Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1957-11-10

regional conferences, the chances for inroads
against pollution are slight.
The Lower River
Four major factors involving pollution
of the lower Potomac were cited by the
Wolman report. They are:
I The Districts sewage system, which in
IL normal weather keeps Maryland and
District sewage out of the Potomac, breaks
down during storms The reason is that many
Washington sewer lines carry both sanitary
sewage and the water which runs off streets
and slopes when it rains. During storms, the
sewer conduitS are not big enough to handle
the load They overflow, and spill both rain
water and raw sewage into the Potomac.
- In summer the lower Potomac often
IL acts almost like lake. It's flow is so
slow drop of water takes 40 days to move
from Chain Bridge to Fort Washington.
Tides wash filth back and forth in front of
the Nations Capital.
= Partially treated sewage from the Vir-
y. ginia side enters the river at several
points between Chain Bridge and Alexandria.
The worst is Fairfax drainage from Pimmit
Run, near Chain Bridge.
A Filters and chemicals in the big treat
Re ment plants on both sides of the river
near Alexandria may remove most of the
impurities from sewage. But they still will
discharge residues which make ideal food
for algae-tiny plant organisms which live.
in water AS Washingtons lower-Potomac
eff1uents increase in volume, DR.. Wolman
predicts, the growth and decomposition OF
algea may become so tremendous that it Will
be as Objectionable in color, odor and mass
as raw sewage. A new biological regime"
he says will be created, and carried up the
impurities upstream, where an elaborate
recreation basin could be developed.
What are the solutions to these
problems?
DR.. Wolman concludes that the only real
answer to the overflow of the Districts
combined sewers-a rebuilt system OF
separate storm and sanitary sewers-will be
too costly and too disruptive to city life
except over a period of many years. In
order to maintain the purity of at least part
of the river, he suggests dam-like barrier
across the river near Fourteenth street.
He proposes large conduits to carry the
combined storm runoff and sewage for the
short distance below the barrier. Most
sewage from Virginia, he says, eventually
should be treated below Alexandria. The
barrier would prevent tides from washing
impurities upstream.
To solve the algae problem, the con-
sultant says that the District and Arlington
should stop. dscharging treated sewage into
the Potomac. Instead, he says, the effiuents
from the treatment plants should be
transported to the middle of the Chesapeake
Bay in the overland conduit mentioned
earlier in this article. The conduit would
not follow the river, but would head straight
across open country TO the bay through
Prince Georges and Anne Arundel Counties.
This would remove about three-fourths of
all Washington area sewage from the Poto-
mac, leaving only those effiuents treated at
plants below Alexandria to enter the river.
The conduit Mr. wolman contends,
would have two other benefits besides clean
ing up the Potomac: Some of the treated
effiuent could be released en- route to irrigate
farms, and more important, 1t could pick
up additional sewage from future treatment
plants in Prince Georges and Anne Arundel
Counties. This latter possibility, Maryland
officials say, has incalculable Importance.
Harry B. Shaw, chief engineer Of the
WSSC, says that unless some such drastic
step as this is taken, urban development in
the metro area of Prince Georges and Anne
Arundel south of Laurel is virtually doomed.
He contends that developments in this area
would have to discharge effiuent into the
Patuxent River, and that the Patuxent has
such Light flow is could support an urban