in 2009, is court-mandated after a lawsuit brought by the Friends of the Earth against the Environmental Protection Agency over the amount of sewage that can be legally discharged into area waterways.

According to the Current, which, sadly, is not online, one-third of the District's sewage system is combined with its storm water system, and the new work will separate the two at the four points along or near Rock Creek — at Pennsylvania Avenue, Q Street NW, Kalorama Road and Connecticut Avenue.

The four points where work will get underway, of course, represent only a small fraction of the overall challenge D.C. officials face in adapting and upgrading the District's aging sewage and storm water systems. In the meantime, dogs will continue to frolic in Rock Creek as their owners try not to notice the stench.