Alexandria Cuts Ribbon on RiverRenew, Closing the Book on Century-Old Sewage Overflows
Speaking personally as a friend and former colleague, you did it. To quote my boss, you actually freaking did it!” Jonathan Rak, deputy director, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
ALEXANDRIA, VA — For more than a century, a heavy summer downpour over Old Town brought a predictable, stomach-churning consequence. A mere quarter inch of rain was all it took to overwhelm the city’s antiquated Victorian-era infrastructure, sending a torrent of stormwater mixed with raw sewage directly into the Potomac River.
As of July 1, it’s all history.
On a blistering morning where the heat index climbed toward triple digits, over 100 city, state, and US officials gathered under a tent Wednesday for a celebratory ceremony and official ribbon-cutting to christen RiverRenew.
“This morning we mark a historic milestone for our city, celebrating the largest environmental initiative ever undertaken in Alexandria,” John Hill, AlexRenew board chair, informed the crowd. The monumental achievement modernizes a combined sewer network dating back to the 1800s, bringing online a massive, 130-foot-deep, 2.2-mile waterfront tunnel system designed to intercept 120 million gallons of raw sewage annually before it can pollute the Potomac River and its tributaries.
“Today is more than the operational completion of RiverRenew. It denotes the beginning of a new era for the Potomac River, Hunting Creek and Hoofs Run,” Hill announced.
A Race Against Time and Skepticism
The road to Wednesday’s milestone was paved with intense political and environmental friction. A 2017 mandate by the Virginia General Assembly legally forced the city’s hand, establishing a strict timeline to remediate Alexandria’s four active deep-water outfalls. At the time, critics and engineers alike warned that completing a subterranean marvel of this scale within a single decade was virtually impossible; projects of similar complexity routinely require 15 years or more.
“Speaking personally as a friend and former colleague, you did it. To quote my boss, you actually freaking did it!” Jonathan Rak declared, to thunderous applause. He is deputy director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and a former AlexRenew general counsel. “You beat the deadline by a few days and you actually did it,” Rak proclaimed. He then recounted a conversation going back to 2017.
“Vice Mayor Justin Wilson was quoted as saying, let me see if I can find the words, that the deadline was, quote, largely impossible.” Wilson, who went on to serve two terms as Alexandria’s mayor, shouted from the audience, “I was right!”
It took eight years. “Pure grit” pushed the project through a maze of disruptions, including a global pandemic, historic inflation, and fractured international supply chains, said Justin Carl, AlexRenew general manager.
“RiverRenew was never going to be easy,” Carl reflected. “Three projects in one; a massive underground tunnel, an inverted high-rise building complete with a state-of-the-art pumping station and a new conveyance pipeline through one of our city’s most cherished parks. Eight years from concept to completion and we hit the mark.”
The engineering required to meet that ambitious deadline was staggering. Utilizing a 465-foot-long tunnel boring machine named “Hazel”—in honor of environmental justice pioneer Hazel Johnson—crews tunneled more than two miles, 100 feet below the surface. Half of that perilous journey was spent tunneling directly beneath the Potomac River.
“This is quite possibly the most beautiful pump station I have ever seen,” said Jess Kramer, the EPA’s assistant administrator for water. She praised Alexandria as a model for other communities facing aging sewer infrastructure.
Dan Bradfield is stakeholder advisory chair. A professional engineer, dubbed professional nerd by his friends, confessed that he is “maybe one of the only people in the city outside of AlexRenew that was genuinely excited about this public works project.”
As a child, Mayor Aliyah Gaskins was captivated by The Magic School Bus and Ms. Frizzle, the fictional science teacher in the beloved children’s books. When she picked up the book Moxie, it took her back. Moxie is a character in AlexRenew’s children’s book about the project and brought back childhood memories of Ms. Frizzle.
“It is my hope that when you read this story, what you remember most is that Alexandria is a city that is committed to our people and our planet, and we will always do whatever it takes to protect the health and safety of our community.”
The mayor ended with a poem from Moxie.
“We’re celebrating because all the fish get to roam, because the dirty water is gone from their home.”
Following the ribbon cutting and confetti, members of the media, outfitted with hard hats and boots, got a firsthand look inside the belly of the beast. Escorted by Paul Carbary, AlexRenew’s senior operations and maintenance advisor, the tour descended sixty feet down a long stairwell—with no elevator yet and the permanent stairs still under construction.
Participants peered into a massive, cavernous 12-story underground pumping station that plunges a total of 116 feet straight down into the earth. It’s not just a powerhouse; it’s also green. The facility is on track to become the first pumping station in Virginia to earn LEED certification, sporting eco-friendly features like solar panels, natural skylights, and a green roof.
