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Alexandria will host a public town hall on the Potomac Interceptor collapse on Thursday, March 19, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Lee Center, Mayor Alyia Gaskins announced at Tuesday night's City Council meeting.
Gaskins said the event will include DC Water, Alexandria's health department, and other major agencies involved in the response, though a full attendee list has not been released. The event is the first community hearing to be held in Virginia. When DC Water held two community briefings in late February — one at its headquarters in D.C. and one at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda — no Virginia session was announced. COG Executive Director Clark Mercer acknowledged the gap during a February 23 regional briefing.
Gaskins, who serves as Vice Chair of the COG Board of Directors, credited the organization for helping city staff organize the session.
"I just wanted to extend a note of thanks and gratitude to COG for helping myself and city staff work to organize a town hall here in Alexandria," she said. "It's an opportunity to better understand how we got here, what is the work that has been completed to date, and what is the work to prevent something like this from happening in the future."
The COG Board meets today at noon at the National Association of Counties, 660 North Capitol Street NW in Washington — the Potomac Interceptor response is Item 8 on the agenda. COG Water Resources Director Steven Bieber will brief the board on actions taken to date, including water quality monitoring, information sharing, and — notably — initial discussions on funding for the repairs. The public can watch live at mwcog.org/events/2026/3/11/cog-board-of-directors.
What happened
On January 19, a section of the Potomac Interceptor collapsed along Clara Barton Parkway in Montgomery County, Maryland, sending more than 200 million gallons of raw, untreated sewage into the Potomac River — one of the largest sewage spills in the region's recorded history. The interceptor carries roughly 60 million gallons of wastewater daily from as far away as Dulles Airport to the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant in Southwest D.C.
DC Water activated a bypass system on January 24 to reroute wastewater around the collapsed section, but additional overflows occurred in early February. DC Water CEO David Gadis described the break as a "once-in-a-lifetime" event. The interceptor was built in the 1960s, and DC Water has said prior inspections showed no imminent risk of failure.
Repairs are expected to be complete by mid-March. As of March 9, DC Water said work was underway on the final steps to return flow to the interceptor.
Alexandria-area waters were measurably affected by the spill. Virginia DEQ sampling on February 17 found elevated bacteria readings along the northern Virginia shoreline, with Fourmile Run at the George Washington Parkway Bridge the only Virginia-side location in the dataset to exceed the federal recreational threshold of 410 MPN. Modeling from the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin presented at a February 23 COG regional briefing showed that under typical February river conditions, peak pathogen levels from a release at the spill site flow past D.C.'s southern border — which adjoins Alexandria — in less than one day.
Where things stand for Alexandria
The Virginia Department of Health issued a recreational water advisory for the Potomac on February 13. On March 5, VDH partially lifted it — clearing Alexandria's waterfront and the stretch downstream to the Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge in King George County. A recreational advisory remains in place only for the 4.7-mile section from the American Legion Bridge (I-495) to the Chain Bridge, closest to the spill site, where elevated E. coli levels persist.
Alexandria's health department has been monitoring conditions and is expected to participate in the March 19 event. Residents can also submit comments and questions in advance; Gaskins said more information is available on the city's website and social media.
A class-action lawsuit was filed against DC Water this week by land and vessel owners seeking damages, alleging the agency failed to put adequate safeguards or monitoring protocols in place to prevent the failure.
Details
The Potomac Interceptor Town Hall is on Thursday, March 19, 7–9 p.m. at the Lee Center, 1108 Jefferson Street.
The full Potomac Interceptor repair and response timeline is at dcwater.com/potomac-interceptor-collapse.
