2019 Environmental Communications Awards Competition Winner

Grand Prize

Turning a Pump Station into a Destination

Entrant: Alexandria Renew Enterprises
Person in Charge: Karen Pallansch, P.E., BCEE
Media Contact: Lisa Van Riper
Website: http://www.alexrenew.com

Turning a Pump Station into a Learning Destination

AlexRenew owns five pump stations throughout Alexandria, the oldest being the Four Mile Run (4 MR) Pump Station, built in 1954 when AlexRenew started operations. The pump station serves the Four Mile Run sewershed, located in the northeast section of the City of Alexandria, and sits at the end of Commonwealth Avenue, next to Cora Kelly School for Math and Science. It also sits in front of baseball fields where the Alexandria Aces, a collegiate summer baseball club (a member of the Cal Ripkin Collegiate Baseball League), play 20 home games every summer, and where local little league teams play. The neighborhood around the pump station has a high concentration of Hispanic residents.

This pump station as in dire need of a upgrade to bring it to 21st century standards. Upgrades included a new sewer pipe, grinders, underground pumping equipment, a new electrical room, larger pipes for tank flushing, and an odor control system upgrade.

In preparation for the upgrade, AlexRenew staff conducted extensive community outreach to the neighborhoods surrounding the pump station. Of particular focus were the Arlandria Action Plan Advisory Group and the Four Mile Run Restoration Task Force - citizens who were concerned about the environmental health of the Four Mile Run area, and who reviewed and commented on area development projects. After speaking with this committee and communicating our desire to create a community-friendly design, our CEO was challenged by the groups to incorporate education and beautification into the pump station upgrade.

Target Audiences for Pump Station Education Fence

Children and teachers at Cora Kelly School
Neighborhood families
Little league and Alexandria Aces baseball game attendees
Local adult residents out for a walk

Goals for Four Mile Run Pump Station Education Fence

Engage the community with the water cycle, what a pump station is, and what AlexRenew does
Educate the community about what they can do to be good water stewards
Create an emotional connection with water, reinforcing the value of clean water

To address the challenge our community leaders gave us for the pump station upgrade, our CEO and the construction team proposed creating a series of educational interactives attached to the pump station fence. After conducting an RFP process for a design, we chose a small firm in Fairfax County, Virginia that designs museum-quality education exhibits, to create attractive and durable interactives designed to appear to neighborhood residents, schoolkids, neighborhood families, and baseball game attendees. The objective, from the early states of planning through construction, and through the life of the education fence, was to reach these target audiences and encourage them to interact with and learn more about how water works (and pump stations work) in Alexandria.

As the internal pump station infrastructure was getting its upgrades, a 10-station interactive learning center was attached to a new architectural style eight-foot fence that surrounds the pump station. The exhibits deliver messages about the water cycle, and are accompanied by colorful, explanatory and instructional graphic panels that are also translated into Spanish. Each panel is strategically mounted to ensure that people of all ages and sizes can view it as they interact with each exhibit. Examples of the exhibits:

"How Water Gets Dirty." A replica of a concrete pipe with a clear viewing port that reveals a simulation of sewer water, featuring common objects that go down the drain.
"Water Flow." Blue painted aluminum plate circles that connect citizens with how they use water to how we clean water to the final outcome of cleaned water benefiting aquatic life in the Potomac River.
"Mechanics of Pumping." A pile that contains an aluminum plunger that can be moved with a handle. Viewing slots in the "pump" body allow the user to observe an acrylic ball as it is lifted by the plunger to a return tube.
"Stormwater Management." A realistic rain barrel and brass drain-faucet emptying into a watering can.
"Under the Scene." Concentric resin pipe sizes mounted to the fence, demonstrating just how big our underground pipes are that convey used water to our campus.
"Good Neighbors." This exhibit features a pipe with a slider that emits a puff of smelly air, showing what it would smell like without our advanced odor control system.

To ensure an attractive presentation, thoughtful native landscaping such as muhly grass was installed around the sidewalk that parallels the fence. Eastern Redbud trees were places near the interactives, and concrete pads were used to secure five of the heavier exhibits.

Results: Thousands of Engagements with Water and Neighborhood Beautification!

When we presented the final design to the Arlandria Action Plan Group, it was met with applause and enthusiastic comments.
The opening of the Pump Station Fence, in early summer 2017, was celebrated simultaneously with our first Water Discovery Dray event, which attracted hundreds of residents to learn more about water and inspire water stewardship throughout our community. We served smoothies at the pump station to more than 50 interested residents and bicycle riders who rode from our Environmental Center out to the pump station on a waterways tour during Water Discovery Day.
In addition, more than one dozen teachers from Cora Kelly School have toured their classes around the pump station during the school year, and we have six more tours, hosted by our outreach specialist, booked for March 2019 and beyond, for Cora Kelly School classes.
Thousands of Little League and Alexandria Aces baseball spectators have toured through the pump station interactives, learning more about how water works in Alexandria.
We also received publicity in the water industry as our project was featured in Treatment Plant Operator (TOP) magazine in the September 2018 issue.
Finally, it is also clear that the neighborhood residents value the education and beautification, because all of the exhibits have remained intact and vadalism- and theft-free, requiring very little maintenance to date.