As temperatures continue to dip below freezing in Montgomery County and the surrounding areas, elected officials are raising concerns about whether the county’s water pipe infrastructure can handle the frigid weather.
“The reality is, most of our water comes from the Potomac River, and when the Potomac starts to freeze, it causes most of the problems for our sewer system,” councilmember and Transportation and Environment Committee chair Evan Glass (D-At-large) told Bethesda Today on Friday. “Sewer policy is not sexy, but it is critically important.”
WSSC Water, a utility that serves 1.9 million customers across Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, put out an “essential water use only” advisory last week, urging its customers to only use water for essential purposes due to frigid temperatures causing an increase in water main breaks and leaks. While the advisory was lifted after one day, WSSC is warning of future challenges as temperatures continue to drop in the winter months.
According to WSSC Water spokesperson Lyn Riggins, WSSC maintains approximately 5,900 miles of water mains in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. Approximately 40% of the system’s water mains are more than 50 years old.
WSSC Water experiences more than 1,700 water main breaks and leaks in a given year. Approximately 65% of those, or about 1,100, occur between November and February. Between Jan. 1 and Monday, WSSC Water has experienced 366 water main breaks and leaks. More than 300 of those breaks and leaks have occurred between Jan. 8 and Monday, according to Riggins, including a large water main break in downtown Bethesda that led to road shutdowns.
“There is a direct correlation between the Potomac River temperature and water main breaks and leaks. When the river [temperature] hits a new low for the season, we typically see an increase in water main breaks and leaks a few days later,” Riggins told Bethesda Today in a statement. “That trend is very clear around January 8 in terms of breaks/leaks starting to increase after the river temp significantly dropped and was hitting a new low daily.”
The city of Richmond, Virginia, made national headlines earlier this month after residents were without clean water for six days following the regional snowstorm due to infrastructure failures. The crisis was significant enough to delay the start of the state’s legislative session. City officials faced criticism for not replacing portions of the city’s pipe infrastructure that were aging and may have led to the crisis.
“I’m nervous because I know what happened this week, and the weather is only going to get colder,” Glass said, referring to the county water main breaks.
In Montgomery County, the government does not have complete authority over WSSC. However, the County Council does set utility fee rates for residents in cooperation with the Prince George’s County Council. The fees in turn fund WSSC.
Council President Kate Stewart told Bethesda Today on Tuesday that it’s a delicate balance between not wanting to over-tax residents and making sure WSSC has enough funding to operate.
“There’s always concerns on increasing the fee on households. We’re always conscious of that, and at the same time, we need to make sure WSSC has the budget,” Stewart said. “They need to ensure that they’re doing the ongoing maintenance they have to do, and that the pipes and the infrastructure is secure and functioning.”
State Del. Marc Korman (D-Dist. 16), who represents the Bethesda area and chairs the Transportation and Environment Committee in the Maryland General Assembly House of Delegates, is sponsoring a local bill this session that aims to streamline and reform WSSC.
“It would require WSSC to make some more information public, make some changes to their billing adjustments, but also do some additional financial projections based on a range of conditions and spending and revenue sources,” Korman said.
Higher water bills on the way
In October, the council’s Transportation and Environment Committee recommended a utilities cost increase of 10.2%, which would be about $27 added to the average quarterly customer household bill. The Prince George’s County Council had recommended a 9% increase. The Montgomery County Council opted to move forward with the committee recommendation.
WSSC’s proposed spending limits for fiscal year 2026, which begins July 1, 2025, would have resulted in a quarterly bill increase of 12.2%, which would be more than $32 per average customer household.
“We have moved forward with a fee that is significantly less than what [WSSC] requested,” Stewart said. “We do have to think carefully when we set that fee and we look at the WSSC budget, what we’re providing them, the resources we’re providing them, so that they can keep the infrastructure.”
According to WSSC Communications Director Chuck Brown, decreases in federal funding are affecting water line infrastructure across the country, but he did not directly address the decrease in WSSC’s request.
“In 1977, the federal government invested 63% of all capital spending on water infrastructure – four decades later that figure is now below 10%,” Brown wrote Monday in a statement to Bethesda Today. “This federal disinvestment has come at the same time that the costs of delivering water services are increasing, as utilities must deal with costly upgrades to aging infrastructure, respond to pollution from emerging contaminants, and improve system resilience to climate and cyber threats. Without a significant reinvestment from the federal government, utilities are forced to turn to our customers to fund these critical priorities.”
Bill to streamline WSSC
In addition to other changes, Korman’s proposed legislation would require General Assembly staff to review the structure of WSSC, including the “very odd dual county rate setting,” Korman said.
“We want to figure out what we can do better, including things like asset management and capital spending,” Korman said. “It would require WSSC to put out sort of different data than it’s been putting out about its financial projections and financial planning. So we’ll have sort of a more realistic assessment from WSSC about what their needs are.”
Korman said that in recent years, the state has not funded WSSC. However, Korman said part of the reasoning for the bill is to see where WSSC could be missing out on assistance due to its unique structure.
“WSSC was sort of disadvantaged during COVID because water departments that were parts of governments received aid and WSSC did not,” Korman said. “WSSC does not get government appropriations, and even in emergency situations, does not get government assistance.”
Stewart said emergencies like the one in Richmond do worry her, but that she is hopeful the county can prevent similar situations – and if not, that the county’s emergency services offices and providers will be able to step in.
“I am concerned that we will have continued issues. We have to continue to have ongoing conversations with WSSC,” Stewart said. “One of the things that we do really well in the county are emergency services. Hopefully we can avoid that, but if there is a case, I think working with WSSC and our emergency services folks would be there to support residents.”