DC Water cost estimates, funding and public messaging draw scrutiny at council hearing

Ward 6 Council Member Charles Allen convened the Committee on Transportation and the Environment on Feb. 20 for a performance oversight hearing on the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water). Public witnesses — including activists from the Campaign for Lead Free Water, NAACP DC, Sierra Club and neighborhood ANCs — pushed the committee to scrutinize DC Water's latest cost estimates for replacing lead service lines, to prioritize low‑income and East‑of‑the‑River neighborhoods, and to adopt a formal, “filter‑first” public‑health messaging campaign while replacements proceed.

The most contested figure at the hearing was DC Water’s revised total program cost. Witnesses Yana Lambrinidou and Paul Schwartz of the Campaign for Lead Free Water and others said DC Water’s estimate has risen from about $1.5 billion to about $1.8 billion, a change that produces an average replacement cost near the $40,000 range per service line. Lambrinidou told the committee the per‑line figure “is orders of magnitude higher” than other U.S. jurisdictions and independent assessments; she and others pointed the committee toward a September 2022 independent review by Safe Water Engineering that estimated…