[1] In 1852, Congress commissioned the construction of an aqueduct system to provide a reliable supply of drinking water to the city from the Potomac River.

[2][3] In 1938, the District of Columbia built a sewage treatment plant in the Blue Plains area, at the southernmost tip of DC.

Each participating jurisdiction is a signatory to the Blue Plains Intermunicipal Agreement, which spells out the roles and responsibilities for each party and addresses facilities management, capacity allocation, and financing.

DC Water also manages over 1,800 miles (2,900 km) of sewer lines and operates the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant.

This innovation by the DC Water team has a global impact in protecting aquatic life in waterways that receive wastewater discharges.

This award is presented to member agencies for exceptional compliance for their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit limits.

The effluent that leaves Blue Plains and is discharged to the Potomac is highly treated and meets some of the most stringent NPDES permit limits in the United States.

Since the mid-1980s, Blue Plains has reduced phosphorus to the limit of technology, primarily in support of water quality goals of the Potomac River, but also for the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay.

DC Water plans to achieve these levels by constructing new facilities at Blue Plains to perform enhanced nitrogen removal (ENR).

Progress was achieved by implementing the nitrification/denitrification facilities upgrade to convert nitrification reactors from coarse to fine bubble diffusion and modify structures equipment.

The rehabilitated and new equipment will support other ongoing upgrades to the nitrification/denitrification process and aims to meet the nitrogen reduction goals of the Chesapeake Bay Program.

On the waterways, the Authority operates two skimmer boats that remove floatable debris from the Anacostia and Potomac rivers every Monday through Friday.

As a result of the work DC Water contributes, "The District, as a city, is head and shoulders above any other municipality in the Bay watershed," said Tom Schueler of the nonprofit Chesapeake Stormwater Network.

To date, DC Water has significantly reduced CSOs by eliminating approximately 40 percent of the overflows through a $140 million construction and mitigation program.

Once operational, the tunnel system will store the combined sewage during wet weather and release it gradually for treatment at Blue Plains.

[18] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report dismissing the idea of health risks from the water.

[18] This led to a Congressional investigation, which found that the CDC had made "scientifically indefensible" claims about the lack of health effects from the lead in DC's water supply.

[20] The problem was traced to the Washington Aqueduct decision to replace the chlorine used to treat the water with monochloramine, a similar chemical.

[21] The Aqueduct subsequently started adding orthophosphate, a corrosion inhibitor, to the water, which reduced the extent of lead leaching from the pipes.