Alexandria Chamber Sounds Alarm on Potomac Sewage Discharge Bill

ALEXANDRIA, VA -- The Alexandria Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday is sounding the alarm to its members about a proposed bill in the General Assembly that would speed up the timeline for the City to fix its problem with sewage flowing into the Potomac River and, they say, severely hamper the City pocketbook.

The Chamber notes that late last week, "a bill was proposed in the State Senate concerning Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) outfalls and the Potomac River Watershed by Senators Stuart and Surovell. The bill targets Alexandria specifically and places severe penalties on the City unless it can completely eliminate all sewer discharge going into the Potomac River by 2020 - a megaproject that is both financially and practically impossible. The result of this bill being passed would mean the loss of all state funds for Alexandria if the City is unable to meet the three-year deadline (all state funding includes any program that receives state funding - transportation, education, public safety, emergency services, social services, historic preservation, senior services, etc. - all of it is at risk)."

State Sen. Scott Surovell's district lies downstream from the overflow areas.

Alexandria City Council voted unanimously in November to accelerate a series of projects to substantially reduce sewer overflows into local waterways. But Surovell and others including the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, say it's not nearly enough.

The Alexandria Chamber of Commerce is fighting back.

"We can all agree that Alexandria needs to eliminate discharging untreated sewage into the Potomac River," the Chamber said in a statement. "However, the timeline proposed by the legislation simply cannot be met and, if the bill passes, the City would need to divert nearly all of its capital improvement program monies to address this one project or risk losing approximately $125-$150 million in state funding annually."

But Surovell, who is proposing the legislation with Sen. Richard Stuart, said Tuesday that the information from the Chamber Tuesday "is not accurate. The State Budget appropriates funds to the City of Alexandria and trumps any legislation that we adopt. Alexandria's school money has never been at risk and no one should say that it is."

Surovell also said that he's been attempting to discuss the matter with the City for months, but is only now getting a response.

"I have been attempting to have a dialogue with the City about an actual deadline that the City will stop allowing 70 million gallons of human waste to pour into the Potomac River since this past August," he said Tuesday afternoon. "I did not receive a proposed deadline until about three hours ago."

" I look forward to working with the City to negotiate a solution to this situation," Surovell said. "We are discussing deadlines for action."

Due to the City's "inaction and refusal to propose deadlines," there are now six separate pieces of legislation pending to require the City to take action, Surovell noted.

The Chamber contends that the proposed legislation "will severely impact quality of life in Alexandria" and also said that "Alexandria is committed to solving the CSO issue, but radical, punitive measures that threaten the viability of the city is detrimental to all Alexandria business owners, citizens, students, public servants, and visitors."

Read more about Senate Bill 898 here.

PHOTO of Oronoco Bay area in Alexandria courtesy of Google