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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WATER AND SEWER

AUTHORITY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE,

POSTAL SERVICE, AND THE DISTRICT

OF COLUMBIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 15, 2008

Serial No. 110–104

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

——— ———

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE, POSTAL SERVICE, AND THE DISTRICT OF

COLUMBIA

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio, Chairman

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

JOHN M. MCHUGH, NEW YORK

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

TANIA SHAND, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on April 15, 2008 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Capacasa, Jon M., Director of Water Protection Division for Water, Environmental Protection Agency; Thomas Jacobus, general manager,

Washington Aqueduct; Doug Siglin, Federal Affairs director, Chesapeake Bay Foundation; and Robert Boone, president, Anacostia Watershed Society ................................................................................................... 120

Boone, Robert ............................................................................................. 144

Capacasa, Jon M. ...................................................................................... 120

Jacobus, Thomas ....................................................................................... 126

Siglin, Doug ............................................................................................... 135

Martin, Robin B., chairman, Board of Directors, D.C. Water and Sewer

Authority; and Jerry Johnson, general manager, D.C. Water and Sewer

Authority ....................................................................................................... 82

Johnson, Jerry ........................................................................................... 90

Martin, Robin B. ........................................................................................ 82

Stephenson, John B., Director, Natural Resources and Environment, U.S.

Government Accountability Office ............................................................... 59

Tangherlini, Daniel, city administrator, District of Columbia, and D.C.

WASA Board member; Anthony H. Griffin, county executive, Fairfax

County, and D.C. WASA Board member; Timothy Firestine, chief administrative officer, Montgomery County, and D.C. WASA Board member; and Jacqueline F. Brown, chief administrator officer, Prince

George’s County, and D.C. WASA Board member ..................................... 157

Brown, Jacqueline F. ................................................................................. 172

Firestine, Timothy ..................................................................................... 167

Griffin, Anthony H. ................................................................................... 162

Tangherlini, Daniel ................................................................................... 157

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Boone, Robert, president, Anacostia Watershed Society, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 146

Brown, Jacqueline F., chief administrator officer, Prince George’s County,

and D.C. WASA Board member, prepared statement of ........................... 174

Capacasa, Jon M., Director of Water Protection Division for Water, Environmental Protection Agency, prepared statement of ............................... 123

Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Illinois:

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 13

Various prepared statements ................................................................... 3

Davis, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 199

Firestine, Timothy, chief administrative officer, Montgomery County, and

D.C. WASA Board member, prepared statement of ................................... 169

Griffin, Anthony H., county executive, Fairfax County, and D.C. WASA

Board member, prepared statement of ....................................................... 164

Jacobus, Thomas, general manager, Washington Aqueduct, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 128

Johnson, Jerry, general manager, D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 93

Marchant, Hon. Kenny, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Texas, prepared statement of .................................................................. 201

Martin, Robin B., chairman, Board of Directors, D.C. Water and Sewer

Authority, prepared statement of ................................................................ 85

Page

IV

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by—Continued

Siglin, Doug, Federal Affairs director, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 137

Stephenson, John B., Director, Natural Resources and Environment, U.S.

Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ....................... 61

Tangherlini, Daniel, city administrator, District of Columbia, and D.C.

WASA Board member, prepared statement of ........................................... 159

Van Hollen, Hon. Chris, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland:

House Rept. 104–635 ................................................................................ 25

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 52

(1)

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WATER AND SEWER

AUTHORITY

TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2008

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE, POSTAL

SERVICE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:45 p.m. in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Danny K. Davis (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis of Illinois, Waxman, Cummings,

Kucinich, Clay, Lynch, Norton, Sarbanes, Issa, Marchant, and Jordan.

Also present: Representative Van Hollen.

Staff present: Tania Shand, staff director; Lori Hayman, counsel;

William Miles, professional staff member; Marcus A. Williams,

clerk; Earley Green, chief clerk; Howie Denis, minority senior professional staff member; and Benjamin Chance and Chris Espinoza,

minority professional staff members.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. The subcommittee will come to order.

The subcommittee would like to welcome Ranking Member

Marchant, witnesses and all of those in attendance.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the subcommittee’s first D.C.

Water and Sewer Authority [WASA], oversight hearing of the

110th Congress. It has been nearly 3 years since a hearing has

been held on WASA and issues pertaining to the quality of the

city’s drinking water and environmental conditions.

Today’s hearing will provide the subcommittee with the most

current developments in WASA’s operations, finances and infrastructure improvement efforts.

Given the presence of the Federal Government in the Washington, DC, area and the reliance on WASA for the provision of waterrelated services to the Federal Government, today’s oversight hearing is a critical part of the processes for ensuring the continual and

reliable delivery of safe drinking water and wastewater treatment

services to area residents, businesses, Government agencies and

certain suburban jurisdictions.

Since its creation as a quasi-independent regional utility agency

in 1996, WASA has made significant progress in carrying out its

statutory mandate of providing retail drinking water distribution,

wastewater collection and wastewater treatment services to

570,000 District residential and commercial customers and providing wholesale wastewater treatment services to over 1.6 million

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customers in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties through

the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission and Fairfax and

Loudoun Counties and the city of Vienna, VA. Over the past decade, WASA has invested over $1 billion in various infrastructure improvements, taken steps to guarantee the region’s safe drinking water, attained a AA bond rating, and ensured

that the Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant operated in compliance with all permit requirements. In other words, we have

come a long way from the boiled water alerts of the mid-1990’s.

Despite the apparent progress WASA and its regional partners

have made over the years, a number of issues, challenges, and concerns remain to be addressed.

First and foremost, the subcommittee looks forward to receiving

an update on WASA’s lead service line replacement program and

possible alternative approaches to reducing the leakage of lead into

the drinking water supply.

The Coalition of Parents for Non-Toxic Alternatives, the Alliance

for Healthy Homes and Clean Water Action have pointed to ongoing shortcomings in WASA’s management of the District’s lead in

water problem. I ask unanimous consent that their statement be

entered into the record.

Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. With evidence of trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the area’s water supply and concerns over the

health of local aquatic life, I anticipate that both the quality of the

metropolitan area’s drinking water and the condition of our area’s

waterways will be major topics of discussion this afternoon.

Further, as part of a 10-year Capital Improvement Program

[CIP], WASA has adopted an aggressive and somewhat ambitious

time schedule for making these enhancements to the agency’s aging

infrastructure, equipment, and systems. Two of the most noteworthy Capital Improvement Projects currently underway include

the combined sewer overflow project, a part of WASA’s long-time

control plan, and the Blue Plains total nitrogen program.

It is my understanding that WASA and the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] have been conducting ongoing discussions on

how best to meet the Blue Plains’ recently modified national pollutant discharge elimination system permit. The subcommittee looks

forward to hearing about the outcome of recent negotiations on

WASA’s proposed plans for its Blue Plains total nitrogen program.

Today’s hearing will examine H.R. 5778, ‘‘The District of Columbia’s Water and Sewer Authority Independence Preservation Act,’’

which would amend the D.C. Home Rule Charter Act to provide the

legal authority for WASA to function as a fully independent authority by officially shifting oversight of the agency’s financial operations and personnel matters to WASA’s Board of Directors instead

of the District of Columbia’s chief financial officer.

I thank you and I look forward to hearing the testimony of today’s witnesses.

I also ask unanimous consent that the statements of Ranking

Member Marchant and full committee Member Tom Davis be entered into the record.

Without objection, so ordered.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Danny K. Davis follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. I now yield to Ms. Norton for an opening

statement.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I particularly thank you for this hearing. When Representative Tom Davis

was Chair of this committee we took to holding hearings on an annual basis, particularly after WASA had significant lead in the

water problems.

This is a hearing I can endorse. We do not have hearings here

on District of Columbia matters because we are not the Council of

the District of Columbia, but this is a hybrid agency if ever there

was one. It is located in the District of Columbia. It has been a District of Columbia agency since it was established. Yet, serves the

region, and the region pays for its services so it is appropriate that

we have these hearings.

Now, because it is classified as a D.C. agency, and should be, of

course, the matter goes to the Council and the Mayor, as well, but

it has always been treated as what it is: an agency that, yes, chiefly serves the District of Columbia, but it also serves neighboring

counties, who also pay for the service, particularly the fewer services.

Before I get to the real subject matter of this hearing, I would

like to get to what the hearing is not about. The hearing is not

about what you discussed, Mr. Chairman, because the matter that

you clarified as to changes that I have agreed upon has been done.

I think it is very important, when we get the cooperation of all of

us concerned—that is certainly the way I deal with most Members

of Congress, especially of the region—that we make sure we always

handle matters in that way.

I do want to say that there was an attempt to put something on

the D.C. appropriation. You are looking for a fight if you do that.

If you have a problem with the District of Columbia, they could be

wrong. I would be willing to negotiate with you, because if they are

wrong I am going to tell them they are wrong. But the one thing

I will fight you on is to change law by fiat by doing what, frankly,

is not allowed, Mr. Chairman, and that is trying to change the law

on an appropriation bill.

I found a very effective partner, and I am not surprised, given

the way in which he and I have always operated, that he and I

could sit down and come to an agreement on this matter, and so

I want to acknowledge and thank my good colleague, Chris Van

Hollen, for the way he has worked with me constantly so we could

solve this matter and it will not become a matter of contention. I

think it ought to be handled in this hearing so that it does not become a matter of contention.

It became clear to me in letters I wrote to the Mayor and to the

Council, who have cooperated fully with me, that members of the

Council, seeing that WASA, in particular, was a D.C. agency, began

to treat it, or at least one or two members did, and then proceeded

to treat it as if it were just another D.C. agency. Well, they were

ignorant of some of the changes that Chairman Davis and I painstakingly negotiated when WASA got into deep trouble.

So it seemed to me that the way to handle this was to, in fact,

inform the Council of what had happened. Mr. Chairman, I wrote

two letters and sent copies of this letter to the appropriate people

21

in the region, the Representatives and others, Senate and House,

one on March 14th and another on April 10th. The one on March

14th I actually released. I am releasing and asking that the two

letters be put into the record. Another letter on April 10th, when

it was clear that this matter had not been settled.

To just read one sentence from the letter, I say, ‘‘Therefore, I ask

the Council to move expeditiously in the Budget Support Act, using

the emergency process to remove the provisions that affected the

WASA personnel structure.’’

Mr. Chairman, this simply involves the fact that the District had

no commuter tax, has many of its agencies with members from the

region, and in its frustration sometimes tries to at least see to it

that D.C. residents get jobs. That is not appropriate for an agency

which is regional in its span.

I want to thank Mayor Fenty and Chairman Vincent Gray for cooperating with me. In the Budget Support Act is an amendment to

section 213 of the D.C. Code that removes any priority for any

member of the region, including the District of Columbia, for jobs.

Essentially, what has been agreed upon by the Member from

Maryland, Mr. Van Hollen, and me is that these are matters for

the Board. This is the status quo ante. If, in fact, you have a board

that has members from three regions, you have something that is

unusual in this country. It is sort of like the Metro Board, but it

is sort of different, because Metro is not a D.C. agency. We have

done a hybrid here and we have to make sure that we re-educate

officials every so often, for example: new members of the Council

as to how this works, because there is nothing quite like it.

Therefore, we make it clear that it is the Board, not any jurisdiction, that is to decide matters affecting finances, procurement, and

personnel. You can’t have a regional agreement otherwise.

I hope that this matter will not become any point of contention

here because, in fact, we need to move on to what this hearing

must be about. We have been doing an annual hearing on WASA,

and the reason we had to do it on an annual basis is we discovered

lead in the water led to a huge controversy. Several hearings were

held here a few years ago when that happened. It led to really

path-breaking hearings on lead in the water that alerted many

other jurisdictions. The chairman, then Ranking Member Mr. Waxman, and I introduced a complete revision of the Clean Water Act

that he had been responsible for, even before I came to Congress.

This water still is controversial in the District of Columbia, and

it is one of the most important things that we have to discuss in

this hearing.

We are going to be discussing both water and sewer services. We

are going to be discussing what I think are really important questions raised by the decision of WASA, under pressure, to do partial

replacement of lead pipes. When you replace a lead pipe on the

public part, the part that the public controls, and yet the private

citizen does not; there is still lead in the water.

Meanwhile, the Aqueduct had to respond, as well, and we will be

at pains to hear whether the new chemical in the water solves the

problem for all intents and purposes.

Beyond questions of safety for residents of the city and the region, I have a principal reason, as the lead sponsor of the Anacostia

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Watershed Initiative, which was passed last year as part of the

Water Resources Development Act, and my own interest in broader

efforts to green the District of Columbia and the national capital

region. Indeed, tomorrow I am going to be holding a hearing in the

subcommittee that I chair, first of a series on greening Washington

and the national capital region, because the Federal Government

has the largest footprint in this region, and therefore should be the

leader in greening and energy conservation in a number of ways.

We should be the leader for the rest of the country.

Mr. Chairman, the Anacostia River matter is particularly important to members of the region. Actually, most of the Anacostia

River is in Maryland. Most of the stuff that gets into the District

of Columbia starts upstream. But they are our friends and we work

together. Everybody in the region works on this bill, from Mr.

Hoyer on down, if I may put it that way.

But there is a special advantage to the fact that the District of

Columbia has a part of the Anacostia. It has enabled me to go to

the President of the United States, both Democratic and Republican Presidents, to get money put in the D.C. budget for the Anacostia River. That could not have happened, Maryland and Virginia

but because our budget has to go to the President anyway, he normally adds a few dollars here and there. Most of the money I have

been able to get came that way or from my membership on the

Water Resources Subcommittee, where we have just gotten $35

million for upgrades and $20 million to clean the Anacostia. This year the President responded by putting $14.5 million in the

D.C. budget for combined sewer overflow, the major reason why the

Anacostia is polluted, and he should have and the Water Resources

Committee and Congress should have, because of Federal involvement in the pollution of the Anacostia. It is the Federal Government that is on the banks of the Anacostia. It is the Corps of Engineers who built the sewer system that is the problem in the first

place.

We just erected a new Department of Transportation that overlooks the stinking Anacostia River. We have just bought to the

Navy Yard from Virginia, the Naval Sea Systems Command, to a

renovated Navy Yard right there on the Anacostia. The original

and most serious District side contamination came from the old

Navy Yard. The Federal Government owes the region, and particularly this city, for the contamination that is there now.

Yet, we have been unable to get long-term money for what is essentially a Federal problem. I am going to be seeking the help of

other Members of the region.

I note that in my own Water Resources Subcommittee there are

members of the subcommittee who have been able to get authorizations for hundreds of millions of dollars at a time for combined

sewer overflow, because this is a national problem. The difference

between them and us is that the Federal Government had nothing

to do with their combined sewer problem. They don’t have a Federal river like the Anacostia, built by the Corps of Engineers. Yet,

because of the way in which money gets distributed in this place,

these people get hundreds of millions of dollars in order to deal

with the problem, but we have not been as fortunate and the Anacostia is one of the most polluted rivers in the United States.

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So, Mr. Chairman, this is a hearing that we may be asking you

to have on a regular basis, simply because, although the Council

does have oversight, obviously Maryland and Virginia are not subject to their oversight. In fact, this matter was resolved continuing

WASA as a D.C. agency only because then Chairman Tom Davis

and I worked to get an amicable compromise. I believe that the

agreement we have achieved between my good friend, Mr. Van

Hollen, and me takes us back to the status quo ante, which is

working quite well, thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you. Without objection, your request will be included in the record.

Mr. Sarbanes.

Mr. SARBANES. Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, thanks for this hearing. I look forward to the testimony. I think Congresswoman Norton brings an extremely responsible perspective to the issue of the

jurisdictional structure of WASA. Of course, she brings that regional perspective through the particular lens of the District of Columbia. I come to this discussion and the issue of the regional perspective through the particular lens of Maryland. I look forward to

hearing from Congressman Van Hollen and hearing more about the

balance that has been struck here.

I would note that when we talk about the regional reach or effect

or impact of WASA, it is not just the immediate region, because obviously there are impacts on the Chesapeake Bay and the wider region and I have that perspective, as well.

Thank you.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Sarbanes.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank

you and the ranking member for holding this hearing on the D.C.

Water and Sewer Authority and thank you for allowing me to join

with you today.

I do want to thank Congresswoman Norton for being such a constructive partner in this effort as we seek to resolve some of the

issues that have already been discussed today.

WASA, of course, has a regional impact, as you and others have

noted. It affects a lot of my constituents, both as receivers of the

services and also as employees and ratepayer. As Mr. Sarbanes has

noted, it also has an impact regionally on the waterways, both the

Potomac River, the Anacostia River, and also the Chesapeake Bay.

I am pleased that we have been able to work together on a regional basis with respect to trying to get more Federal funds to

clean up the Anacostia and the Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay.

In fact, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Task Force, which is made

up of Members from the entire region, is fully supporting the request for the cleanup of the Anacostia, and we want to make sure

that we get those funds.

WASA has come a long way from the days of earlier environmental and financial mismanagement that plagued its predecessor

agency. As I think has been noted by the chairman, the Blue Plains

Wastewater Treatment Plant was continually cited by the EPA and

the Justice Department for contamination of local waterways back

before the regional authority was created. In addition, the Justice

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Department cited the former agency for diversion of $96 million in

fiscal year 1995 from the operations and maintenance of this regional wastewater treatment center into the general fund of the

District of Columbia.

It was those problems and the misuse of regional user fees that

led to WASA’s creation in the first place, and it was largely due

to the foresight of members of this committee—Congresswoman

Norton, Congressman Tom Davis—who crafted that earlier solution

to this problem. They created WASA as a utility within the District

of Columbia but with independent financial personnel and procurement operations authority to be governed by an independent board

of directors.

This board is comprised of members from each of the participating jurisdictions, from the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. In fact, the principal board members from each participating

jurisdiction are the chief administrative officers from their respective localities, and we are going to be hearing from some of them

later in today’s hearing.

The House Report 104–635 from this committee in 1996 reflects

the hard work of this committee and that of Ms. Norton and Mr.

Tom Davis to establish WASA as an independent entity, and I request that it be included in the record today.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Fortunately, those earlier problems that

plagued Blue Plains are over and behind us; however, much of

WASA’s success can be attributed to the new regional authority

and design that was established earlier by the work of the Congress to make sure that it is run as an independent, professional

enterprise that is accountable to the entire region that it serves.

It should be noted that the suburban jurisdictions of Maryland

and Virginia contribute in excess of $100 million a year to WASA.

It is important to ensure that sufficient controls are build into the

system to prevent a future commingling of the funds between

WASA’s user fees and the funds of the participating jurisdictions.

I believe, as Ms. Norton has said, that it is essential to WASA’s

continued success to maintain its regional autonomy.

The Home Rule Act that established the District of Columbia’s

CFO has created ambiguity regarding the relationship between the

WASA CFO and the D.C. CFO, and two recent enactments of the

D.C. government served just to cloud the question of WASA’s independence.

I am pleased to have been working with Ms. Norton and Mr.

Davis and others to resolve these conflicts and to ensure WASA’s

independence. I appreciate the letters and work of Ms. Norton and

her communications with the D.C. Council in that regard.

We need to put these conflicts regarding governance behind us

so that we as a region are better able to confront the formidable

undertakings that lay before us.

As has been said, this subcommittee has had hearings on this

subject in the past, and hopefully with the chairman’s indulgence

will continue to have them going forward to really address the very

serious issues that confront WASA. But resolving this governance

issue is essential to that success.

WASA is currently contemplating massive upgrades to the region’s sewage and wastewater treatment infrastructure. These are

changes that are necessary to prevent raw sewage, in addition to

nitrogen discharge, from contaminating our rivers and ultimately

the Chesapeake Bay.

In working with Ms. Norton and Mr. Davis and others, I have

introduced a bill, H.R. 5778, that will clarify the independence of

WASA’s CFO and clarify WASA’s personnel procurement and financial management powers and make it clear that they should be

regulated by its regional board of directors.

We look forward to working with the D.C. City Council to ensure

that recently passed legislation that provides personnel preferences

to D.C. residents does not apply in this regional organization, and

look forward to continuing to work with them in this regard.

I am looking forward to the testimony of the members of the panels that we are going to hear from today, and look forward to moving forward to address the important regional issues that we are

going to be hearing about.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Chris Van Hollen follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Van Hollen.

Without objection, your request will be included in the record.

We will now move to our first witness. Mr. John Stephenson is

the Director of Natural Resources and Environment Issues for the

U.S. Government Accountability Office. Mr. Stephenson’s work focuses on diverse environmental protection issues such as clean air,

clean water, safe drinking water, safe chemical controls, toxic substances, climate change, Superfund, and hazardous materials’ spill

prevention and cleanup, as well as critical infrastructure protection.

Thank you, Mr. Stephenson.

It is our tradition that witnesses before the committee be sworn

in.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. The record will show that the witness answered in the affirmative.

Thank you very much, Mr. Stephenson, and we will proceed. Of

course, you know that we try to do this in 5 minutes, and then we

will have questions. We will use the light. Please go right ahead.

STATEMENT OF JOHN B. STEPHENSON, DIRECTOR, NATURAL

RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

Mr. STEPHENSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the

subcommittee. I am pleased to be here today to participate in this

oversight hearing of the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority [WASA].

I will summarize GAO’s reports on WASA’s efforts to reduce lead

exposure in drinking water, but I want to put my comments into

context by summarizing other GAO work on the many challenges

facing all large water utilities like WASA across the Nation.

As we all remember, media reports in early 2004 about lead contamination in the District’s drinking water raised serious concerns

about the health risk posed from existing lead service lines and

about how well local and Federal agencies were carrying out their

responsibilities.

After much debate, WASA ultimately signed a consent decree to

improve water sampling, enhance public education, and identify

and replace lead service lines. WASA undertook a $400 million program to replace roughly 35,000 lines by 2016 and provided incentives to encourage homeowners to replace their portion of the lines.

It also added orthophosphate to the water supply. This treatment

causes the formation of a protective coating inside the lines that

helps prevent lead from leaching into the water.

So where are we today? WASA has replaced their portion of

14,260 lead service lines through the first quarter of fiscal year

2008; however, of these, only 2,128 homeowners participated in the

private side replacement. To be effective, homeowners must spend

up to $2,500 to replace their portion of the lines, but most are, for

a variety of reasons, deciding not to do so.

Many questions remain about the benefits of partial lead service

line replacement. Research suggests that short-term spikes in lead

levels occur immediately after partial replacement, and little longterm reduction in lead levels is achieved. This, coupled with the

fact that for the past 3 years the drinking water has consistently

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tested below the Federal action level of 15 parts per billion for lead

in drinking water, largely due to the introduction of

orthophosphate into the water supply in 2004, make it understandable why WASA, after spending $105 million on this program, is

re-evaluating the merits of spending an additional $300 million to

replace the remaining 21,000 service lines.

As important as the lead contamination problem has been to

WASA and its customers, it is by no means the only issue with

which the utility must grapple. WASA is responsible for operation

and maintenance of not only the drinking water infrastructure, but

also the wastewater treatment and sanitary sewer systems. Some

of the components of these systems date back to the early 19th century, and the infrastructure replacement costs are staggering. Over

700 million over the next 10 years to maintain the drinking water

system, another 2.2 million over the next two decades to meet the

EPA’s mandate to address combined sewer overflow problems, for

example.

WASA’s difficulties in meeting its many fiscal demands are mirrored across the country by some 53,000 drinking water utilities,

17,000 municipal wastewater facilities, and 7,000 communities

served with storm sewer collection system. Water infrastructure

needs nationwide are estimated to range from $485 billion to nearly $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years.

A few years ago we conducted a survey over several thousand

drinking water and wastewater utilities and found that 29 percent

of the drinking water utilities and 41 percent of the wastewater

utilities were not generating enough revenue from user rates and

other local sources to cover the full cost of service. We also found

that about one-third of the utility’s deferred maintenance because

of insufficient funding had 20 percent or more of their pipelines

nearing the end of their useful life and lacked basic plans for managing their capital assets.

The Federal Government has a significant impact on the Nation’s

drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. EPA has promulgated regulations to implement the Safe Drinking Water Act and

the Clean Water Act, and the cost of compliance with these regulations are high.

Last year Congress appropriated about $1.5 billion that EPA

grants to the States to capitalize the revolving loan funds. Utilities

can use these funds to finance improvements to drinking water and

wastewater treatment facilities; however, this is only a small portion of what is needed.

Some argue that because of the high cost of compliance with requirements the Federal Government should do more. Others argue

that it is the customer who enjoys the benefits of clean water that

should assume a larger share of the infrastructure repair and replacement costs by paying higher rates. The truth is probably

somewhere in between.

One thing is clear: the fiscal challenges facing water utilities are

not likely to be resolved any time soon.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes the summary of my statement. I

will be happy to answer questions from you or any members of the

subcommittee.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stephenson follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much.

I will go to Ms. Norton first.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I found your report from GAO, Mr. Stephenson, very helpful.

Mr. STEPHENSON. Thank you.

Ms. NORTON. It gives us some context. Above all, without saying

so, you make clear we are dealing with a zero sum gain here, particularly in your discussion of new chemicals in the water versus

WASA’s present strategy. At the hearings we had, the question was

already raised, and I could never get an answer to it, and that

question was: if you can only replace the public portion of the lead

pipe, is there substantial benefit?

Mr. Stephenson, I am co-sponsor with the chairman of the full

committee of a bill that would require the replacement of the public

portion. A couple years ago I began to wonder whether that made

any sense, in light of what I know as a member of the Water Resources Subcommittee about the needs that you just described.

In your testimony you indicate that the water now tests, and you

say because of orthophosphate which has been introduced, that for

that reason that the water supply ‘‘has enabled WASA to consistently test below the Federal action level.’’

The question, it seems to me, in light of the competing water

needs of this and other jurisdictions, the question for me is whether it makes financial or health sense for large sums of money to

go to replacing only the public portion, without any assurance that

the private portion would be replaced. Let me ask you whether it

would make sense if the homeowner said, here’s my money for the

private portion, as well, I still would ask whether that is the best

place to put the money—you know what the long-term problems of

WASA and combined sewer overflow are—in light of the health effects or benefits of relying only on orthophosphate to do the job?

Mr. STEPHENSON. It is a multi-part answer, I guess. The only

thing that has changed really is the orthophosphate, and it takes

several months to years for that to become effective, and so that

is why I attribute the success in meeting lead level standards to

that.

Ms. NORTON. Could I just pause and ask you: have the effects

been shown? You are certainly not the first and certainly not the

only to use this particular chemical. Have beneficial effects been

shown more definitively in other water supplies?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Yes. It has been shown definitively in many

public water supplies around the country. By the same token, research suggests that partial lead line replacement offers very little

benefit, if no benefit, to the objective of getting lead out of the

drinking water. It is obviously the ultimate solution to——

Ms. NORTON. And that is in part, is it not, Mr. Stephenson, because not only do you leave part of it with the lead still flowing

into the household, but, in order to do the work of cutting the

pipes, you disturb even more lead, which may stir up lead that

might not have flowed from the public section in at all if you would

just let it be and rely on the chemical?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Right. There are generally spikes in the lead

levels right after you perform the replacement. So I would suggest

that it has to be carefully evaluated in light of all of the other fiscal

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needs that a big water company like WASA faces. They get precious little money from the revolving funds from either the Clean

Water Act or the Safe Drinking Water Act. The needs are great

and the Federal funding that follows that is not very great.

Ms. NORTON. Well, suppose the private homeowner said, I want

mine replaced. Does that justify the public expense, in your judgment?

Mr. STEPHENSON. We think that is still the best solution, and

that does make sense.

Ms. NORTON. That is the best solution even if it stirs up lead to

have the public and the private replacement?

Mr. STEPHENSON. In the long run, yes, it is better to get rid of

the lead service lines, but it is a very expensive undertaking, $300

million.

Ms. NORTON. So it may fail a cost/benefit test, but it may be that

if you were doing the Cadillac approach that is what you would do?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Exactly.

Ms. NORTON. You have looked at the needs of WASA. Pretty

staggering. I have described my attempts to get money, and we get

a little bit of money, but you see it is a little bit of money every

year that we have gotten. We haven’t gotten hundreds of millions

of dollars at one traunch that other jurisdictions have, and I must

tell you that while we are on pay-go I can’t promise that we are

going to do that, whatever the Federal involvement in this particular water system is.

By the way, anyone that goes to the White House and into Federal buildings, I guess they are all drinking bottled water—watch

out for those bottles—in order to assure their health, but, of course,

there are many in the region who rely upon the water. I have news

for Members of Congress and people who go to restaurants and the

White House: some of that water gets into your food. They are not

taking water out of the bottles and cooking with it. Of course, we

know it has its greatest affect on children and babies and pregnant

women.

But let me ask you, having looked at the many needs, pretty

Herculean needs of the supply here and WASA, how would you categorize, how would you prioritize if you were king for a day where

you would start, since you have already testified you wouldn’t start

here, because you don’t see the cost/benefit.

Mr. STEPHENSON. We haven’t done a detailed study of WASA, per

se. My experience is more with facilities like WASA around the Nation. But you would have to weigh the merits of each and every expenditure. WASA, itself, is estimating $3.1 billion in capital improvement programs over the next 10 years, I believe. That is $310

million a year. So how do you allocate that? They have huge expenses associated with the Blue Plains facility to reduce nitrogen.

They have the combined sewer overflow program, which is estimated at $2.2 billion over the next two decades, let alone just normal replacement of pipes.

Ms. NORTON. The reason I am indicating that there is no need

here, I am doing what Congress does and saying, you know, either

we are going to give you money for this or we are not. In light of

what you just said, that those are the needs that you described, is

there any other alternative for those needs? At least we have the

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chemical alternative here. For the needs you have just described,

providing sewer overflow and the rest, is there a substitute that we

could rely on for those needs, even as you have testified the chemical has been definitively shown to be effective in other jurisdictions,

even as there may be a substitute for requiring change in the public portion of the lead pipe?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Again, we haven’t studied that specifically, but

for the combined sewer overflow, for example, I mean, you need

huge capital expenditures to be able to build the facilities that you

would need to handle combined sewer overflow in a wet weather

event. So the alternative is to pollute the Anacostia River, if you

don’t address that.

Ms. NORTON. So essentially you are testifying there really isn’t

any other way to deal with combined sewer overflow, for example,

or with the long-term control plan other than to deal with it. There

is no substitute here or anywhere else. We are just spending the

money there where there may be, may be a substitute for spending

the money on the lead pipe, particularly when the private portion

is left intact.

Mr. STEPHENSON. That is true. The only question is where the

money will come from.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Ms. Norton.

Mr. Sarbanes, any questions?

Mr. SARBANES. Not at this time.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. No, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the report

though. I think it raises some important questions.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I don’t really have any questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Let me just ask one. I was struck by the

amount of money that you expressed a need for. How do you see

this in relationship to the needs of water systems across the country?

Mr. STEPHENSON. It is very similar. As I said, the total estimates

that aren’t GAO’s but are prepared by the Environmental Protection Agency and many of the water industry associations who do

this for a living, are in hundreds of billions to a trillion dollars over

the next several years. Obviously, the Federal Government isn’t

going to pay for all of that. The ratepayer has to pay for some of

that. But there needs to be a balance.

WASA, itself, estimates that about 45 percent of their capital improvement is to respond to Federal requirements.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. So any way you cut it, we are going to

need a lot of money?

Mr. STEPHENSON. Yes.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate your being here.

Mr. STEPHENSON. You are welcome.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. We will proceed to panel two, our second

panel. While they are being set up let me just introduce them.

Robin Martin is the current Chair of the D.C. Water and Sewer

Authority’s Board of Directors representing the District of Columbia, and Mr. Martin has served in this capacity since May 2, 2007.

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Mr. Jerry Johnson is the general manager of the District of Columbia’s Water and Sewer Authority. As the first general manager

of WASA, Mr. Johnson has guided the unrated agency with a projected $8 million deficit to an organization with an A-plus credit

rating and $170 million reserve, all within a 2-year period.

Gentlemen, would you join us. While you are doing that, why

don’t I just go ahead and swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. The record will show that the witnesses

answered in the affirmative.

Gentlemen, we thank you very much for being here. Of course,

we try to do this in 5-minute spurts. If you would summarize your

statement in 5 minutes, the entire statement is in the record.

We will begin with you, Mr. Martin.

STATEMENTS OF ROBIN B. MARTIN, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, D.C. WATER AND SEWER AUTHORITY; AND JERRY

JOHNSON, GENERAL MANAGER, D.C. WATER AND SEWER AUTHORITY

STATEMENT OF ROBIN B. MARTIN

Mr. MARTIN. Thank you, Chairman Davis and members of the

subcommittee, for this opportunity to testify.

My name is Robin Martin. I am a private citizen, a resident of

the District of Columbia, and I have honored to have been appointed by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty to be the chairman of the Board

of Directors of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority.

D.C. WASA was created in a compromise requiring foresight and

leadership. I will share briefly my views about our opportunities

and challenges.

The Board of Directors is working very hard with management

to build on past successes. One key objective is to allow the average

citizen to turn on the tap and drink the water with confidence. I

am pleased to report to this subcommittee that our water is safe

to drink.

Distributing drinking water is a critically important mission,

having been the subject of hearings before this subcommittee. To

strengthen the oversight of this critical mission area, I recently appointed Dr. Joseph Cotruvo to Chair the ad hoc Committee on D.C.

Drinking Water Quality. His experience will prove invaluable.

We must continue to maintain our distribution system and to

strengthen our relationship with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’

Washington Aqueduct, which provides drinking water treatment

services. Most of our consumers and many policymakers are unaware of the bifurcation in the District’s drinking water treatment

and delivery system.

The most controversial problem in D.C. WASA’s history was a

drinking water quality issue, the exceedance of the Lead and Copper Rule lead action level. The Board’s lead service replacement

program grew out of these issues in 2004.

These experiences provided lessons which the Board and management have taken very seriously. Among the most prominent is

the importance of transparency. As the D.C. WASA Board began to

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explore publicly the merits of potentially modifying the ongoing

lead service replacement program last year, we have once again

been subjected to criticism from certain advocates and to some negative media coverage, as well.

However, there is ongoing dialog with the public about a path

forward, and for some stakeholders the issue remains D.C. WASA’s

credibility, but for most it is reaching an understanding of what

constitutes safe water and ensuring its delivery.

We have an obligation and an interest in protecting the environment, particularly the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers, Rock Creek,

and the Chesapeake Bay. We are proud to be in the forefront of

these efforts.

D.C. WASA is investing enormous sums to restore and preserve

waterways. While I have confidence in management, it is the

Board’s responsibility to ensure that these large projects—over $2

billion for the long-term control plan and nearly $1 billion for the

Chesapeake Bay nitrogen removal program—are well-planned, executed, and financed.

We must also provide strategic guidance to management in its

negotiations with the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure

that these programs are technically achievable and affordable for

all our customers.

Congress and the administration have been strong partners in

these efforts, providing, for example, in excess of $100 million in

funding for the long-term control plan. We want to continue this

partnership, which is critical to our success.

In 2007, the District Council charged D.C. WASA with engaging

an independent consultant to review the budget to find ways to

contain rising retail rates and to review capital improvement plan

disbursements and the financial plan. The Board enthusiastically

supported this review, and the report found that D.C. WASA compares favorably in a variety of categories when benchmarked

against other utilities.

The independent review of the budget is one step along a long

path we are taking to try to ensure that our development, planning, and execution of operations and the capital program are as

effective and efficient as possible. We recently learned that Standard & Poor’s has awarded D.C. WASA an unsolicited bond rating

upgrade. In this difficult financial environment, I regard the upgrade as an endorsement not only of D.C. WASA’s performance, but

of its governing board and management. Nevertheless, the Board

has the responsibility to ensure the continuing financial health of

D.C. WASA to enable it to maintain, rebuild, and upgrade the

aging infrastructure so vital to the provision of our services.

The Board is also committed to maintaining fairness and equity

in our retail rate structure. For example, we are now developing an

impervious surface area rate to allocate more equitably the cost of

the long-term control plan to the users who actually produce the

stormwater runoff that contributes to the combined sewage overflows.

D.C. WASA has earned a positive reputation in the industry for

its financial management, administrative prowess, research, capital

program planning, development, and project management and exeVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:51 Jan 14, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\46013.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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cution. We still face major challenges, but we have a solid foundation on which to build.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members, for this opportunity to

address the subcommittee. I would be happy to respond to any

questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Martin follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Martin.

We will proceed to Mr. Johnson.

STATEMENT OF JERRY JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, and good afternoon, Chairman Davis

and members of the committee. I am Jerry Johnson, general manager of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority. I appreciate the committee’s interest in receiving an overview and update on D.C. WASA.

I would like to start by briefly noting a few recent positive developments.

On March 13th I had the pleasure of submitting to the D.C.

WASA Board of Directors the 11th consecutive unqualified audit

opinion for the year ending September 30, 2007. A clean audit is

nothing less than our stakeholders deserve, and we should be providing it as they expect it.

With respect to the bottom line, fiscal year 2007 ended with reve- nues exceeding expenditures by approximately $23 million, and

with cash reserves in excess of the board’s required 180-day operating and maintenance cost of $111 million. Those excess funds were

used for pay-go and for rate stabilization fund.

Mr. Martin mentioned the unsolicited bond upgrade, but I would

like to point out that a portion of our outstanding debt issuance

has included bonds known as auction rate securities. As you may

know, under the current credit market conditions, these securities

have experienced volatile interest swings. We took actions to refund the outstanding auction fund debt, eliminating the risk of our

overall operating costs. The largest portion of this refunding, $310

million, has been successfully offered in the marketplace and will

close at the end of this month at a fixed rate of 4.89 percent, which

is about outstanding, given the circumstance that many jurisdictions face in not being able to get rid of those types of securities.

Mr. Chairman, in 2007 the District of Columbia Council budget

legislation included a provision directing the Board of Directors to

engage with an independent consultant to review the budget and

certain aspects of the capital program. The Board commissioned

the review even before the law was enacted. The report offered several recommendations, including, for example, continuing our effort

to build internal staff capacity to manage and utilize costly commodities like electricity and chemicals.

Overall, the consultant stated, ‘‘D.C. WASA is a high-performing

water and sewer utility with good management practices which

are, in some cases, best in class, and one of the best-kept secrets

on the east coast.’’

By way of background, WASUA, D.C. WASA’s predecessor agency, operated as an enterprise fund, and revenues from that were

segregated from the local government’s general fund. As you may

recall, in the late 1980’s and 1990’s the District of Columbia experienced significant financial challenges, and the District made use of

approximately $85 million of WASUA enterprise funds for pay-go

government expenses. It is important to note that these funds have

since been repaid, but at a time the District-wide hiring freeze,

long deferred maintenance, capital improvements, the water distribution system and wastewater collection system, and treatment

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systems, and a 10-year hiatus in adjusting the rates to collect revenues needed to operate and upgrade the system alternative came

together in a giant crash.

The demand for prudent utility operations prompted in 1996 the

District of Columbia, the participants in the Blue Plains service

area, and the U.S. Congress to agree to create the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, an independent agency of the

District of Columbia.

Many policymakers took part in the negotiations, but Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton’s leadership in that effort was critical in building the foundation for the organization’s success that

exists today.

In celebrating our 10th anniversary, I noted that I believed that

a model for regional cooperation was created, and it stands today

for others to emulate.

D.C. WASA’s enabling legislation also provided that the agency

would have procurement, personnel system that were separated

from the District, along with independent authority to establish

policy in those areas. The enabling statute also granted D.C.

WASA’s board the authority to issue debt. Since 1996, D.C.

WASA’s board of directors has been solely accountable for the hiring of financial management staffs, setting financial policies, developing and adopting the organization’s financial plans and practices,

setting fees and charges, adopting annual operating and capital

budget, the 10-year capital and financial plan, as well as setting

rates.

As one of the larger utilities in the United States, D.C. WASA

has two critical missions: those of purchasing drinking water from

our partner agency, the U.S. Corps of Engineers, and distributing

it to 130,000 or so customers in the District of Columbia; and also

for collecting and treating sanitary flow that is discharged into the

Potomac River, and for producing about 4,400 tons of bio-solids per

month for the land applied in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

D.C. WASA is one of the strongest environmental stewards in the

region, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in improving water

quality in the Anacostia, Potomac, and the Chesapeake Bay. We

are in compliance with all MPDES permit requirements. We are

also in compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act and all standards pertaining thereto,.

With respect to capital improvements, WASA is responsible for

the operation of utility plant assets in excess of $2.2 billion. For example, the Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant, perhaps the

largest in the world, streaming capacity of 370 million gallons a

day. We are very proud of the national reputation that we have

achieved there.

But we are also responsible for thousands of miles of underground infrastructure, as was mentioned by the representative

from GAO, with a number of hydrants, valves, and other larger facilities.

Since D.C. WASA was created in 1996, we have invested over $1

billion in capital improvements. Through 2016, D.C. WASA plans

to spend an additional $3.1 billion in capital assets. This substantial increase as compared to last year’s investment of $2.2 billion

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for the capital improvement program is mandated by the U.S. EPA

as benefiting the Chesapeake Bay. Specifically, roughly $900 million of increase is almost driven entirely by the Blue Plains total nitrogen project. This investment is

required to meet the new Federal nitrogen limits imposed for the

discharge at the Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant. We estimate that fully 45 percent of the CIP that is currently in place is

required by regulatory mandates.

There are a number of other projects that are listed in the testimony that you have received, so I will not go into all of those, but

we have made a commitment of $636 million over the next 10 years

to maintain and enhance the water quality throughout the capital

and improve operations in our water distribution system, and another $150 million going to the Washington Aqueduct for projects

that will be undertaken there.

We have also undertaken a comprehensive sewer assessment

program in the District that spanned about 5 years that will result

in major capital projects that we will have to undertake.

I would be remiss if I did not note and express our appreciation

for the Federal funding support that we have received since 2003.

We have received about $106 million in Federal support of the $2.2

billion long-term control program to reduce combined sewage overflows into the Anacostia, Potomac Rivers, and Rock Creek. We have

matched this extraordinary level of funding with 100 percent of

local funds, principally from District ratepayer.

Ms. Norton, you have been a leader, and it is once again that you

have provided that extraordinary leadership in helping to obtain

these funds, and we are truly gratified that you and other Members of Congress from around the region, like Congressman Van

Hollen, have joined in seeking additional support under WRDA and

additional resources to support the massive capital programs. With

congressional support, we have already eliminated 33 percent of

CSOs. By the end of 2008 we will have reduced it by 40 percent.

The continuing challenge is that it will require nearly a decade

and a half and an additional $2 billion to complete the project, and

continuing Federal commitment is critically important for the District of Columbia.

Building on industry leading automated systems and technology,

we have begun installing a high-tech system that allows us to notify our customers when there are problems with the water bills,

and we are able to do that in advance.

I would also like to salute the Board’s leadership that has resulted in a focused and long-term commitment to improving operational efficiency, which is important to our customers as we continue to rebuild aging infrastructure.

Mr. Chairman and Members, D.C. WASA has evolved from a

troubled beginning to become a respected and responsible forwardlooking utility poised to successfully meet the challenges of the future. We have moved from crisis to stabilization to stability.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to give the committee

an overview of D.C. WASA and its operations. I will be happy to

respond to any questions you or members of the committee may

have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

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Ms. NORTON [presiding]. I thank both of you, Mr. Johnson and

Mr. Martin, for that important and indispensable testimony to this

hearing.

Now, if I may say so, count yourself lucky and the District unfortunate that this is not a vote in the committee, as a whole, the only

House vote on which I can cast a vote for the District of Columbia,

so my colleagues, including the Chair, had to go to vote, and your

humble Member is left here, much to her regret, with all apologies

to you that she cannot do the important work of casting a vote for

the residents of the District of Columbia. We are only three votes

short in the Senate. That is the place where you need 60 votes.

That is how you get a majority there. It is the only place that a

majority is defined by more than 51 votes.

That said, the chairman, if he were here, would have asked a

question that is prescient inasmuch as I would have asked it if he

hadn’t, and he asked how many District residents are waiting a

full-pipe replacement. How many are awaiting that in the District

of Columbia, full pipe? Full pipe—that must be you get some kind

of guarantee that they are going to do the other or they pay you

to do both at the same time? Is that how it works?

Mr. JOHNSON. Before we begin in a neighborhood to do the lead

service line replacements, Ms. Norton, we will notify the residents

and provide them with at least a 45-day lead time and an opportunity to replace the private portion while we are replacing the

public portion.

Ms. NORTON. Sir, I am just trying to find out how that works.

Do they have to do that first?

Mr. JOHNSON. No, ma’am. We will do all of the work first using

our——

Ms. NORTON. So how do you know they will do it? Do they then

remit an amount to you to do it and then you decide to do the private and the public all at the same time?

Mr. JOHNSON. We have several different options for approaching

that. One, they can set themselves up on a payment plan with the

water and sewer authority. We have also made arrangements

through Wachovia Bank for a discounted rate loan that can be

made to our customers, and we work with the D.C. housing——

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. I didn’t hear a payment plan here, but

I appreciate that detail. What I really want to know is how many

residents are awaiting full-pipe replacement and decided to invest

in that measure, which you heard from the previous witnesses, is

the best way to remove lead from the water?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am. I cannot give you a going-forward

number. The number to date has been somewhere around 23 percent of the total——

Ms. NORTON. That is 23 percent of what, sir?

Mr. JOHNSON. Of the total number that we have done public side

replacements. It is a rolling number because we are constantly

sending——

Ms. NORTON. The number I am asking for wasn’t rolling at all.

I am just asking how many have contacted you to say they want

to do full-pipe replacement. Do you have that figure?

Mr. JOHNSON. To date it has been about 22 percent of the 14,200

and some that we have done.

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Ms. NORTON. So of those that have already been done, 14 percent

of the replacements, the others have been public-side replacement

only?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. You heard my questions to the GAO, pretty definitive, that replacement on one side may do more harm than good,

but that replacement of both is the top of the mark, the gold standard. Do you have consultants that indicate to you that partial replacement, in light of the alternative, is not the best option for

WASA?

Mr. JOHNSON. I believe, Ms. Norton, that any lead that is removed certainly has some benefit, but in a case where you only replace a part of the lead service line and you still have quite a bit

remaining——

Ms. NORTON. Have you a consultant that says if you do only—

there will be others after you. Perhaps they can testify to this, too.

You say any removal. Well, the testimony before you was that it

was a no statistically significant effect.

Mr. JOHNSON. That is correct.

Ms. NORTON. I hate to ask these questions in this way. Remember, I am the one who cosponsored a bill to say do the whole thing,

and if you can’t get the private sector to do it, go do it anyway,

public sector. But I also am contending with your competing priorities, and I can tell you this without fear of being contradicted:

every single bill that goes to the House of Representatives is a paygo bill, and it is going to be that way for eternity because of the

huge increase in the deficit that we have built up in the last 8

years with the war and with tax cuts for wealthy people, so we are

left in this zero sum gain notion of what are the priorities.

If you had to answer the same question that I gave to the GAO,

ranking, what would be the most important place to put money to

have the greatest health affect and the greatest effect on the region? What would be first for you or, for that matter, for the Board,

Mr. Martin?

Mr. MARTIN. Let me try to answer that question. I think one of

the things that we are attempting to answer is the question of

whether, if there are no replacements whatsoever, public side or

private side, if orthophosphate is sufficient to provide clean drinking water, and the tests that we have so far show that we are

below the lead action level. So that would seem to appear to us

that, in fact, would be the case.

Ms. NORTON. Well, more important than that, the GAO said it

has been definitively shown in other jurisdictions, which use

orthophosphate for a far longer time than we have.

Mr. MARTIN. Right.

Ms. NORTON. Again, you know, this is what is going to happen

in the Congress. You can’t get a bill through here for the gold

standard, so the first thing one has to do—I have already spoken

to the chairman about this, and he said he would get the Chair to

look at it, because he has been the standard bearer of this, and I

joined him enthusiastically, and have not been convinced yet that

we should change the bill. But I must say that the more the evidence rolls in—I continue to be an academic, teach one course

every year, as I did before I came to Congress, and it is very hard

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for me, in the face of evidence that there is a cheaper way to do

it, to say keep replacing the public portion. I have a problem with

that.

This is a free society. You can’t make somebody change the private portion. One could, of course, say you must change them when

the other side, the private side, says, I want them changed. Of

course, still the money is coming from the taxpayers, so it is still

not a free lunch. If they wanted to say, OK, I will pay for changing

the public and the private, that is another story.

For myself, I want to say right here, you know, the pipes that

most interest me are the pipes that we found during the controversy in D.C. public schools. Those are pipes I am interested in,

and those are pipes which you go to the fountain and there was a

concern about lead. We dealt with that in part through other

means. Can you assure me that when you turn on the water fountain in every D.C. public school and every part of the region that

may be served, that you will not get out of those pipes from that

water fountain lead-contaminated water?

Mr. MARTIN. Ms. Norton, I think one of the issues is that even

if the public side and the private side of the lead service line are

replaced, there are still fixtures within a home, within a building,

within a school that may contain lead fixtures. So the issue

that——

Ms. NORTON. And you think that might be the case in public

schools?

Mr. MARTIN. It very well could. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. This is what Democrats got accused of, spending

money no matter what the effect. We refute that more often than

not, but I am looking here for the evidence, the facts. As they say,

nothing but the facts.

My major concern, when you get to be as old as most of the people in the room, the fact is the evidence is that lead has less and

less affect, and the great and horrific concern in the District was

with pregnant women and with children of school age, and most

particularly elementary school age, but yes, all children who are

still in formation of their brains and other body structures.

In 2008 there was tap water that appeared to implicate as the

source of lead as a problem for 15 percent of children in the District of Columbia who had elevated lead, blood lead levels, whose

water was actually tested for lead. Yet, you both have claimed that

the District’s water is safe to drink. How can we accept that testimony in light of these tests that were dong?

Mr. JOHNSON. I can’t say that I am familiar with those tests and

how they were conducted.

Ms. NORTON. It was from the D.C. Department of Environment

reports. It is a report from the District of Columbia Department of

Environment, 2007–2008, which reported that tap water was, indeed, implicated as a source, apparently not the only source, as a

source of lead for 15 percent of D.C. children. I will have to ask

them the extent to which the report showed that lead in the water,

but apparently it did show that lead in the water was a source for

these children, for 15 percent of these children whose drinking

water had actually been tested for lead.

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Mr. JOHNSON. Ms. Norton, I am not a health expert and I don’t

think that I would——

Ms. NORTON. But you did tell me that the District’s public water

was safe to drink.

Mr. JOHNSON. And I will stand behind that statement and will

certainly——

Ms. NORTON. I am going to make available to you this report.

Mr. JOHNSON. OK.

Ms. NORTON. I can’t believe that somebody in WASA hasn’t seen

it or at the Aqueduct, and I am going to ask you in 30 days to comment on the question I just asked about this 15 percent of the children who were actually tested. And I am the first to understand

the lead may have come from multiple sources. I had a discussion

with someone recently who told me that they were winning lead

cases in court.

I said, how can you be winning lead cases brought by children?

This young man was one of my students when I was a full-time

professor of law at Georgetown and he’s very much about my politics. He works for a big law firm now. He said, because of cause

and effect, the source problem becomes a very big problem, given

the children who have lead and the varied sources of contamination.

I am very evidence-oriented. I questioned him, I cross-examined

him. He said they were winning cases in Mississippi. I don’t know

if you know the storied Mississippi juries which sit in order to

award money to deep pockets.

Anyway, I asked this question not because I preclude an answer

one way or the other, but because this report was done, and we will

make available to you the report.

Many of us saw the outcry about the lead in the water, Lead and

Copper Rule compliance, but because they did not include measurements that were taken in between late May and early July in 2006

and 2007. Because you are trying to regain the public trust, I wonder why those months would have been excluded rather than simply explained perhaps?

Mr. JOHNSON. That is simply not the case, Ms. Norton. I think

that we have documentation of the time of year——

Ms. NORTON. You took measurements between late May and

early July? Did you make them public?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. This is a period when lead in the drinking water

has been documented to reach its peak. That is why I am asking

the question.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. We have the documentation of the times and

dates that we did all of the sampling. It was done in strict compliance with the EPA requirements for sampling and identifying the

evidence.

Ms. NORTON. Did you make those public right away, the rate?

Mr. JOHNSON. Sure. They have been made public.

Ms. NORTON. No, right away.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Johnson, within 30 days would you get your

compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule during the months I

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have just described in 2006 and 2007, that is between May and

early July, and offer evidence that you informed the public?

Mr. JOHNSON. I am told that we do the testing in January

through May. June is the reporting month, and we begin to start

again in July.

Ms. NORTON. I am talking about 2006 and 2007. I don’t want to

quibble here. Just get it to me.

Mr. JOHNSON. Sure.

Ms. NORTON. And then get me how you informed the public.

Apparently there were errors made in your—I recall this very

distinctly—your 2006 post partial pipe replacement data. Which

lab made those errors?

Mr. JOHNSON. As I recall, I don’t believe that there was a laboratory error; I believe that there was a dating error that confused the

date that the sample was actually taken, versus the date that the

sample was analyzed. That information, the way it was represented

came out as an error. And we used two laboratories, and we are

determining now which one of them made the error.

Ms. NORTON. I ask this question because when it was known

that I would have this hearing residents of the District of Columbia

asked me, because they say they have been unable to get this information from you about the lab, and if it wasn’t the lab error and

it was the date, apparently this matter was raised in a meeting

with Council Member Jim Graham on February 24, 2008, and then

a written inquiry was sent. These people watch you all after lead

in the water.

Mr. JOHNSON. We are putting that data together now, and in

terms of——

Ms. NORTON. Would you make it available to Council Member

Graham and would you make it available to me within 30 days?

Mr. JOHNSON. Absolutely. But it simply was not available, so we

couldn’t actually give it to the——

Ms. NORTON. Why wasn’t it available?

Mr. JOHNSON. Because we have to go back and determine where

the error was made.

Ms. NORTON. You are talking about 2006, and people are still

giving me that question here in April 2008. A written inquiry was

sent to D.C. WASA on April 6, 2008. I raise this question because

it is not a quibble because you have to respond to members of the

public like a first priority, again because the public lost confidence.

You have done a great deal to try to regain that confidence. Nothing can do it better than saying, look, here is what the real deal

is, or, it will take us time to gather that information. Here is a date

when it is going to be there.

Mr. JOHNSON. I think that we have advised them that it was

going to take some time to pull the data together. We have two sets

of data, one set of data that is compliance data that we provide to

the EPA and is posted on the Web site and is out there, and then

we have some other data that we are just collecting in order to satisfy ourselves that we are doing the appropriate thing.

Ms. NORTON. Or to satisfy the residents that you are doing the

appropriate thing, and that is what they wanted to know. This is

a date, for goodness sake. How long does it take to find out?

Mr. JOHNSON. We are researching it. It is a very recent issue.

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Ms. NORTON. Two years of research? You can’t afford that, Mr.

Johnson and Mr. Martin. That is your job. Remember, I sat here

and said, yes, it is not Congress’ job, it is your job. I am going to

hold you accountable too, sir.

Mr. MARTIN. Right. I agree.

Ms. NORTON. I have a problem that I remember raising in the

first hearings that lead and copper pipes join together. Here is

where science and follow-through and being willing to change or

not change based on the science is so important. You put the lead

and the copper together and you accelerate the lead erosion. There

is a device which we understand is inexpensive called a dielectric.

Apparently, you do not use dielectrics.

Mr. JOHNSON. That is correct.

Ms. NORTON. If you do use dielectric in order to keep from extending and accelerating lead pipe erosion, this is your time to inform the public.

Mr. JOHNSON. Ms. Norton, the acceleration of corrosion depends

on a number of factors, and it is not just whether you connect a

lead and copper pipe together. It depends on soil conditions and a

number of other factors, and——

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Johnson, that——

Mr. JOHNSON. That is simply not correct, the information that

you have.

Ms. NORTON. Let me just stop you here with respect to answers

to our questions.

Mr. JOHNSON. OK.

Ms. NORTON. You notice that I am not looking for zero in terms

of what science can provide. I have talked about the gold standard,

and I have been real clear I know nobody is going to get the gold

standard. Now you are trying to tell me other sources. I am asking

a direct question about mitigation here through the use of dielectric, inexpensive device. Do you or do you not use it, yes or no?

Mr. JOHNSON. We do not.

Ms. NORTON. Why do you not use it?

Mr. JOHNSON. Because we don’t believe, in these soil conditions

and with the pipe that we are putting together, that it is necessary.

Ms. NORTON. So you think that there is no acceleration and extension of lead corrosion, and you have evidence to prove that?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, we do. We have an EPA report and study

that was done that looked very specifically at this issue, and it indicated that there was a minuscule——

Ms. NORTON. So putting lead in cooper is OK?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. All right. Submit that report within 30 days. You

are under oath.

Mr. JOHNSON. We will do that.

Ms. NORTON. You are under oath. Both of you are. So if there

is a mistake, admit it, but don’t tell me unless you can, in fact,

back up what you say. I ask some of these questions because the

public has not been able to get answers to them.

Mr. JOHNSON. I am very mindful of that.

Ms. NORTON. Apparently this was a question that was submitted

long ago, and according to the information my staff has gathered

was a very exact date on February 21st. Again, at Council Member

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Graham’s meeting an engineer did finally admit that WASA had

never used dielectrics. You say it was because they were unnecessary. Last thing I am going to do is say spend money on something

that you don’t have to spend money on. I do note that this is inexpensive, and since it is inexpensive and most of what you have to

do is not, would you also submit the cost of it?

Mr. JOHNSON. Sure.

Ms. NORTON. I am told it is inexpensive. I don’t want to hold

anyone to that.

Mr. JOHNSON. Along with other information related to other

problems that it can cause by using that particular device.

Ms. NORTON. Will you say that again? I am sorry.

Mr. JOHNSON. There are other associated problems with grounding of electricity within a residence that are caused by the use of

that device, as well.

Ms. NORTON. Would you explain that, please? In other words,

there is a harmful effect, you are testifying?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. And that would be?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, because houses are typically grounded using

the water pipe, and when you do this disconnect with the dielectric

and the copper and lead fitting, it could very well break that

ground and create electrical problems within the home. I will be

glad to provide you with the research data associated with that, as

well.

Ms. NORTON. I would appreciate that within 30 days, as well.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. Here is an opportunity for you to explain something

that I think is important for the public to know, and that is, when

you increase the rate structure, a lot of it has to do with the surface, impervious surface rate structure, and, just to be as clear as

I can without getting into technical matters, those large buildings

are often the source of these impervious land structures, and so the

water flows into the Anacostia and they cost and they increase pollution.

Let me see if I can find a neutral way to say this. Who in this

region would be the No. 1—don’t use the word villain, Eleanor—

who would be the No. 1 land owner who is the source of the problem or problems from impervious surface runoff?

Mr. JOHNSON. Our initial look, it appears that the Federal Government probably owns the largest number of square feet of impervious cover.

Ms. NORTON. And I think you are certainly right. You heard me

indicate I am having a hearing even tomorrow. We were going to

call you to that hearing, but it seems unnecessary to do that, especially with your coming today. I know that the rate structure is

being increased. Are you saying that the largest increase will come,

because the Federal Government is a ratepayer, to the Federal

Government?

Mr. JOHNSON. I think the largest shifting of cost will occur in the

Federal customer category.

Ms. NORTON. What does that mean?

111

Mr. JOHNSON. We are not adding additional cost; what we are

doing is unbundling the basic sewer charge as it currently exists,

because it is all based on a volumetric charge now, so you will——

Ms. NORTON. But I thought there were going to be rate increases.

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, the rate increase, which is projected at 8.5

percent, and a portion of that——

Ms. NORTON. That was 8.5 percent?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am. A portion of that is water and a portion of that is sewer. On the sewer charge what we are attempting

to do is take out the cost that is associated with the long-term control plan and segregate that, so instead of there being an 8 percent

rate increase, it would probably be something on the order of a 3

to 4 percent rate increase on the sewer side, and we would collect

the balance of that in this impervious area surface charge.

Ms. NORTON. And that will be charged to he or she who is responsible for it?

Mr. JOHNSON. That is what we are moving toward. Yes, ma’am.

If you looked at a family of four in a house where they are washing

and cooking and bathing and doing all the things that a family normally does, and they are paying their water and sewer charged

based on the volume of water that they use, so we base how much

you are going to pay for your sewer cost on the number of gallons

of water you use. And you look across the street and let’s say that

there is a large big box store and that big box store has 300,000

square feet under roof and two or three acres of parking, and

maybe only one or two toilets inside, then their volumetric charge

is going to be disproportionate to that of the family of four.

So what we are trying to do is equalize this so that the cost causers are the ones that are paying for the actual cost of this particular program, so that the single family——

Ms. NORTON. Then I don’t understand why this has been controversial. Do people understand? Will the average homeowner get

a rate increase? Perhaps a rate reduction?

Mr. MARTIN. Ms. Norton, I think the issue is that this is a new

rate. It is a change in every customer’s bill. Part of our program

from the Board’s perspective is to make sure that we explain this

in a very transparent way so that people understand exactly——

Ms. NORTON. Well, Mr. Martin, will there be an increase to the

average homeowner?

Mr. MARTIN. We don’t have the impervious surface rate actually

defined at this point because we are still working on it, but the preliminary numbers say no, probably not. When you add up the

water rate by volume, the sewer rate by volume, and the rate for

impervious surface, it is probably about the same, a few pennies

one way or the other. That is the preliminary data. Let me not say

that is——

Ms. NORTON. I know this is hard to explain, because when you

get into what most of us—certainly I didn’t know anything about

this division of cost or that it was all bundled. I am sure this is

going to be hard to explain. When will you know for sure?

Mr. JOHNSON. There are some new customers, too. There are people who have typically not been a customer, people who own——

Ms. NORTON. Like who?

112

Mr. JOHNSON [continuing]. Parking lots and parking decks who

don’t get a water bill.

Ms. NORTON. How in the world could they not have been customers?

Mr. MARTIN. They don’t have water service.

Mr. JOHNSON. They don’t have water service, so they are not

getting——

Ms. NORTON. They don’t have any water service in a parking lot

of any kind?

Mr. JOHNSON. In a flat surface parking lot, typically no.

Ms. NORTON. Unless they are part of a building.

Mr. JOHNSON. Right. And so those are customers that will be

added. I can’t say that they will be coming on willingly.

Ms. NORTON. When will you be able to definitively—you did the

right thing to get out here early and alert people, but, of course,

in the 15-second ad atmosphere and all of us are too busy, this is

seen by some, I think, as a rate increase. Mr. Martin has offered

very helpful and important testimony that it probably isn’t, given

who the source of the problem is.

When, Mr. Martin or Mr. Johnson, will you have a definitive answer?

Mr. MARTIN. We have proposed rates as of earlier this year that

are——

Ms. NORTON. Well, they were a rate increase.

Mr. MARTIN [continuing]. Combined rates. They were combined

rates that are not unbundled.

Ms. NORTON. Why would you do that? If you are trying to

unbundle, why would you alarm people by giving them all a rate

increase?

Mr. MARTIN. Because that rate increase is probably going to reflect in their total bill, that same rate increase. In other words, we

have a 10-year plan that——

Ms. NORTON. You just said that there would not be a rate increase for the average homeowner. I asked you that.

Mr. MARTIN. That is the total average bill for a homeowner.

What we proposed back in February would reflect an 8.5 increase.

When we unbundle it and then add up what the average homeowner would get, it will be about 8.5 percent with everything added

up together.

Ms. NORTON. All right. For the record, there will be an increase

to everybody?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. Unbundling only lets you know how much of it

comes from your impervious land, and there will be an increase because of the CSO, isn’t it, because of combined sewer overflow?

Mr. MARTIN. In part, correct.

Ms. NORTON. I just think you have to be candid with people.

There is no free lunch. And if you are trying to make the increase

fall more on those who are most responsible, say that, but if you

have to increase everybody’s water rate tell them why. There is

concern about water purity here. If you tell them why, I think people really are willing to pay.

This is hard to explain, but remember it was the explanation of

lead in the water that led to issues for WASA before.

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Now, these water rates apparently are not progressive. You may

have read in the Post, I guess it was, in recent days that one-third

of families in the District of Columbia are poor. Why should a poor

family pay the same water rate that Eleanor Holmes Norton and

Jerry Johnson and Robin Martin pay?

Mr. MARTIN. Ms. Norton, I think that is a very good question,

and that is something that, since I have been on the Board, has

been on the top of mind of every District member whose responsibility is to make sure that not only do we have as reasonable

rates as possible, but that they are affordable.

My feeling as Chair in navigating through the rate structure is

that we need to get the impervious surface rate introduced, and

that the next project after that is to, in fact, look at our rate——

Ms. NORTON. After the poor people have already paid, then look

to see whether or not. Then, of course, you don’t give them back

any money.

Mr. MARTIN. We have to understand the issues that are involved

in terms of making sure the public is aware of the issue——

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Martin, look, let me suggest something. Part

of the problem for poor people is they often don’t own the property.

Calculating in some fashion—this is not rocket science—how much

of what you pay comes from the price of water, as it were, is kind

of elementary math. I am trying to keep these people from being

socked in the middle of one of the worse recessions anyone can remember, and I don’t think, given the fact that you have a pretty

hefty raise, and you say everybody is going to have it, 8.5, I am

going to have it and the poor lady down the street is going to have

it, I must ask you if you are, in fact, going to put this rate on people, why you can’t do the climate changes or a rebate? I don’t even

want to suggest. There are a thousand ways to say to a poor person

you don’t have to pay the same amount as Robin Martin does.

In the District of Columbia we are famous for rebates of various

kinds to poor people. We have done it with taxes here. There are

multiple ways to go about this, but if you lost your job and that

is what we have now, if you have no sub-prime mortgage but you

are feeling all of the reverberations of the present recession, all you

need is an 8.5 increase, which landlord, assuming you do not own

the property, will be happy to pass along to poor tenants.

So I am asking a very serious question here. I am not questioning the need for an increase. I don’t think you are trying to throw

rates at people. I am such a big proponent of doing something

about combined sewer overflow. I think you are trying to hold the

Federal Government and other big landowners in the way they

should, but I don’t see that you—in fact, you have testified that you

will get to the poor people after they have already been socked with

8.5, because first you have to do the rate increase. You have already announced that. Then you have to do the unbundling, then

you will get to them. Of course by then nobody is saying, here’s

your money back. Last time I saw an agency do that I cannot remember.

So I have to ask you why you cannot do it, or, put another way,

why you cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.

Mr. MARTIN. Ms. Chairman, I think we are. And let me correct

my statement before. I think I was responding to a question about

114

the rate structure. There are two programs that WASA has had for

a number of years that, in fact, address that exact question. One

is called the splash program, in which we solicit from ratepayer

and billpayers voluntary contributions which we then distribute to

people who are in need. We have a customer assistance program

which is tied in through the other utilities where——

Ms. NORTON. Well, the one-third of families who will be hit with

an 8.5 increase in their water bill have access or get a rebate

through—is it a rebate they get? Is it a lower rate?

Mr. MARTIN. Go ahead, Jerry.

Mr. JOHNSON. In the case of the cap program, the first four

CCFs, or about 3,000 gallons of water——

Mr. MARTIN. What’s a CCF?

Mr. JOHNSON. A CCF is 748 gallons of water, so about 3,000 gallons of water is provided at no cost to low-income customers in the

District of Columbia.

Ms. NORTON. How do you know if a low-income customer is getting that?

Mr. JOHNSON. We do it the same way that the power company

and the LIHEAP program. If you qualify for LIHEAP——

Ms. NORTON. Oh, so you could do this easily? You already do it?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

Mr. MARTIN. We do it.

Ms. NORTON. OK. So the answer to my question that is are you

willing to do this—I will call it a rebate. You can call it what you

like—with one-third of working families who are poor in the District of Columbia with respect to this 8.5 percent increase in the

water rate? Can they be included? You are telling me that some of

them are already included. Are you not, or are you? Are they already included?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

Mr. MARTIN. Some of them are, certainly.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

Mr. MARTIN. Absolutely.

Mr. JOHNSON. Those same people who would quality for the

LIHEAP program would qualify for this same discount, and it is

run by the same people who run the program for——

Ms. NORTON. All right. Unfortunately we have a terrible period

here. There are all kinds of people not in the LIHEAP program. My

question to you is: will families who can demonstrate that they are

poor—and you know what that standard is—be eligible—this would

be on an annual basis. This is not forever—be eligible for this reduction, not just a LIHEAP family, the family who worked yesterday and is not working today. Will that family, if that family submits evidence that they don’t have a job, have no means to pay for

an increase, will that family be eligible for what you are telling me

you already do for poor people?

Mr. MARTIN. That is not something that is in the policy at this

point. We have been reviewing both the CAP program and the

splash program because one of the things that we are finding is a

lower participation rate than we think is appropriate, or reflects

what the needs are of the community.

Ms. NORTON. So you prove my point. You have plenty of room

left in that program.

115

Mr. MARTIN. But we are attempting to figure out why people

aren’t participating. We think more people ought to be participating and qualified to participate.

Ms. NORTON. I am scratching my head. OK. Given the fact that

you already have some people who are not participating, how about

those who would like to participate as soon as the 8.5 increase goes

into affect? Is there any reason why that would be inappropriate,

Mr. Martin?

Mr. MARTIN. Ms. Norton, we would have to define what the

qualifications are to be——

Ms. NORTON. You already know what they are. You just testified.

Mr. MARTIN. Well, if they qualify——

Ms. NORTON. You just testified that LIHEAP——

Mr. MARTIN. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. The qualifications are defined as poor under the

Federal Government’s standards. I mean, we really shouldn’t answer me that way. If you don’t know or you are unwilling, you are

not going to get away with that kind of answer to me, Mr. Martin.

I am asking you a straight-out question. In the middle of what

some people are defining as a recession—I certainly would not like

to use that word—added on to the problems people are already

having with bills for necessities such as water and heat, if there

are such families and a third of them in the District of Columbia

are poor, I am sure I speak for my colleagues when I speak of those

who are poor in their jurisdictions, will you take an already existing program and make it available to families who, when this program goes into affect, cannot pay 8.5 using the same evidence and

proof that you use on LIHEAP program?

Mr. MARTIN. Absolutely. If they qualify under LIHEAP, they will

qualify here.

Ms. NORTON. So I don’t know what took us so long to get to that

answer. I tell you what, you said if they qualified for LIHEAP but

are not in LIHEAP——

Mr. MARTIN. No, no. I misunderstood your question. The answer

is, of course.

Ms. NORTON. OK. They are not in LIHEAP, but they would qualify under LIHEAP or the appropriate standard, then they could, in

fact, get this reduction?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes. Absolutely.

Ms. NORTON. I don’t know why you didn’t say that in the first

place.

Mr. MARTIN. I misunderstood the question. It is my error.

Ms. NORTON. My fault then. Sorry, I will try to be clearer.

Mr. JOHNSON. Ms. Norton, I think that one thing we keep in

mind as we go about doing these programs is that the only source

for payment are the other customers, so we are, in essence——

Ms. NORTON. Have you ever heard of progressive taxation?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. Have you ever heard of the earned income tax credit? At the big dollars we are paying you, Mr. Johnson, shouldn’t

you be paying more than people who are now on the earned income

tax credit?

Mr. JOHNSON. I fully understand what you are saying. I just

want to make sure——

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Ms. NORTON. There have been people who tried to repeal progressive taxation here. They haven’t quite succeeded, notwithstanding tax cuts for the richest Americans. So yes, there is a shift of

cost. That is why you pay more Federal income taxes than the poor

people I am talking about.

Mr. JOHNSON. I know. I had the experience yesterday.

Ms. NORTON. And why you should. You make a handsome living

compared to people who are going from hand to mouth.

I am almost through. Huge controversy about nitrogen and how

you are handling nitrogen. You and I have worked together on trying to get the nitrogen out of the water. I go every year to try to

get more and more money. Then I find you working at cross purposes with me. Scientists now say we won’t reach our goal in reducing nitrogen by the date we had set, 2010. Do you agree?

Mr. JOHNSON. That is correct.

Ms. NORTON. Why would you pursue in court or other legal strategies in the face of evidence about WASA’s practices, for example,

EPA regulators just this last month—and EPA will tell you they

are not my favorite people—rejected, that is to say its Environmental Appeals Board, your arguments regarding nitrogen were rejected, and I understand they have been rejected twice.

I understand you have yet another appeal going forward. Why

are you resisting what the EPA says are your obligations to pursue

efforts to reduce nitrogen, one of the most lethal and dangerous

pollutants? Why are you going to court against the regulators or

otherwise pursuing legal remedies through the administrative process when the regulators keep giving you the same answer and you

tell me yourself that by 2010 you are not going to meet the goal

that has been set for you to meet?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, let me start. I think that is a multi-part

question, Ms. Norton. Let me start with the 2010 piece of it first.

Simply because of the time that it takes to design, construct, and

build these facilities, it is literally not physically possible to get it

done by 2010. I mean, we have to——

Ms. NORTON. Is that the argument that you are making, that it

is just a time factor?

Mr. JOHNSON. I am trying to answer the question in segments,

if I may.

That is the question with respect to timing. We have worked

with the Environmental Protection Agency and worked with them

on the technical and engineering side to understand that there is

a timeframe in which we can complete this, and we have agreed

tentatively that we can accomplish the construction of some $950

million worth of facilities between now——

Ms. NORTON. Say that again, please.

Mr. JOHNSON. $950 million worth of facilities that have to be

constructed at the Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Ms. NORTON. Why did you file another protest on April 1st?

Mr. JOHNSON. I am going to come to that part. So we have

agreed on a date that we can get everything constructed. Assuming

EPA approval of the plan, we could get it constructed by 2014, and

that by 2015, January 2015, we would be in compliance. So that

is getting everything in the ground.

Ms. NORTON. Did you say EPA has agreed to that?

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Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. Why are you filing an appeal then?

Mr. JOHNSON. The appeal has to do with some of the technical

aspects of the plan. One has to do with a Federal consent decree

and the method by which they wanted to include the dates and

timeframes for getting it done.

Ms. NORTON. Well, shame on you. You have a Federal consent

decree, so you would think that you would know you had to do that

anyway.

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, if we——

Ms. NORTON. If you signed it, that is what a consent decree is.

Mr. JOHNSON. The consent decree has to do with the combined

sewer overflow project, not the total nitrogen project. We——

Ms. NORTON. And you don’t see the two as related, intimately related?

Mr. JOHNSON. They are related, but that, too, took a considerable

amount of time working with EPA to convince them that we ought

to look at the two projects together, as opposed to having a stovepipe over here for CSO and another one over here for total nitrogen, and it took some time to convince them that, from an engineering and environmental——

Ms. NORTON. All right. If you convinced them, why are you appealing?

Mr. JOHNSON. OK. I am coming to that.

Ms. NORTON. April 1st you filed another appeal.

Mr. JOHNSON. So we joined. We were on the same side as the

Chesapeake Bay Foundation in saying, put it in the permit, because that is the simplest, easiest, quickest way to get it done, and

that is where the EAB ruled. They said yes, it should be included

in the permit, so we were right on that point.

The other point that we appealed had to do with the allocation

of nitrogen for the wastewater treatment plant, and the allocation

we believe was not done on a scientific basis, and as a result we

have had certain portions of our allocation for the Blue Plains

plant that has been allocated to both Virginia and to Maryland. We

are simply trying to recover that so that we get the full benefit of

all the allocation that we should get at the plant.

Ms. NORTON. Are you telling me that EPA would object to your

recovering that from Maryland and Virginia?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I mean, that is what the allocation appeal

is all about. That is what the basis of it is. It is a very——

Ms. NORTON. Why did EPA object to where you get the recovery

from?

Mr. JOHNSON. I think you would have to ask. There are some

representatives here.

Ms. NORTON. You know why. They would not tell you by fiat

without telling you why, Mr. Johnson. You can’t come here and testify to something like that and say, oh, I don’t know. You have to

ask them.

Mr. JOHNSON. Ms. Norton, I——

Ms. NORTON. You know. They told you why.

Mr. JOHNSON. I do not know. We firmly believe that——

Ms. NORTON. Did you ask them?

Mr. JOHNSON. They said they have a right to do it.

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Ms. NORTON. Right to do what?

Mr. JOHNSON. To move the allocation from Blue Plains to Maryland for the plants in Maryland. We think that allocation is rightfully ours.

Ms. NORTON. I want to thank both of you for your testimony.

Mr. JOHNSON. It is a very complex issue. It also has to do with

reordering the way that we operate the wastewater treatment

plant, and in reordering the way that we operate the wastewater

treatment plant there are a couple of outfalls there that are designated for different purposes. And if a certain loading requirement

is placed on one versus the other, then it creates a whole different

scenario in the way that we operate both the CSO control program

and the nitrogen program.

And let me say that, in working with EPA and getting them to

agree on this change in technology and the way that we are operating the plant, we were able to save our ratepayer, both in the District of Columbia and the surrounding jurisdictions, over $500 million.

Ms. NORTON. You know, Mr. Johnson, I commend you on that.

One of the things I most admire is negotiating out matters. A lawyer though I be, I hate litigation as a way, a most expensive way,

to settle matters. Your testimony seems to be, see, we were able

to set without, and yet you have a string of protests and other challenges to EPA where they and you end up coming to some resolution. I particularly applaud you when you come to resolutions that

save money.

On the other hand, do not expect me to be a continuing partner

working my you know what off over here for more funds for WASA

if WASA is working at cross purposes with me by opposing a regulator who I do not regard as very strict.

Mr. JOHNSON. I assure you——

Ms. NORTON. I mean, we took them to task on lead in the water

more than we did you.

Mr. JOHNSON. I assure you, Ms. Norton, that we are not working

at cross purposes and that we are working diligently with EPA in

order to try to resolve the outstanding issues. We have met with

them as recently as last week, last Wednesday, and I believe that

substantial progress was made at that meeting. We have already

moved forward to—I don’t want to admit this in front of Mr.

Capacasa, but we have already prepared the documents to go out

to bid for the project management and designer on the project. So

we are moving the process forward, even though we have not gotten final approval from EPA on the design plan. And we will continue. We are very diligent and serious about the project.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Martin and Mr. Johnson, because we try to

have these on an annual basis, we are going to ask you difficult

questions. We don’t have endless hearings. I think that the region

has indicated some confidence in your work with some real caveats.

We understand the huge cost and cost/benefit problems you face in

trying to decide what to do. We have straightened out some of your

business very recently.

And I do want you both to know that, speaking from the perspective of someone who saw the decline, fall, if not the collapse of

WASA, at the time we essentially built a new basis for the WASA

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you, yourself, Mr. Johnson were chiefly responsible for improving,

speaking from the perspective of knowing from whence you started

at ground truly zero or below to where we have come today, you

deserve some credit.

Do expect that this committee will and intends to do annual

oversight, and I do ask you this: when people do not get responses

quickly to WASA, they call their Congresswoman. And particularly

when they can’t get responses through their Council member, like

Jim Graham, they have to go to somebody else. I have enough

work. So, just as I said that you should get responses to me within

30 days, I ask you—and I don’t want to set the time period—to remember that, as part of restoring trust in WASA, a WASA that you

had no part in collapsing, part of restoring trust in it, may be the

most important thing you could do would be responses very quickly

to questions that are asked, particularly since you seem to believe

you have the answer.

If you do not have the answer, Members of Congress find, because people often come to us with things—it is not our jurisdiction, we can’t do anything about it. You know, the very fact that

we responded promptly, heard them out, told them what our problem is gives people lots of confidence in their Member, which is

how they get elected.

I suggest that imitating that would erase some of the controversy

that continues to swirl among some with respect to some of your

work.

Congratulations on the work you have done. You will find us

standing behind you with the job that lies before you.

Thank you very much.

Mr. MARTIN. Thank you very much.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Panel three, Joe Capacasa, I think, Director of

Water Protection Division for the Environmental Protection Agency

in Region III, responsible for the Clean Water Act, safe drinking

water programs here and in the mid-Atlantic States. Thomas Jacobus, general manager of Washington Aqueduct. Doug Siglin, director of Federal Affairs, Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Robert Boon,

co-founder, Anacostia Watershed Society.

Would you all stand, because it is the committee’s policy that all

witnesses are sworn in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Ms. NORTON. The record will show that each witness answered

in the affirmative.

Your entire statement will be recorded in the record. The green

light is there to indicate that your 5 minutes have passed. The yellow light, of course, is a warning light, and the red light tells you

the time has expired. We don’t gavel down witnesses, but you see

the hour and how we certainly had to question the last witnesses,

so that we ask you to stay to the greatest extent possible within

the timeframes allowed.

Mr. Capacasa.

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STATEMENTS OF JON M. CAPACASA, DIRECTOR OF WATER

PROTECTION DIVISION FOR WATER, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; THOMAS JACOBUS, GENERAL MANAGER,

WASHINGTON AQUEDUCT; DOUG SIGLIN, FEDERAL AFFAIRS

DIRECTOR, CHESAPEAKE BAY FOUNDATION; AND ROBERT

BOONE, PRESIDENT, ANACOSTIA WATERSHED SOCIETY

STATEMENT OF JON M. CAPACASA

Mr. CAPACASA. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the

committee, for the opportunity to update you on our activities at

EPA with regard to WASA.

I am Jon Capacasa. I work in the Region III office of EPA in

Philadelphia. I am the Director of the Water Protection Division

there and am pleased to be here today.

EPA’s Region III’s role in relation to WASA is to serve as the

Clean Water Act permitting and enforcing agency in D.C. and as

the primary enforcement agent for the Federal Drinking Water Act.

In addition to our regulatory role, we administer the clean water

and safe drinking water State revolving fund funding programs in

D.C., manage special appropriation projects for capital improvements, and work in partnership with local utilities to protect regional water quality.

We are in frequent contact with D.C. WASA, and also in close

cooperation with the D.C. Department of Environment, as well as

D.C. government and other regional water utilities.

Regarding the quality of drinking water services in District, D.C.

WASA and the Washington Aqueduct report directly to EPA Region

III on the results of the sampling analysis they do, and these results are audited periodically.

Based on this information, EPA can report that the drinking

water serving the District of Columbia meets all Federal healthbased standards and the system is in compliance with all national

primary drinking water regulations.

A requirement of EPA regulations is that utilities notify their

customers annually through something called a consumer confidence report about the quality of water served and its compliance

status for regulated parameters. The latest consumer confidence report was submitted to EPA and the public by WASA in June 2007

and has been provided to the committee for your use.

D.C. WASA reports that the D.C. water system has been at or

below the action levels for lead and copper under the lead and cooper regulation for three consecutive years since the report in early

2005. The latest report submitted to EPA by WASA states that the

90th percentile of over 100 samples taken was 10.9 parts per billion below the action level of 15 parts per billion or greater under

the Federal rule.

The D.C. water system is now meeting the requirements of the

Lead and Copper Rule such that additional lead service line replacements are no longer required, in accordance with Federal regulations.

This spring EPA will conduct a triennial inspection of the water

distribution system in the District, and we will continue to coordinate research on planned and potential water treatment changes at

the Washington Aqueduct.

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With regard to wastewater controls on the wastewater regulatory

front, EPA issues and ensures compliance with Clean Water Act

permits in the District. Such permits are issued to D.C. WASA for

operation of the Blue Plains facility and for the control of combined

sewer overflows into local rivers.

In April 2007 EPA issued an amended Clean Water Act permit

to D.C. WASA which incorporates new limits for nutrient reduction

to the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. Blue Plains is the largest point source of nutrients for the bay. I would like to point out

that WASA has already achieved the 2010 Chesapeake Bay program load cap for phosphorus reductions, and the new nitrogen

limit of no more than 4.6 million pounds annually will require a

substantial upgrade to the facility.

In 2007 WASA developed a total nitrogen wet weather plan for

the Blue Plains facility to meet the new nitrogen limit. WASA presented that plan to EPA and we have commented on it extensively.

The submitted plan involves major modifications to the Blue Plains

facility and to the previously approved wet weather plan for control

of combined sewer overflows.

Given the complexity and extent of this major capital project,

EPA and WASA have agreed to a 7-year compliance schedule until

July 2014 for project completion. EPA intends to reissue the

WASA’s Blue Plains permit with year with a compliance schedule

to get the job completed. This permit will be submitted for public

review and comment as is required.

With regard to the enforceable schedule of control of combined

sewer overflows, to ensure the protection of the Anacostia River,

Rock Creek, and the Potomac from the effects of discharge from the

combined sewer system, EPA initiated Federal enforcement action

earlier in this decade against WASA which resulted in a 2005 Federal consent decree. This decree provides WASA with a long-term

enforceable compliance schedule for the completion of those controls under the national CSO policy and the Clean Water Act.

We are very pleased to note that later this year WASA is on

schedule to achieve a 40 percent reduction in overflows to the Anacostia River. When that plan is fully implemented, overflows to the

Anacostia River are expected to be reduced by 98 percent in an average rainfall year.

EPA will continue to carry out its duties in administration of the

clean and safe drinking water programs in the District, in close

contact and cooperation with WASA and local officials.

With regard to Federal financial assistance, in D.C. clean water

and drinking water State revolving fund programs provide annual

grants to D.C. government. In the past 5 years in D.C. the clean

and safe drinking water revolving fund programs provided grants

in the amounts of $23 million under the clean water side and $39.5

million from the drinking water revolving fund. Such funds are directed to priorities established by D.C. government using an intended use plan, and typically 100 percent of those funds are directed to capital improvement projects of WASA.

EPA also administers infrastructure projects authorized through

special congressional appropriations, and in the last 6 years these

have totaled approximately $3.5 million.

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I would last like to mention the fact that we are also working

in partnership for watershed and source water protection. In addition to our regulatory and funding roles, we work through innovative partnerships in the D.C. area for drinking water source protection and the Potomac Basin for water security and preparedness,

and, as part of the newly formed Anacostia Watershed Restoration

Partnership. EPA has been a leader and active participant in the

partnership efforts to restor the Anacostia River. EPA and WASA

are members of what is called the Potomac River Basin Drinking

Water Source Partnership, which is an organization to actively promote protection of drinking water sources in the basin.

We will continue to work in close cooperation with D.C. WASA

and D.C. government in addressing drinking water and wastewater

issues and needs.

Again, thank you for this opportunity. We will be glad to answer

questions.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Capacasa follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS [presiding]. Thank you very much.

We will proceed to Mr. Jacobus.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS JACOBUS

Mr. JACOBUS. Thank you, Chairman Davis and members of the

subcommittee. I am Tom Jacobus, the general manager of Washington Aqueduct. Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss

drinking water quality and the interaction between the Washington Aqueduct and the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority.

Washington Aqueduct is a public water utility providing wholesale service to the District of Columbia; Arlington County, VA; and

the city of Falls Church service are in northern Virginia. It is a

Federal entity that is part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Baltimore District.

Washington Aqueduct’s working relationship with D.C. WASA is

sound and productive. Working together with effective oversight

from EPA Region III, we provide the residents of the District of Columbia with excellent water, delivered with exceptionally high reliability at reasonable cost.

Washington Aqueduct also works well with other Federal, Statelevel, and local agencies that have stewardship responsibilities over

physical and biological resources. That, coupled with our interest in

working with private advocacy groups, gives us the opportunity to

contribute to solutions to environmental issues.

One of the great strengths I see in both of our organizations, the

Washington Aqueduct and WASA, is our willingness to continually

evaluate our performance and to make improvements wherever we

can. The public expects and they should receive no less.

Washington Aqueduct’s treatment plants employ multiple barriers to remove physical, chemical, and biological contaminants. We

are fully in compliance with all drinking water regulations, and in

many cases achieve standards far more conservative than the national regulations. However, as the potential contaminants become

more complex and the ability to detect them in extremely low levels

advances, we must continue to evaluate what changes in treatment

may be needed to meet emerging Federal regulations and public

health standards.

We, along with Fairfax Water and the Washington Suburban

Sanitary Commission, will cooperatively begin to acquire more data

on pharmaceuticals and endocrine-disrupting compounds in general. The levels found to date have been extremely low, but we believe it is our responsibility to continue to look into the environment and see the water as we are using as our source water and

learn more about it. We take that on willingly and we believe it

is our responsibility.

The Washington Aqueduct’s financial needs are approved and

supported by the Wholesale Customer Board. This board’s principals are the general manager of D.C. Water and Sewer Authority,

the Arlington County manager, and the city manager of the city of

Falls Church. They are supported in that board’s actions by their

utility staffs. The board represents the population served by the

water produced at Washington Aqueduct’s Dalecarlia and McMillan

water treatment plants. Its members report to their authority

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board or to their county or city government. In my judgment, this

arrangement works very well.

Thank you again for the opportunity to be here today to give testimony. I look forward to responding to any questions you may

have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jacobus follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you, Mr. Jacobus.

We will now proceed to Mr. Siglin.

STATEMENT OF DOUG SIGLIN

Mr. SIGLIN. Thank you, Chairman Davis, Congresswoman Norton, Congressman Van Hollen.

Mr. Chairman, my name is Doug Siglin. I am the Federal Affairs

director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and on behalf of our

200,000 members I thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

You have my written statement. I am going to try to just summarize briefly the four points that I want to make here.

First is that D.C. WASA, through its Blue Plains Wastewater

Treatment Plant, is absolutely critical to the health of the Chesapeake Bay. I use a little fact in the testimony that Jerry Johnson

provided for me, that if you took the daily flow from the Blue

Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant and put it in gallon

milk jugs in 1 day and line those milk jugs up side by side, it

would go around the earth one and a half times. That is to say that

it is an enormous contributor of water to the Chesapeake Bay.

The concentration levels of nitrogen in the water that is discharged from the Blue Plains plant is enormously important. As

Mr. Capacasa just said, it is the largest source of nutrients to the

Chesapeake Bay that we have in our 64,000 mile watershed. That

is to say what Blue Plains does is extremely important.

The Chesapeake Bay is suffering from an overload of nitrogen,

which causes a deficit of dissolved oxygen in the water. We call

these dead zones. It is the same kind of dead zone that is in the

Gulf of Mexico. In fact, EPA tells us there are 44 estuaries and

coastal areas in the United States now that are suffering from

these kinds of dead zones.

There are scientists who believe that the overload of nitrogen in

our water is equal on an ecological perspective to an excess of

greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causing climate change. It is

a worldwide problem of huge magnitude.

The challenge that we have before us is how do we address that

in the Chesapeake Bay. Since the Chesapeake Bay 2000 Agreement, there has been a regional process that has involved the District of Columbia, the State of Maryland, the State of Virginia, the

State of Pennsylvania, and what we call our watershed headwater

States, New York, Delaware, and West Virginia, to make allocations of reductions of nitrogen throughout the entire watershed.

The scientists tell us that we can have no more than 175 million

pounds of nitrogen in the bay to have it healthy. We have far more

than that now. In order to get to 175 million pounds we have to

make reductions.

There was a very complex, multi-year process to create those allocations. Blue Plains was given an allocation. Blue Plains, the

WASA management, has challenged the allocation from the time

that EPA first offered its draft permit in 2006 and has, once again,

challenged the allocation at the Environmental Appeals Board on

April 1st.

It is true, and I want to acknowledge the fact that they are moving ahead with plans, but at the same time they are moving ahead

with plans to meet the allocation, they are challenging it legally.

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They are on a two-track strategy. I ask you what is going to happen if, in fact, the two-track strategy succeeds and the allocation

is, in fact, rejected. That means that we are going to have to go

back and reconsider that lengthy process that led to the allocation

that Blue Plains has. That means that the State of Maryland and

the State of Virginia are going to have to reconsider their allocations. And I would submit to you that is going to be more delay

and a much longer time before we can actually get to the place

where the bay is clean and healthy again.

Finally, Ms. Norton, you know that I have been working with

you since the year 2003, and with the appropriators, to get Federal

appropriations for WASA. We have been quite successful. Because

of your good work and the good work of the appropriators, we have

been quite successful in that. I want to continue to work with that

to get appropriations for D.C. WASA and the Blue Plains Treatment Plant. It is absolutely essential that the Federal Government

do that.

But what I want to do today is propose the notion that the management of WASA should voluntarily try to get past the legal minimum which is being assigned to it by this long, complicated process

and EPA permit, to voluntarily go beyond, to try to get more nitrogen out of the system so that we can save the Chesapeake Bay, if

you will, faster, and in return for that commitment, then it seems

to me that all of us the region—Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania,

Delaware, West Virginia, and New York—would owe an obligation

and that we all should work together to find the sources of financing that are going to make that possible.

Thank you for your time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Siglin follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much.

We will go to Mr. Boone.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT BOONE

Mr. BOONE. Thank you, Chairman Davis, Ms. Norton, Mr. Van

Hollen. I truly appreciate this opportunity to speak with you today

and share the point of view of the Anacostia Watershed Society. We

have been observing the performance of the discharge of sewage in

the watershed since 1989, and it was sad but we had to file a lawsuit to get the attention of WASA to stop discharging sewage into

the Anacostia.

We have a vision for a swimmable and fishable river by—well,

we started out with the year 2000, and we are slipping now to

2010. We don’t want to slip much more than that. It is pleasant

outside today, but 3 months from now it would be very appropriate

to see kids and myself, too, probably out refreshing and enjoying

the river swimming in it. So we hope to meet that clean water

mandate of a swimmable Anacostia River, but to do that we are

going to have to get the sewage out of the water.

I am very glad to say we have been a great supporter of WASA.

You know, we don’t realize it, but this is the largest wastewater

treatment plant in the world, and that is words, but accomplishing

that is another story. We look to WASA to solve our problem. If we

can get the sewage out of the water, we can have a swimmable

river, but not until we do that.

I must say that I have been told today by Mr. Johnson that 40

percent of that 100 years of dumping sewage in the water, 40 percent of that will be stopped coming September of this year. That

is cause for celebration right there, I must say. The ecology of the

water will profoundly change with 40 percent less sewage going

into it. Not swimmable yet, but much better off.

We are very concerned about the pharmaceuticals and the endocrine disrupters that are ongoing now. We are finding out more

about those, and it is getting to be very scary, quite frankly. We

would like to see a lot more energy focused on the removal of nitrogen, but also pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupters.

There is another issue about transparency. You know, with

transparency within WASA’s process it would eliminate a lot of the

paranoia and a lot of the scandals and so forth that are going

around. I think more effort in being transparent would effectively

put forward WASA’s effectiveness that people don’t know about at

this time.

It is a regional burden that WASA bears, and it should be a regional solution, and a transparent regional solution. One puzzling

problem I have right now is this impervious surface tax that we

strongly support, but I understand that the District government is

also proposing an impervious surface tax, and so we have two proposals floating around. You know, a ratepayer receiving two bills

about impervious surface is going to give impervious surface a bad

name, so we need to have one combined or worked out solution to

the impervious surface, because the impervious surfaces are creating the stormwater that is the major problem with the Anacostia

River water quality.

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That is all I have to say. It is getting late. I thank you for this

opportunity.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Boone follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, thank you very much. I want to

thank all of you gentlemen for being here with us.

Mr. Capacasa, in reference to the amended Clean Water Act permit EPA issued to WASA last year to incorporate new limits for

nutrient reduction to the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, in

your opinion, what are possible and achievable solutions or ways

to bring the Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant into compliance with the updated standards?

Mr. CAPACASA. Well, Mr. Chairman, WASA has already submitted a plan to us to achieve the job. It is a very innovative plan,

very creative plan which merges two goals in one, one of reducing

overflows to the rivers, and one of total nitrogen reduction. So that

plan has been submitted to us. We have commended it greatly and

I think the job right now is getting on with the work of implementing a plan. I heard Mr. Johnson today committing to basically take

the next steps to implementation. It will take until 2014 to complete the job because of the magnitude of the upgrade, but it will

be a vitally important milestone to complete in the Chesapeake

Bay restoration when it is done.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Jacobus, given the role of the Washington Aqueduct in ensuring the public’s safe drinking water and recent concerns raised

about trace amounts of pharmaceuticals, what are the Aqueduct’s

long-term plan for continually upgrading or improving the quality

of the District’s water supply to stay ahead of new industry standard regulations?

Mr. JACOBUS. Yes, Mr. Chairman, all water treatment plants

look at their source water and design treatment that meets the

needs to remove contaminants from the source water. We do that

right now. In the future, as we look at contaminants such as endocrine disrupting compounds, pharmaceuticals being one of them,

and if we can’t find better ways to keep them out of the water and

if we find that their levels are increasing to a point that treatment

is required, then we will certainly be in a position to employ treatment, because we are now initiating a study to look at alternative

treatment sources, but it is based on what is the contaminant,

what is an appropriate treatment, and then we have to then look

at the cost and then the phasing in of that.

So we are going to continue to, starting now, with a new study

looking at some of these emerging contaminants, to look at the

long-term efficacy of our treatment plants to make sure that we

will always be in compliance and that we will communicate with

our customers and collaboratively deal with those we serve in the

District of Columbia and our Virginia customers to make sure they

understand what the potential risks are, what the potential treatment opportunities are, look at the costs and benefits of all of that,

and we will work together to make a decision to make these capital

investments.

But it will be science-based, it will be risk based, and it will also

be best practices, and we are committed to a process to determine

that which will give us a suite of options. We will select from

among those and do the projects that will be required to keep the

drinking water safe into the future as contaminants continue to get

into the watershed from other human activity.

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, gentlemen, thank you very much.

I am going to go to Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A few quick questions.

If I can just get direct answers, I think we will be fine.

Mr. Jacobus, you heard my concern and my understanding that

there are competing priorities when, for example, Washington has

to decide where to spend the money, if it is lead pipe, partial lead

pipe replacement, and the alternative, orthophosphate.

Now, the District has a lot of experience of others on which to

rely. When can you tell us it will be appropriate to rely on

orthophosphate or not in this particular jurisdiction?

Mr. JACOBUS. I think the orthophosphate has shown, since its induction into the system and introduction in 2004, that it is working

well, and that it has brought the levels of lead—remember, the

lead comes from the lead service line pipes, and so as the water

sits in those pipes it tends to leach it out. The orthophosphate puts

a barrier on the inside or the pipe. That is working, and the demonstration that it is working effectively are the results that are

being shown in the last several cycles of the testing.

Ms. NORTON. You think it has already been definitively proved?

Mr. JACOBUS. I think it has been very effective and it is properly

protecting the citizens, as it was intended to do, and the test results show that.

Ms. NORTON. Given the cost benefit issues that particularly you,

Mr. Siglin and Mr. Boone know and worked so hard with me and

other Members of the region to address, do you think the time has

come to rely on this new approach rather than to put public money

into the gold standard of replacement of the public portion, whether or not—I will make the question harder—whether or not the private party wants to do its share, as well.

Mr. JACOBUS. Looking at my responsibilities at the Aqueduct,

ma’am——

Ms. NORTON. No, I am asking Mr. Siglin and Mr. Boone.

Mr. JACOBUS. I am sorry. Excuse me. I apologize.

Ms. NORTON. Given the competing priorities that they know very

well, because they help me here as I try to get more money. They

have heard the testimony. They have had to sit through this testimony. And they have heard me say we are on pay-go, and they

have put in a lot of elbow grease. You have heard the testimony

of Mr. Jacobus. You have heard testimony of GAO. You heard the

testimony that other jurisdictions have even more definitively

shown. In terms of the priority, do you think the priority should

be in putting money, public money, into replacing the public portion of lead pipes in the District of Columbia.

Mr. SIGLIN. Congresswoman Norton, I have become an instant

expert on orthophosphates over the last 2 hours.

Ms. NORTON. Last two what?

Mr. SIGLIN. Hours, sitting here in the hearing. Seriously, I can’t

make a judgment about lead pipes and the——

Ms. NORTON. That is not what I am asking you to make a judgment about. Others who have expertise, I am asking you about

where the money ought to be spent.

Mr. SIGLIN. I understand.

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Ms. NORTON. Do you think, if you had the choice to make that

WASA should put the money into the public portion of lead pipes

or should put the money into CSO or other parts of the system

which are crying for money—I mean, somebody has to make that

decision. I am pleased to make it; I am just looking for input from

people who have credibility with us instead of simply making it.

You heard the evidence. I tell you I go by the evidence.

Mr. SIGLIN. Congresswoman, I can only repeat back to you what

I think I heard today. What I think I heard today is if you only

replace the public portion of the lead pipes and not the private portion it is not going to be as effective as you want it to be. I think

I also heard that the orthophosphate treatment has been working

and that appears to be a possible solution. That is the sum of what

I know about that particular aspect.

Ms. NORTON. To the extent of that evidence is not contradicted,

you know, the reason I put you on record on this is everybody accuses my environmental friends of wanting to spend money whether or not, and I am just giving you the opportunity to say if you

prove it, and we haven’t heard evidence to the contrary, and you

have huge priorities otherwise, you need to advise public officials

because they have to make the decision. As far as I am concerned,

you answered the question, but I am going to go on.

Maybe you can help me, Mr. Capacasa. I am trying to find out

about all these. I asked our two prior witnesses about whether or

not WASA is working at cross purposes with many of us who are

trying to take nitrogen, eliminate nitrogen from the Anacostia and

from the water, when they engage in attempts, protests, you set

one standard, then there is a protest—and there is an appeal appearing right now, April 1st. His answer is, you know, we settled

these things. Are you lowering the standard? If they are settling

them, why aren’t they settling them before protests and appeals

happen?

Mr. CAPACASA. We believe, through the Chesapeake Bay program, the D.C. Mayor represents D.C. government and comes to

the tale and makes agreements, and the allocation that we provided to D.c. was respective of the allocation that D.C. agreed to

as part of the Chesapeake Bay Compact, if you will. So we do think

it is an unnecessary delay and unnecessary challenge.

The process allows for parties to exercise their rights of appeal,

and that is what we have.

Ms. NORTON. Do you think they are doing it because these are

very costly? I mean, are they trying to save money, because they

obviously don’t have a lot of money.

Mr. CAPACASA. Well, certainly it is a large cost. I think they

want to get it right because if they are going to be building cap facilities for $800 million they want to get it right. I just think we

spent 10 pages in our response to comments explaining a rationale

for the total nitrogen limit. We think it has been thoroughly vetted

and explained and very transparent to those who want to know

why it is what it is.

Ms. NORTON. When I heard something that apparently doesn’t

cost money, I think your testimony found that the Lead Copper

Rule, that they were in compliance. The so-called dialectics where

you had to wring out of WASA that they don’t use dielectrics when

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lead and copper pipes are joined. Should they be, particularly since

it doesn’t present a tremendous cost?

Mr. CAPACASA. Ms. Norton, e can share with you a report that

is on the EPA Web site right now which looked at the specific issue

of two different metal pipes joining each other in the D.C. water

system. It is called galvanic corrosion. When the treatment process

is working as good as it is now in D.C., this report determined that

it was really a minimal benefit, a minimal effect to have this.

Ms. NORTON. So it is really not worth the cost? I am not trying

to make anybody spend money.

Mr. CAPACASA. In our view it is a minimal benefit.

Ms. NORTON. How much does it cost?

Mr. CAPACASA. I can’t speak to that. It may be minimal cost, but

it is not——

Ms. NORTON. Would you provide that information to the committee within 30 days if you don’t have it.

Mr. CAPACASA. Sure. We will share that report with you. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. If it is not necessary, it is not necessary.

Would you clear up this flushing problem for us. There is a lot

of controversy about flushing by EPA. Now, EPA regulates the first

draw of water samples, but we all know the second draw is equally,

if not more, representative of how we operate, how people use

water to cook and to drink. WASA seems to take advantage of the

fact and has been accused of lots of flushing. The one that most disturbed me, Mr. Capacasa, was in 2007 when WASA instructed the

D.C. public schools to flush every school for 45 minutes the night

before sampling. Do you think that is appropriate?

Mr. CAPACASA. We do have protocols that apply to large buildings such as schools. The protocols are different between a residential sample method and larger buildings such as schools. The protocols do allow for the nightly——

Ms. NORTON. Forty-five minutes of flushing the night before the

sampling?

Mr. CAPACASA. If it occurs the night before and the water stays

stagnant for a period of 8 hours or more——

Ms. NORTON. So it is all right to flush the night before within

the rules?

Mr. CAPACASA. Some flushing the night before is within the

rules. I would be glad to share——

Ms. NORTON. Why did they flush? Wy do you think that they did

flush? There may be some good reason for it.

Mr. CAPACASA. We can double check on that, but, like I said, we

have provided the appropriate protocols to the D.C. school system

for the sampling of the schools. Two rounds of sampling of the

schools have occurred using an EPA protocol. I would be glad to

share that with the committee.

Ms. NORTON. Excuse me, sir. How much flushing should occur

before water at a school is sampled? What does the EPA require,

if anything at all?

Mr. CAPACASA. I think we had a recommendation of shorter time

perhaps, maybe 4 or 5 minutes, but I want to be sure about that

before I definitively state that is the answer.

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Ms. NORTON. You were clearly informed. I can’t believe you were

not informed of this. Is there anything that EPA can do about

these flushing incidents?

Mr. CAPACASA. We have provided quite a bit——

Ms. NORTON. Which may give a completely false picture of

whether or not thousands of people have contaminated water.

Mr. CAPACASA. I understand the concern, and certainly where

school children are involved we want to make sure the best is done.

We provide quite a bit of assistance to the D.C. school systems on

sampling protocol, and EPA does——

Ms. NORTON. They were instructed. They were instructed by

WASA, so I am not asking what they would do; I am asking, if

WASA tells them flush this thing for 45 minutes and that is what

they do, I guess, I am asking you if EPA monitors that in any way.

Mr. CAPACASA. It is an area of the law where we don’t have any

direct authority.

Ms. NORTON. So maybe Congress needs to give you some?

Mr. CAPACASA. Large buildings and schools are not within our direct authority under the Drinking Water Act. It is primarily water

as distributed in the distribution system.

Ms. NORTON. As a matter of fact, you are right. That is why our

bill, the bill with Chairman Waxman—and before this hearing I

said to him that even if we do not proceed with the whole bill, with

respect to the parts having to do with children and with schools,

it seems to me we ought to pull that out and try to move it.

Mr. CAPACASA. Ms. Norton, we are going to be sponsoring a

workshop this year for owners of large buildings within D.C. to

make sure they understand the proper protocols for testing and

maintenance of water quality in large institutions.

Ms. NORTON. Remember, I am dealing with the water guys,

WASA, telling them to flush, so they would presume that it had

your blessing and that it was appropriate scientifically.

I don’t want to keep this panel. We have been here a long time.

I am very concerned about what is beginning to come out on bottled water. It is a complete hazard to the environment, and now

we are learning that some bottled water which people regularly

drink while they are engaging in healthy activities, like water and

running, may, because of the nature of the bottles—and there are

some numbers, three, seven. I don’t know which numbers are supposed to be worse than others.

Could I ask any of you, do you think it is appropriate for people

to use bottled water, even in light of all you know about water and

what we are trying to do to improve water here?

Mr. CAPACASA. I will just start by saying that the water is delivered to the tap.

Ms. NORTON. Excuse me?

Mr. CAPACASA. The water as delivered to the tap in the District

meets all Federal health-based standards. I personally don’t

see——

Ms. NORTON. So it is not necessary?

Mr. CAPACASA. I personally don’t see a need to——

Ms. NORTON. To use these bottles which they now tell us, themselves, may be contaminated with some harmful chemical? That

would be your view, Mr. Jacobus?

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Mr. JACOBUS. Congresswoman, I would like to say that I would

like to come to the next hearing you hold and find a pitcher of

water with ice and glasses on the table.

Ms. NORTON. You won’t. This is what we use. I am asking you

if this is what we should be using.

Mr. JACOBUS. But the thing is I don’t think there is anything

wrong with this water, but there is also——

Ms. NORTON. No, I am asking you whether there is anything

wrong with this bottle.

Mr. JACOBUS. I suspect that concern is way overblown, but the

fact that people are drinking bottled water in lieu of the city water

that we have gone to all of the trouble and expense at the ratepayer’ expense, and it is perfectly good to drink. The problem is not

the water; the problem is the confidence that people have in their

water.

We are, with your help and others within the District of Columbia government, we want to work harder to find a way to get people’s confidence in our water supply so that they can go to the tap

and take a drink of water. This bottle is 250 times more expensive

than a glass of water drawn from the tap.

So while we are talking about raising water rates over here, on

this hand people are buying water that is much more expensive

than the cost they will incur with the increased rates. So we are

working with D.C. WASA, with Jon, and everyone else. We, I believe, need to work in a way to restore the public confidence.

I am here to tell you that we at the Washington Aqueduct continue to have confidence in what we do and we want to work with

our partners, because we deliver great water to all of our customers

that is perfectly good to drink. The trouble is that people aren’t

convinced of that, and that is an area that we have to find the connection, because it is a public service that we offer and people are

not getting the advantage of it.

Ms. NORTON. We have you at the same table with Mr. Siglin and

Mr. Boone because of a seamlessness of our environmental concerns. Leave aside for a moment whether number three and

seven—you have to look on here to find out which number. Leave

that aside for the moment and let me ask both of you: should these

containers be eliminated in light of where we know they end up?

Mr. BOONE. I will answer first. I think absolutely yes they should

be eliminated. They end up in the Anacostia River. They end up

in the ocean. There is research that has confirmed that plastic

doesn’t disappear. It breaks down into little pieces and it ends up

in the food chain, becoming an endocrine disrupter. There has been

considerable research about this done on the Pacific side of the

United States. And so the plastic is persistent in our environment.

It is all over the place.

But I must say, Congresswoman, by having it here, you affirmed

its use. You set the standard that this is all right, this is good to

have.

Ms. NORTON. You are absolutely right. Don’t think I won’t bring

it to the attention of the chairman of the committee. We all do this

just out of habit. No one thinks about it. We do have a Speaker

who is greening the Capitol. I am going to suggest to her that when

it comes to our offices, where they bring these great big bottles,

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there may be nothing else you can do, nor do I know whether lead

in the pipes exists here in the Congress. It probably does. But if

we didn’t invest in these, I bet we would save gobs of money. I

asked it in order to engage in an act of self-incrimination.

Mr. Siglin, I don’t know if you have a response to that.

Mr. SIGLIN. Congresswoman Norton, my children think I am a

real pain because I do everything I can to keep them from drinking

bottled water. In fact, we had a couple that we refilled because I

didn’t want them to buy new ones, and then I read some place that

wasn’t a good thing to do either, so I am with you completely. Talk

to the Speaker and see if we can get it out of here.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Siglin, could I just thank you for your suggestion. My colleague was not here when Mr. Siglin spoke about getting more nitrogen out, in other words, rising above the EPA’s

standard in light of what happens to the bay and rivers and tributaries, but he also had heard testimony about competing costs, and

so he didn’t offer a free lunch. Why don’t you folks come up with

some more money to get the nitrogen done with and the standard

where it should be, especially since we are missing the deadline

that had been set.

Mr. Siglin, you said that we should ask for a better standard, an

improved standard, if the three jurisdictions in a version of win/win

would also engage in financing the reduction of nitrogen, as well,

was that your testimony, essentially?

Mr. SIGLIN. Yes, I would like to be clear that I think the Federal

Government ought to help, to the greatest degree possible, WASA

achieve the nitrogen concentration limits that it has been given by

the EPA in this draft permit. But on top of that I suggested that

I thought it would be the right thing to do, since we seem to be

actually failing in the big picture, which is to figure out how to get

the bay clean. The Clean Water Act has given us substantial

progress since 1972, but the job isn’t getting done.

If we continue with the regime of only doing the minimum necessary by law, and, in fact, fighting the minimum necessary by law,

but ultimately only doing the minimum necessary by law, we are

not going to get to the goal. So what I am suggesting is that, if it

were possible, it would be a wonderful thing if the WASA Board

of Directors would say, you know, WASA management, don’t just

take the legal minimum that has been handed to you by the EPA,

but go beyond it.

We, in fact, do have the capacity at Blue Plains to do that. We

could go beyond that if the decision were made.

Now, there is a cost involved, and, of course, a lot of this hearing

to day is about how huge the cost of all these things are and where

the tradeoffs are and all of that thing, but I guess that I would say

it would be a wonderful thing if the world’s largest advanced

wastewater treatment plant, which happens to serve the Congress

of the United States and the White House and the capital city of

the free world, would say we are going to do more than the legal

minimum, and then to have all the partners in this region say,

yeah, we like that and we are going to help you pay for it.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Siglin, I know you realize there is a precedent

for that. We finally got all of the region to agree on the same kind

of win/win if we can get the money out here for Metro.

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Mr. SIGLIN. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. For the capital costs for Metro in return for dedicated funding from all three sources. That is the precedent that

your suggestion seems to suggest.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Ms. Norton.

We will go to Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have one

question, and it really follows on to Ms. Norton’s question about

the WASA compliance with the requirements and standards set out

in the Chesapeake Bay 2000 Agreement, which I understood to be

no more than 4.689 million pounds annually.

I guess my question is to you, Mr. Capacasa, to just comment if

you would on Mr. Siglin’s testimony, because he raises what I

think are some important points here. While you covered a lot of

the EPA’s relationship with WASA, you didn’t raise in your testimony this issue, which I understand from Mr. Siglin’s testimony

that they continue to challenge the EPA’s nutrient reduction goals

that you have set out.

And, as he said in his statement, Mr. Siglin’s statement, ‘‘WASA

provides a case study in why we are failing to achieve that goal.

Rather than accepting it as a result of a detailed, legitimate process, WASA needs to pursue legal strategies to try to avoid its ecological and legal obligations. Its arguments have been rejected

twice by EPA regulators and unanimously rejected last month by

the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board, yet it continues to pursue

this protest.’’

I didn’t see that in your testimony. I guess my question is: isn’t

this a legitimate concern? Wouldn’t we all be better off trying to

stick to the standard that EPA set for the benefit of trying to clean

this up? And is this consuming a lot of your time, energy, and resources, this fight over the nutrient reduction standard?

Mr. CAPACASA. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, in short response,

it is consuming a lot of time. There are three appeals to the permit

that are eating up a lot of our time and, more importantly, delaying the important job of cleaning up the bay.

I think, in fairness to WASA, and I do want to be fair to them,

D.C. was the first jurisdiction to meet the 2000 Chesapeake Bay

goal by putting BNR in place at the D.C. WASA facility. They have

already well exceed the phosphorus requirement for the bay. They

are well beyond the legal minimum requirement for phosphorus induction to the bay. We are working now with them cooperatively

on this nitrogen project.

But yes, in short answer, I wish the appeals went away because

we would be able to get on with the job. I think it is unnecessary

because the D.C. government had agreed to those allocations as

part of the Chesapeake Bay program compact.

Again, in fairness, they are exceeding the phosphorus goal already, they are well beyond the legal limit, and we think, frankly,

everybody should drop the appeals so we can get on with the job

of finishing the upgrades to the facility that are necessary.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I agree. I mean, it seems to me that we have

set this goal, we have set these standards that we should do everything we can to try and meet them. As we all know, I think, we

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are already behind schedule with respect to the cleanup, and this

delay simply puts us farther behind schedule.

In the interest of time I am not going to pursue this right now,

but I do think that it is important for all these entities to get on

board with the agreement that was signed, as has been pointed

out, by all the regional entities here. It does raise lots of concerns

when, having signed an agreement and agreed to certain goals, it

appears that people are trying to backtrack out of it. But we can

have a longer conversation on that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CAPACASA. Thank you.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Gentlemen, thank you very much.

As we prepare for our fourth panel, I will proceed to introduce

them. Mr. Dan Tangherlini is the city administrator, Deputy Mayor

to Adrian Fenty, and serves as a member of WASA’s Board of District railroads. Dan has served as the director of the District of Columbia Department of Transportation from June 2000 to February

2006, and is well known for his work as the interim general manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Mr. Tony Griffin is the county executive of Fairfax County and

has held the position since January 2000. Mr. Griffin serves on the

Board of Directors of WASA.

Mr. Timothy Firestine, since 2006, Timothy Firestine has served

as the chief administrative officer for Montgomery County, MD,

also a member of the WASA Board of Directors. He has spent the

last 28 years of his life working for Montgomery County.

And Dr. Jacqueline Brown is the chief administrative officer for

Prince George’s County, MD. She is the first woman in the history

of the county to hold this position and has the responsibility of coordinating government services for 27 municipalities in addition to

her role as a member of WASA’s Board of Directors.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. If you would, stand

and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. The record will show that the witnesses

answered in the affirmative.

Let me thank you all so much for your public service and for

your patience today and being here at this hour. We will begin with

Mr. Dan Tangherlini.

Sir, you may proceed 5 minutes to summarize your statement. Of

course, your full statement, as will be the statement of all the witnesses, is included in the record.

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STATEMENTS OF DANIEL TANGHERLINI, CITY ADMINISTRATOR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, AND D.C. WASA BOARD

MEMBER; ANTHONY H. GRIFFIN, COUNTY EXECUTIVE, FAIRFAX COUNTY, AND D.C. WASA BOARD MEMBER; TIMOTHY

FIRESTINE, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, MONTGOMERY COUNTY, AND D.C. WASA BOARD MEMBER; AND JACQUELINE F. BROWN, CHIEF ADMINISTRATOR OFFICER,

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, AND D.C. WASA BOARD MEMBER

STATEMENT OF DANIEL TANGHERLINI

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Thank you very much and good afternoon, Mr.

Chairman and members of the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Services, and the District of Columbia. Thank you for

allowing me the opportunity to speak with you today about the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority [D.C. WASA].

My name is Dan Tangherlini, as previously stated, and I am the

city administrator for the city of the District of Columbia. In this

role I am responsible for the daily operations of the D.C. agencies

under mayoral control, preparing the District’s annual operating

budget, setting operational goals and performance measures to ensure that agencies are meeting the needs of the residents of the

District of Columbia.

I am also privileged to be appointed by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty

as a principal member of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer

Authority Board of Directors and have been serving in that capacity for the past year.

D.C. WASA plays a vital role in protecting the health and safety

of District of Columbia residents and visitors by providing safe

drinking water and wastewater treatment services, as well as critical infrastructure needed for fire suppression and emergency response in the Nation’s capital.

D.C. WASA operations, from operating the largest advanced

wastewater treatment plant in the world to the development and

implementation of the EPA mandated long-term control plan, will

also greatly impact the cleanup of the Anacostia River watershed

and economic revitalization along the waterfront.

It is important to recognize the history of D.C. WASA and its relationship to the District of Columbia and the greater Washington

metropolitan region. In doing so, it is important to note that D.C.

WASA’s assets are the property of the District of Columbia, and

that the predecessor organization to D.C. WASA was created as an

entity to serve the Federal city and its residents, as represented by

the majority it holds on the D.C. WASA Board of Directors.

In my view, the three critical issues facing D.C. WASA are the

same today as they were almost a year ago when I initially was

nominated to the D.C. WASA Board, and that is, one, undertaking

the long-term control plan; two, upgrading the Blue Plains Water

Treatment Plant to comply with the newly issued EPA permit requirements; and, three, investing in and improving the water and

sewer infrastructure.

The first two issues will be critical in improving the water quality of the Anacostia River and surrounding ecosystem, which we

can all agree has been neglected for far too long. The third affects

the quality and dependability of drinking water in the District and

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efficient use of our sewer system. Together, these three issues

present a substantial challenge to D.C. WASA’s finances and will

greatly impact District and regional ratepayer.

Due to the fact that the District inherited its antiquated water

and sewer infrastructure from the Federal Government, it is appropriate that our Federal partners remain engaged with this issue related to D.C. WASA. Further, I look forward to working with the

committee and Congress to find ways to financially support our efforts to address the critical improvements that have been discussed

here today.

Finally, I recognize that issues related to the financial oversight

of D.C. WASA are of an interest to the committee; therefore, I

would like to affirm that the District remains committed to working with my fellow D.C. WASA Board members, the region, and

Congress to reach an agreement on governance that will be amenable to all parties and ensure the continued strength and quality

of D.C. WASA.

Thank you very much for your time. I would be happy to answer

any questions you may have at the appropriate time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tangherlini follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much.

We will go to Mr. Griffin.

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY H. GRIFFIN

Mr. GRIFFIN. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking

Member, members of the subcommittee. I am Anthony H. Griffin,

county executive, Fairfax County, VA. I also have the privilege to

be serving as Fairfax County’s voting member to the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today. I have taken

the liberty to coordinate my testimony with my regional colleagues

and fellow D.C. WASA Board members to minimize repetition in

our comments.

As the most senior in tenure on the Board, having been Fairfax

County’s voting member since November 1996, I will attempt to

give some historical perspective and context to this hearing. My

colleagues will address current issues.

When the first meeting of the D.C. WASA Board of Directors was

convened in October 1996, it was an organization borne of the District of Columbia Department of Public Works, saddled with debt,

unreliable revenue, and a physical plant that was barely functioning.

Just this past March, D.C. WASA’s bond rating had been improved to AA by one rating agency. Its reserves are healthy and its

overall operation is approaching premier status, with the Blue

Plains facility earning the industry’s Platinum Award for its quality operation.

Consultants hired by the D.C. WASA Board of Directors to do a

comprehensive budget review of the Authority at the behest of the

City Council of the District of Columbia called D.C. WASA ‘‘the

best-kept secret on the east coast.’’

The success achieved today has come about because the Board of

Directors checked their jurisdictional hats at the door and committed to make D.C. WASA a world class organization. The District of

Columbia and its jurisdictional neighbors can only make our metropolitan area a success if we all work together. The core cannot succeed without its neighbors, and the suburbs are diminished without

the capital city state.

Twice the Board of Directors has commissioned a Board committee and studies to look at the issue of governance. The first time

was in response to a legislative mandate, District of Columbia Law

11–102, Section 43–1677, to include responding to the requirement

of ‘‘determining the feasibility of establishing the Authority as an

independent regional authority and make recommendations for the

ongoing relationship of user jurisdictions to the Authority.’’

The threshold question for the first study was, ‘‘Would sufficient

benefits result from changing the current D.C. WASA governance

structure to that of a regional authority model?’’ At the time of the

study, the Authority was believed to be independent in that D.C.

WASA had established its own rate structure and operating and

capital budgets, provided that the Mayor and the Council of the

District of Columbia could review and comment prior to being incorporated into the annual appropriation legislation sent by the

District to Congress.

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Water and sewer funds had been segregated from the District’s

general fund, and D.C. WASA had established independent bonding authority. New financial procurement and personnel systems

had been created to support D.C. WASA’s ability to operate.

Against this 3-year record of independent operation, the tasked

committee and the Board of Directors concluded that, while a wholly independent regional authority was technically feasible, no

change in D.C. WASA’s governance should be pursued.

I was on the committee and was the maker of the motion to not

change D.C. WASA’s governance structure. My rationale was that

the current organization, while not perfect, was sufficiently independent and accomplishing what was intended in terms of accountability. Additionally, seeking change would be politically difficult

and not the best use of resources.

One recommendation from the initial governance study was to

revisit the question of governance no later than 2005, on the theory

that there is benefit from re-examining whether the purpose of

D.C. WASA is still being accomplished.

The second review completed in 2006 reached a similar conclusion to the first in that the current structure was working. The additional consideration not addressed in the initial study concerned

D.C. WASA’s long-term interest in who operates the Washington

Aqueduct currently operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

I recite this history because I believe it is important to make

clear that D.C. WASA has become a success story because all the

jurisdictional partners focused on making it a success. Fairfax

County was looking to make sure that its investment produced accountable and reliable service, nothing less, but nothing more. D.C.

WASA will not advance if it is at the expense of one or more of its

member jurisdictions.

I am, on the county’s behalf, very sensitive to the ownership and

location of the Blue Plains facility. The Board strictly adheres to

voting according to joint use and non-joint use on contractual and

financial issues. Retail rates are approved only by District members of the Board, but my observation is that rate increases have

been balanced between the legitimate business requirement of D.C.

WASA and the needs and the ability to pay of the customers being

served. This balance was not always observed, requiring the creation of D.C. WASA.

As long as the Board of Directors continues to be fiduciarily prudent and responsible, the financial independence that Congress intended for D.C. WASA should not be compromised. Consequently,

Fairfax County supports the passage of H.R. 5778, clarifying that

the chief financial officer for the District of Columbia cannot override decisions of the D.C. WASA Board of Directors. The proposed

legislation is, quite frankly, the clarification that Congressman

Tom Davis intended in his colloquy on H.R. 4942, fiscal year 2001

District of Columbia appropriations on water and sewer authority.

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for the privilege to speak. I will

be pleased to respond to the committee’s questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Griffin follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much. I am going to ask

Ms. Norton if she would continue with the hearing while I run and

vote.

Ms. NORTON [presiding]. Of course, Mr. Chairman.

The next witness is Timothy Firestine.

STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY FIRESTINE

Mr. FIRESTINE. Thank you, Congresswoman Norton and members

of the subcommittee. I am Tim Firestine, the chief administrative

officer for Montgomery County, MD, and a principal member of the

Board of Directors of the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today about preserving the independent regional nature of the D.C. Water and Sewer

Authority. In particular, my testimony focuses on preserving the

separate financial existence of WASA from District of Columbia

governance. In order to accomplish this, I support passage of H.R.

5778, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority Independence Preservation Act.

As has been mentioned several times today, WASA was created

in 1996 to respond to serious operational and financial problems at

the Blue Plains Wastewater Management Plant. In a 1996 report

of this committee about the District of Columbia Water and Sewer

Act of 1996, it was noted that, ‘‘A collapse of Blue Plains would be

an ecological catastrophe.’’ This same report made it clear that the

path to recovery required that WASA finances be managed independently from the District’s. It also noted that, in order for WASA

to be successful, it must remain a regional authority.

The report also pledges that, ‘‘The Committee commits itself to

careful monitoring of the Water and Sewer Authority as it moves

forward. It will do anything it can to help or improve the prospects

of the Authority, and will be vigilant in looking for problems or attempts to subvert the performance of the Authority.’’ That is where

we need your help.

Unfortunately, the independent WASA that has flourished over

the past 10 years or so is jeopardized by the possible implication

of subsequent Federal legislation that established the position of

chief financial officer for the District and granted far-reaching authority to the CFO. Until 2006 an MOU between WASA and the

District CFO addressed this conflict between the legislation creating WASA and that which created D.C. CFO position.

In 2006 an interpretation of law that created the D.C. CFO requires that position oversee WASA and is not allowed to enter into

an MOU with WASA. That changes the status quo. This interpretation endangers the financial independence so desired by this committee and the regional partners when WASA was created.

Since its creation, WASA has established independent systems of

governance, including those for financial management, procurement, human resources, and retirement. The suburban jurisdictions or WASA’s wholesale customers depend on sewage services,

not water, as was noted before, provided by WASA and have an

ownership stake in these joint use sewage facilities, including the

Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant.

For over 30 years D.C.’s suburban partners have paid more than

50 percent of Blue Plains’ operation and maintenance costs,

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amounting to about currently $55 million annually. Our share of

Blue Plains’ capital costs is even higher at 60 percent, and is expected to exceed $1 billion over the next 10 years as WASA embarks on the nitrogen removal wet weather plan to advance the

goals of the Chesapeake Bay program. With over $100 million of

resources from the suburban governments being committed to at

Blue Plains annually, there is a clear interest on the part of the

suburban jurisdictions to continue to share in the financial oversight of this regional utility.

Over the years, WASA has been a model now of successful regional cooperation. As was noted, the bond rating agencies just recently upgraded the bond rating to a strong AA. In the report

issued by the Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency, ‘‘the upgrade

is based on a demonstrated track record of sound financial operations over time.’’ Bond rating agencies have consistently cited the

participation of the suburban jurisdictions and WASA’s financial

independence as key WASA strengths that have played a role in

the strong bond rating that has evolved for WASA.

As noted, recent actions seriously compromised the independence

of this regional authority, and we hope would be reversed. Therefore, I would urge the committee to reassert its support for WASA’s

independent regional authority. Since this is a matter of an inadvertent conflict with Federal law, this issue cannot be remedied

without congressional intervention; therefore, I would respectfully

request that the committee consider the adoption of H.R. 5778, the

District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority Independence

Preservation Act, which removes any ambiguity in Federal law as

it relates to the authority of the D.C. CFO’s fiscal authority over

WASA.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to testify before the

committee.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Firestine follows:]

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much.

My good colleague has to go to vote. Since I can’t go, I asked him

to vote for me and offer his statement.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I apologize for having to run for a vote, but

I just want to do two things; thank all the members of the panel,

with special thanks to those who are here representing two of the

jurisdictions that I represent, Mr. Firestine and Ms. Brown. Thank

you for your testimony.

And thank you, Ms. Norton, for working with us to try and address this issue which, as you said, we just want to make sure that

the intent that you and others put together and put on paper back

in the 1990’s is something that is preserved going forward. I think

there has been, as Mr. Firestine just said in his testimony, other

intervening Federal actions created a cloud of uncertainty here

which we are now trying to resolve, and we have to do it through

Federal law. So thank you for your partnership on this and I thank

the witnesses.

If I can get back, I will.

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Brown.

STATEMENT OF JACQUELINE F. BROWN

Ms. BROWN. Good afternoon, Congresswoman. I am Dr. Jacqueline Brown, and I have served as the chief administrative officer for Prince George’s County government since December 2002.

Since April 5, 2006 I have served as a principal member of the

Board of Directors of the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority.

As a Board member, I serve on the Budget and Finance Committee and on the Human Resources Committee. I take my responsibility to meet the mission of WASA very seriously, because what

happens to and with WASA affects the region.

My focus today is the residential diversity of the WASA work

force. I would like to start off by saying that I am extraordinarily

grateful and supportive to Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton

for her April 10th there to Mayor Adrian Fenty and Chairman Vincent Gray that requested the D.C. City Council introduce emergency legislation which would exempt WASA from the Jobs for D.C.

Residents Amendment for 2007. Very, very indicative of the support and the collegiality that has been demonstrated here today.

In addition, I am very grateful for the support of Mayor Adrian

Fenty’s proposed language in the fiscal year 2009 Budget Support

Act of 2008 that exempts WASA from the Jobs for D.C. Residents

Amendment for 2007.

What I would like to do in terms of that is just to take time to

do a little fact-finding that, as a suburban Board member of this

essentially important and regionally important authority, I want to

just present some of the work force facts that are here for the

record.

The employees are about 923, and almost 26 percent are from

the District of Columbia. Almost 65 percent are from Maryland,

and 9 percent are from Virginia, and .2 percent are from somewhere else. We actually have breakdowns in some of the counties

in Maryland, since Maryland has about 65 percent of the work

force for WASA. In Maryland we have 20 employees from Anne

Arundel, 20 from Baltimore County, Charles County has 107, HowVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:51 Jan 14, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00176 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\46013.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ard County has 5, Montgomery County has 50, Prince George’s has

376, and other counties have 21 members.

What we have here is a situation where the residentially diverse

work force in WASA has actually produced one of the stellar water

authorities in the Nation. I think every last one of our employees

is dedicated to fulfilling the regional mission of serving all of our

customers with outstanding service by providing reliable and cost

effective water and wastewater services in accordance with best

practices.

Again, I strongly support the efforts by Congresswoman Norton

and by Mayor Fenty in terms of protecting the residential diversity

of the WASA work force. I also, like my colleagues, strongly support H.R. 5778, which is the District of Columbia Water and Sewer

Authority Independence Preservation Act.

I thank you for this opportunity to speak with you and to thank

you. I will be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Brown follows:]

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Ms. Brown. I have just a few questions.

I do want to say to Ms. Brown that the District of Columbia is

pleased to contribute so heftily to the gross regional product of the

state of several counties in Maryland. I understand your concern.

But I think the concern of the District was that these people do

their job. They are unionized workers, earn their money here in the

District of Columbia. The point is they earn it from the region, as

well as from this city, and I appreciate the way in which Mr.

Tangherlini, the Mayor, Mr. Gray, and the Board have worked with

me and with Mr. Van Hollen to arrive at an amicable way to meet

a resolution.

Could I ask each of you, you heard a proposal much akin to the

Metro proposal. We have a very big nitrogen problem here, and we

are really playing games here. You heard the testimony. You know

the issue enough to know that WASA feels so hard-pressed that it

fights the EPA, knowing full well that EPA does not have the gold

standard for getting nitrogen out of the river and out of our water,

yet WASA feels all kinds of competing priorities, particularly when

it comes to cost.

You all, I think, now participate in a bill that the entire region

has cosponsored, a win/win bill that we are trying with some success—we think we can still do it—to get the Federal Government

to pay for an increased share of Metro for capital spending in return for dedicated funding from the region, since we are the only

Metro that doesn’t have dedicated funding.

Mr. Siglin testified that the only way to get out of the nitrogen

rut without pretending that we are really cleaning up the

Anacostian water is to do something similar. He didn’t cite that. I

cite that as the precedent.

If the Federal Government, which is the primary actor and the

largest ratepayer, were to come forward, do you think that it would

be appropriate for members of the region to increase their funding

for this purpose, or do you like things the way they are?

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I will start, and I will say that, whether we

think it is appropriate or not, we are going to have to as we try

to meet the standard set by EPA and the commitments we have

made as a region. I think as you discuss the nitrogen problem, that

is a huge problem. It is about a $900 million problem. You can’t

ignore the CSO problem, as well, which is about a $2 billion problem.

So really as you look at the water quality issues associated with

cleaning up the Anacostia and reducing the continued impacts to

the Potomac, you really have to look at the two problems combined.

Frankly, those problems combined are the result of the infrastructure that we inherited in the District of Columbia. We might have

built it differently. Even if we didn’t, we think that the Federal

Government has some responsibility for that and a broader regional and national goal of maintaining these waterways and enhancing the Chesapeake Bay.

So I think the fact—and I speak for one jurisdiction—this is a

commitment we have already made, and we are already committing substantial resources to it.

Ms. NORTON. Yes, but I didn’t ask about those resources, because

the suggestion was that increased Federal resources in return for

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increased local resources, essentially. That is the suggestion. Just

like you have decided to do that with respect to Metro.

Mr. TANGHERLINI. And I think, just like we have decided to do

with Metro, we will more than likely decide to do here. I don’t

know what the specifics are.

Ms. NORTON. We don’t have any specifics.

Mr. TANGHERLINI. You are just dragging a promise out of me.

Ms. NORTON. No, I am just dragging out how committed you are.

In fact, you bring CSO into it. Good, whatever it is, because the

Federal Government plays a large role. My job is to push them,

and we have been doing that, and we want even more. The question is going to come back on us, OK, what are they going to do

that is beyond what they are already doing.

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I think that is reasonable, and I would like to

hear the answers to the left of me, but I think the fact is that we

are committed to it and it would be great, actually, if that commitment was backed up with a Federal commitment, because that is

the one commitment that is missing.

Ms. NORTON. So you say you are contributing more money than

the Federal Government is at the moment? Is that what you are

saying?

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I think that is fair to say, absolutely, through

our ratepayer.

Ms. NORTON. So you are saying at the very least the Federal

Government ought to equal what you are now doing?

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Yes, at the very least.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Griffin.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Congresswoman, Fairfax County, I believe, supports doing what we need to do to clean the Chesapeake Bay, and

if that means an increased contribution for our share at Blue

Plains, I am sure that my Board would support that. I would just

note that Fairfax operates the largest treatment plant in the State

of Virginia, and we have not enjoyed the same level of Federal support that Blue Plains has, so that if you are successful in obtaining

additional Federal funds on behalf of Blue Plains, if you could expand that to include other treatment plants in the Chesapeake Bay

watershed that would be greatly appreciated.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Griffin, you know the one advantage of being

in the Nation’s Capital is the big kahuna here is the Federal Government, and that is why you are getting any CSO money in the

first place, because the Federal Government is a player here and

a ratepayer here.

Now, unless they have that role in Virginia do not expect Uncle

Sam to come up with the same kind of piddling funds—I am not

very satisfied with what they have here—but I can understand

your concern. Certainly through us as the Nation’s Capital these

funds will reverberate whatever we can get and whatever—I appreciate your testimony—you are willing to do will certainly have its

affect on, of course, the masterpiece of the region, the Chesapeake

Bay.

Mr. Firestine.

Mr. FIRESTINE. Thank you. Well, obviously, we share the same

concerns. WASA has a strong environmental stewardship role here.

We understand, and that is why our emphasis on the fact that this

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organization and resolving the nitrogen issue is a regional issue

and will require resources of the region. Certainly we are willing

to commit our share to that.

As you know, there is a fee that was put into place in Montgomery County, at least my county. Maybe you don’t know that. That

basically goes toward the collection of moneys to help with our

share of funding the resolution of this issue, which is also connected to our concern about the financial issue. We know that over

time our commitment is going to be greater to this entity to resolve

the problems that you mentioned, and that is the reason we want

to assure that the fiscal independence does remain there as more

resources would flow to resolving this problem.

Ms. NORTON. Dr. Brown.

Ms. BROWN. Yes. In Prince George’s County there has been a real

concerted effort to make sure that the waterways are clean, both

in terms of debris but also chemically and in those kinds of things,

working very closely with things having to do with the Anacostia,

a commitment from our government to do that.

I think your analogy of WMATA and this, although there are

some slight differences, share a fundamental reason for all of the

members of the region to contribute. Water knows no boundaries.

Water really doesn’t. I think it is very foolish of us to assume that

the nutrients will stop, or whatever contaminants are will stop

here and they won’t cross the line because of some manmade or

legislative boundary. That makes no sense whatsoever.

And so the commitment to what is necessary is something that

would be very seriously considered by the Prince George’s County

government if we could see that our Federal partners would be

stepping up to the plate also in terms of doing their fair share. The

headset and the demonstrated commitment to that by action and

by resources is already a part of what happens to Prince George’s.

The three rivers that surround us are critical for us, the Potomac,

the Patuxent, and the Anacostia. They are critical.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Ms. Brown. I think all of you show a

willingness to do our share if we can get the folks up here to finally

really do what they have not done for decades. It all certainly helps

us.

Could I just have some indication—I don’t know if you know, but

I indicated in my bill, the Anacostia River Initiative, finally passed.

I had it in the WRDA bill, the Water Resources bill. This is very

important because it is the predicate for getting more funds for the

Anacostia. It says 10-year plan with all of the actors. The Corps is

the lead, so you see the Federal Government is deeply implicated,

taking the lead.

Within 1 year—I don’t have the deadline—from enactment—but

it has been enacted several months ago now—the 10-year plan has

to come forward. Do you know whether the Corps has reached out

to you or any of you with respect to this plan to within a year of

enactment of the Anacostia River Initiative, which is a predicate to

more money for the Anacostia? Have you had any?

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I haven’t been reached out to personally and

directly, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been reached out to as

an organization.

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Ms. NORTON. I realize I am talking to the top. Can I ask you to

do this, in terms of my own follow-through. Would you within 30

days let us know by addressing this question to the appropriate officials whether or not the Corps is at work? We intend to hold them

to this deadline, and particularly in light of your testimony about

funding, region willing to do its share, Uncle Sam hasn’t done its,

can’t do anything unless there is a plan. The plan, we put in the

bill 1 year so that nobody could skate off of that.

Only a couple more questions.

Mr. Tangherlini, we are told that the new stadium, thrills us all,

had environmental issues in mind as it went up. Was it LEED or

anything like LEED?

Mr. TANGHERLINI. LEED registered. It has received a LEED certification. I am not sure what level, but it did receive a LEED certification, which makes it the only stadium to have accomplished

that.

Ms. NORTON. In the United States?

Mr. TANGHERLINI. As far as I know.

Ms. NORTON. Of course, it is the only one that has been built,

but I congratulate you on that. So on the banks of the Anacostia—

and you know my concern there—you are about to build on Poplar

Point?

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. Never was intended for development, even more

precious than what you have had to do around the stadium. Initially a green area, a National Park Service area, it took every drop

of sweat to get that bill out of here. How will you preserve, in light

of the massive development that may take place, how will you preserve Reservation 13 and Poplar Point, the environmental, the

pristine environmental qualities of these two areas which have now

been entrusted to you for which neither the framers nor anyone

else ever expected that there would be development of any kind?

Mr. TANGHERLINI. It is an excellent question. I think the District

has taken a number of specific actions to improve its environmental stewardship as it seeks development.

In the case of Poplar Point, roughly 35 acres of the 105 that are

there would actually be preserved perpetually as open space, and

the proposals that have been discussed include a much more aggressive management of that open space than is currently being

happened with the National Park Service.

Actually, if you look at the Poplar Point area you will see that

a good chunk of the area is actually developed for a Park Service

maintenance facility, helicopter landing pad, and police station.

There is an old——

Ms. NORTON. That is really a rather small chunk compared to

what you are going to do.

Mr. TANGHERLINI. Right. There is the old capital greenhouses

there. A piece is actually under the Frederick Douglas Bridge.

With your assistance, we have been moving forward with a proposal to move the Frederick Douglas Bridge and open up some of

that land actually for re-redevelopment, if you will, as a park.

So one of the big issues with developing Poplar Point, in particular, is to create a meaningful environmentally sensitive park, as

well as then subject the entire development to the new Green

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Building Act standards of the District of Columbia, which requires

as small a footprint as possible, environmental footprint as possible, on that development. That would also be the case with Reservation 13.

Reservation 13 was, in many ways, the exact opposite of Poplar

Point in the sense that it is for the most part paved parking lots

without stormwater management on it. That actually could benefit

from some kind of investment.

Ms. NORTON. As long as the river, itself, is protected and one

doesn’t build onto the river and one uses state-of-the-art techniques

for making sure that the runoff, which is inevitable wherever people are, doesn’t get to the river, making it any worse than it already is, we may have a chance.

I appreciate that answer.

Finally, actually this may be for all of you. You heard the testimony. I asked about water fountains. I believe this is the case, because this was an issue always in the several hearings that we had

on contaminated water before. It has to do with schools and fountains. There was credible testimony at these hearings that a lot of

that had to do with the fixtures and not with WASA.

We got WASA then, now, and we will always hold them accountable, but how do you know that the water fountain out of which

children drink is not really the responsibility of the District of Columbia or counties represented here and not WASA at all, because

of lead-based fixtures? Can you tell me that there are not leadbased fixtures, internal fixtures, that children may be exposed to

quite apart from anything WASA has done?

Mr. TANGHERLINI. I can’t tell you right now which of those fixtures have lead base components to them, but I can tell you this

is among the reasons why the Mayor sought the Authority to have

direct control over the school system, got it through the Council,

and then got it through here on the Hill with your support.

Having that kind of direct accountability so that problems like

this can be identified and addressed, and then the Mayor can be

accountable for it, is one of the reasons why we have made that a

key priority of the administration.

Then you support that. We support that with a $200 million investment in reconstruction of our school facilities, with one of the

key components being the replacement of the drinking water infrastructure in those schools.

So that is a key issue that we are looking at as we go forward

with the modernization of our entire school facility structure.

Ms. NORTON. I don’t know if this has been a problem elsewhere.

I won’t ask you to run through. This is a special issue for me and

my own environmental work. But I have to indicate and to concede,

frankly, the primary reason I am concerned about lead in the water

has little to do with the average person; it has almost everything

to do with children. I do not know of a child who had cancer when

I was a young woman, or in college, or having my baby. I didn’t

know any. I have no recollection of any of these things. They certainly would have come to our attention because it was so rare.

All this does is to confirm that somehow or the other we who are

grown may well have escaped what for children now becomes a

part of the way in which they are born into this world, that they

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are exposed to things that, if you are exposed to it when you are

older you may get through it, but there has to be a hypothesis. You

begin with that. There has to be a hypothesis that something is

happening to younger people. Cancer is no longer merely the old

person’s disease it was when I was a kid. Children get diseases. I

am not talking about people at life’s end, at the beginning of life.

One hypothesis may be that maybe those children wouldn’t have

lived in the first place. But the fact is that they were born and in

elementary school and junior high school they get cancer.

When we talk about nitrogen and the other contaminants, we basically, although all of us are exposed, are essentially talking about

what we, in order to get the benefits of spending and whatever and

the chemicals out of which the entire society is made, have essentially exposed a generation to unheard of diseases at a very young

age.

As I take Mr. Siglin’s suggestion that maybe we all ought to

buckle up and understand that it is going to take some more expenses, I would just urge you to bear in mind that we unknowingly, unwittingly may be forcing off diseases onto younger and

younger generations that may have been prevented had we been

willing to spend a little more money.

As I close this hearing with the chairman still being fortunate

enough to be voting on the floor, I must offer the apologies of the

committee, but particularly apologies for myself, who have taken

disproportionate amounts of time on other witnesses, and yes, even

on you, and may I thank you very much for your testimony. That

was indispensable to this hearing.

The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 6:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Tom Davis and Hon. Kenny

Marchant follow:]

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