Washington, D.C.
DC Clean Rivers Division A Blue Plains Tunnel
DC Clean Rivers Division A Blue Plains Tunnel
Location
Owner/Client
DC Water
Contracting Goals
28% Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), 4% Women-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE), 32% Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), 6% Women Owned Business Enterprise (WBE)
Employement Goal
51% District Resident New Hires, 35% Apprenticeship Hours for District Residents
L. S. Caldwell & Associates, Inc. (LSC) was responsible for the development, implementation, and monitoring of the Fair Share Objective initiatives for the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority’s (DC Water) Clean Rivers Project. This $2.6 billion program was the result of a Consent Decree signed by the District of Columbia, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Justice. DC Water was required to clean up the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers by 2025. Five discrete portions of the work, called Divisions, totaling approximately $404,000,000. Twelve Divisions were anticipated.
Division A
The Blue Plains Tunnel (BPT) consisted of two aligned shafts that drop down 140 feet to a 23-foot inside diameter tunnel located at the northwest corner of the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant. It resulted in the construction of 24,000 linear feet of tunnel and 5 new shafts. The tunnel extended from the Blue Plains site, northwest into the Potomac River, running parallel to the Naval Research Laboratory complex, before turning back to the shoreline near Joint Base Anacostia Bolling (JBAB), formerly known as Bolling Air Force Base and the Anacostia Naval Annex. The tunnel continued along the shoreline past JBAB, and bore east to the Poplar Point Junction Shaft, located south of the existing DC Water Poplar Point Pumping Station. Turning north, the tunnel went beneath Poplar Point and the Anacostia River to terminate at the Main Pumping Station Drop Shaft on the north side of DC Water’s Main Pumping Station.
In addition to compliance program development, LSC’s role included:
- Introduction of an online reporting system that tracks usage of minority-owned and women-owned businesses on the projects, as well as online collection of employment data on behalf of DC Water
- Outreach to protected class businesses is also fundamental to its mission, as is ensuring compliance with Davis Bacon Act requirements
- LSC works closely with the District’s Department of Employment Services to ensure contractors meeting predetermined contracting thresholds participate in the First Source Employment Program, and that, where applicable, trade contractors operate an approved apprenticeship program.
- LSC has developed and implemented a personnel reporting tool for DC Water & Sewer Authority’s Board of Directors that provides the residence location and work classification (professional, management, labor) of project employees on all DC Water major projects. This data tallies those employees residing in one of the Authority’s User Jurisdictions (Fairfax and Loudoun Counties in Virginia; Prince Georges and Montgomery Counties in Maryland, and the District of Columbia) as well as the state of residence for those employees from outside of the User Jurisdictions. District residents are tabulated by Ward.
