WASHINGTON—If you live in the nation’s capital, you’ve probably heard that there’s sewage in the Potomac River.
The issue began in mid-January, when a roughly 60-year-old sewer pipe in Maryland broke, resulting in sewage flowing into the river within the first five days, with additional spills happening this month. So far, roughly 250 million gallons of the sewage has made its way into the river.
The spill has since become the subject of regional and national concern, largely because E. coli levels in the water are higher. The D.C. government says that it is “likely due to a recent rain event” rather than the spill, but still advises that people do not fish or otherwise have “unnecessary contact” with the river.
But there’s some good news for Washingtonians: the tap water is still fine.
“There is currently no impact to drinking water, and so I think as much as we can say that is extremely important to reassure folks. The federal government right now is doing a couple things,” EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water Jess Kramer told The Daily Wire in a Thursday interview. “One is helping to ensure coordination across all the entities involved: the federal partners, the states, as well as the local governments.”
President Donald Trump posted to Truth Social on Tuesday, asking for the governments of Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. to quickly step in, writing, “if they can’t do the job, they have to call me and ask, politely, to get it fixed.”
“The Federal Government is not at all involved with what has taken place, but we can fix it. But remember, even in that case, with the Democrat Shutdown, we’ll have to bring in true Patriots to do the work because many are not working right now. These Democrat caused Disasters, both River and Shutdown, will only get worse,” Trump added, calling it a “Radical Left caused Environmental Hazard.”
The incident has led to more tensions between the president and Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D), who posted a map on X on Wednesday that highlighted what is and is not considered federal jurisdiction.
“Heard you weren’t sure about what is federal vs. local jurisdiction, Mr. President. So we wanted to make it easier for you. Many thanks to [the National Park Service] for this great map of federal land!” Moore wrote.
Kramer said that she’s “never seen a governor so adamant to not take actions to protect the health of its citizens.”
“The federal piece of this, I think that he’s pointing to when he’s talking about federal lands, is that is the National Park Service piece of it. But again, like I just discussed, that second bucket of remediation, that is really going to be led by National Park Service to ensure that the property is cleaned up to the levels and the specificity that’s necessary for the National Park Service,” she explained.
“And so there is definitely a federal component here, but the break happened within the jurisdiction of Maryland. And so when we talk about cooperative federalism under the Clean Water Act, we really look at the state as the primary enforcement agency. And we, as EPA, the federal government, we have […] oversight authority that lays on top of that. And so we will step in if we need to,” she continued.
She added that the “federal government is actively working to fulfill requests for assistance that we have gotten over the last 24 hours, from the various state government and local government partners. And those are things that we are providing to help ensure the protection of public health as well as helping to provide resources, to ensure the expedient cleanup and remediation of this site.”
Earlier on Thursday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a State of Emergency in hopes of getting federal help for the situation, including “100% reimbursement for costs incurred.”
Kramer explained that the goals for remediation fall into three main categories: getting the sewage returned to the Potomac Interceptor, which diverts sewage to a water treatment center, from the canal in the next four to six weeks; having the land cleaned up after the “sanitary sewage” is back in the interceptor; and doing “necessary inspections and operations and maintenance” on the interceptor quickly to make sure there is not a repeat of the issue.
FEMA is also playing a key role in the clean-up efforts, despite the current lapse in funding for the Department of Homeland Security, as Congress and the White House have yet to reach a deal regarding federal immigration enforcement tactics.
“Democrats in Congress have shut down [FEMA] funding—leaving our hard working employees to work without pay—yet FEMA is now stepping in to coordinate cleanup of one of the largest raw sewage spills in U.S. history,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posted to X on Monday.
“Thanks to gross mismanagement by Maryland’s Democrat leaders, hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage has reportedly been dumped into the Potomac River—flowing straight through our nation’s capital and endangering millions of people, wildlife, and the entire DC region’s water supply. Democrats are withholding paychecks from the men and women of [DHS] while they clean up this Democrat-created disaster. Unbelievable hypocrisy,” Noem added.
When The Daily Wire reached out to Moore’s office for comment, they referred to the governor’s Wednesday remarks on the issue, where he said that the EPA did not attend a Maryland General Assembly hearing on the “cleanup status” and that “to blame Maryland in this when this is a DC pipe on federal land is asinine. It is disingenuous, absurd, and politically motivated.”
