The two D.C. agencies charged with inspecting and maintaining city fire hydrants continued to strongly disagree Wednesday over the number of hydrants that are currently out of service District wide.
Less than a week ago, leaders of the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority and the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services agreed to better coordinate their oversight of the 9,000-plus hydrant system.But a hearing of the D.C. Council’s public safety committee revealed the two are still on different pages.
D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, as of Tuesday, counted 62 fire hydrants out of service, said WASA President Jerry Johnson. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin, meanwhile, said his department counted 235 broken hydrants as of this week.
“You say 62, they say 235,” said Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham. “The people of the District of Columbia are entitled to the simple fact of how many fire hydrants are not working. We just cannot get a square answer on this question.”
Within an hour of the hearing, Graham said later, he had the fire department’s breakdown of the 235.
“WASA appears to be minimizing the issue and the fire department is reporting on what it has found from its own inspection,” Graham said. “Since the fire department conducted the inspection I think their numbers are accurate.”
The water department can only report those hydrants it knows to be out of service, Johnson said.
“We have no other reason whatsoever to report a number other than what the number is,” he said.
Johnson also said that WASA would need more than three months to color code all hydrants based on their gallons-per-minute rate. Emergency legislation adopted by the council Oct. 23 gave WASA 90 days to implement the program, which is designed to ensure firefighters can locate and tap the correct hydrant.
“If that is the legislative intent,” Johnson told Graham of the time limit, “I think you’ve created a legislative mandate that’s impossible to meet.”
