So DC water is out, which sucks, but on a positive note I got really into the DC water supply in 2022 and this is a great time to bring out fun facts
The water's out because they found turbidity at Dalecarlia Reservoir west of the city, where DC has gotten much of its water supply since the 1850s
The Reservoir was built as part of the Washington Aqueduct project headed by Montgomery Meigs (US Army Quartermaster during Civil War, architect of the Building Museum) to bring water from a dam at Great Falls to the city
This project also included Union Arch Bridge over Cabin John Creek
Like much of the city's infrastructure that it doesn't like to talk about, the Washington Aqueduct was built using slave labor, with a workforce of 700 free and enslaved laborers working for much of the 1850s to built the 18-mile long project
Originally ending at Georgetown Reservoir, in the late 1800s the system was extended via tunnel to McMillan Reservoir near Howard
When it was finished, the McMillan Plant (which took over tonight when Dalecarlia went offline) used state of the art sand filtration stacks that can still be seen today
