WASHINGTON INFORMER: President Biden has signed a bill that focuses on finding a backup drinking water supply for D.C.-area residents who largely depend on the Potomac River, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton recently announced.
The bill included three provisions of the Water Resources Development Act of 2022, all signed by the president into law, WTOP reported. Norton said one provision authorizes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct studies on a secondary water drinking source and additional drinking water storage capacities for D.C.
Norton said in a statement Friday that the provision “will serve to protect the drinking water and other infrastructure of the nation’s capital from serious vulnerabilities and will benefit D.C. residents for years to come.”
The other provisions will allow the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct studies about allowing swimming in the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers and the susceptibility of the District’s Federal Triangle area that has tended to flood in recent years.
Michael Nardollili, executive director of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, told WTOP that “everything is on the table” when it comes to ideas for creating the city’s backup water supply, particularly since the Washington Aqueduct, which produces drinking water from the river, maintains only one day’s worth of backup water.
The Potomac River serves as the sole drinking water source for the District and Arlington and the city of Falls Church in Virginia.
