Anacostia River Tunnel

The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) is implementing a Long Term Control Plan (LTCP) for the District’s combined sewer system. The LTCP comprises a system of tunnels and diversion sewers to control combined sewer overflows into Rock Creek, Anacostia River, and Potomac River for treatment at DC Water’s Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The Anacostia River Tunnel (ART) extends from Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in northeast DC to the Poplar Point Pumping Station in southeast DC. The 12,500-foot-long, 23-foot wide ART is approximately 100 feet underground and includes six deep, large-diameter shafts to serve as access points for the tunnel; two diversion chambers; and four odor control vaults.

For the ART project, EBA provided geotechnical instrumentation installation, monitoring and reporting, pre- and post-construction condition surveys, environmental sampling, and construction safety management. EBA prepared work plans; permit applications; condition surveys for structures, roadways, storm drains, and combined sewer pipelines; and instrumentation safety plans. EBA also installed and monitored utility monitoring points, automated in-place inclinometers, automated double vibrating wire piezometers, structure monitoring points, ground monitoring points/arrays, automated track monitoring points, crack gauges, seismographs, automated tiltmeters, automated single- and multiple-position borehole extensometers, and associated dataloggers.

This project received an Honor Award in the American Council of Engineering Companies of Metropolitan Washington (ACEC/MW) 2019 Engineering Excellence Awards competition. In addition, this project received the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association’s Sustainability Initiative of the Year Award and Engineering News-Record’s Global Best Projects Award of Merit in the water/wastewater category.