Alexandria City Council directed staff on Tuesday to pursue a new preferred option to combat flooding along the Alexandria waterfront — one that does not involve a pump station.
City staff presented the council with a number of options in the wake of the National Park Service’s denial last month of the city’s plan to build a pump station at Waterfront Park. The city’s preferred option, Option 3, is an enhanced gravity storm sewer system, with “automated back flow prevention devices.” Option 3 also means that infrastructure improvements to Point Lumley Park and the bulkhead would be deferred.
“We need to raise our shoreline in some capacity to a higher elevation to prevent very frequent, regular flooding from the tidal influence and from flood events from the Potomac River,” Project manager Matt Landis told City Council. “We also have aging infrastructure that is at the end of [its] useful life.”
Option 3 would see bulkhead improvements along the Potomac River shoreline and installing flood control gates or valves at Waterfront Park to handle sunny day flooding.
“We presently have very frequent sunny day flooding as the tide comes in, flooding our streets whether it’s raining or not,” Landis said. “This system would address 100% of that sunny day flooding, which is where we derive that frequent flood source.”
As of October 2025, the waterfront experienced 227 flooding events at the Prince Street level over the past year, compared to a 20-year average of 145 events, according to city data. Annual flood-related costs, including cleanup, sandbagging and lost business revenue, range from $400,000 to $800,000. By the year 2100, the city predicts 353 annual flooding events at the Prince Street level without intervention.
National Park Service denial
NPS sent the city a letter on Feb. 20 reserving its previous position on the city’s deed modification request for the Waterfront Flood Mitigation Pump Station. The city’s proposal would have closed Waterfront Park and Point Lumley Park from the fall of 2026 until the fall of 2028 to rebuild segments of the sea wall and to install the pump station to recirculate water in flood-prone areas back to the Potomac River.
In its letter to the city, NPS Comptroller Jessica Bowron wrote that the park must remain an open space public park area, with park activities limited to “pedestrian walkways, bicycle trails, seating, landscaped areas, fountains, gardens, play areas, plazas, and temporary facilities for special events.”
Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley said that with sea levels rising, the pump station will likely become a permissible use at some point in the future.
“We understood this building to be permissible for nearly 10 years,” Bagley said. “I say that based on the nearly 10 years of deep engagement and time spent and drafting and the [National Environmental Policy Act] analysis being allowed to be under way… It would appear to me that there is a time in the future where different leadership at NPS and climate change will cause them to say, ‘Absolutely, if you want to have a waterfront park anywhere on the East Coast, we’re going to need pump stations to do that.'”
The plan proved controversial, drawing more than 1,100 signatures on a Change.org petition against the pump station. The Alexandria Waterfront Alliance, a group that includes the Historic Alexandria Foundation, Old Town Civic Association, and Old Dominion Boat Club, recommended that the pump station be moved across the street from Waterfront Park to 1 Prince Street.
Landis said that NPS’s decision was a “major and sudden” reversal. He said NPS had been “generally supportive” of the project but needed additional information, design and studies before amending the deed and conducting the full NEPA process.
“Very recently in February, we received a notification from the National Park Service, that not only will they not modify the height restriction on that deed, but they now actually consider the pump station itself an impermissible,” Landis said. “I want to stress that this is a major and sudden reversal in their position and perspective intention regarding this deed modification process.”
Consequently, City Council asked staff last September to look into the 1 Prince Street location as another alternative to the pump station at Waterfront Park. Landis said that fully relocating the pump station would cost between $100 million and $130 million.
Staff are also considering another option — making minimal flooding improvements. With this option, the city would repair or replace a limited portion of the existing sewer system and replace some piping, while leaving the bulkhead without any height improvements.
City staff will update Council in June on the project with a new timeline and additional details, Landis said.
