DC mayor declares public emergency, requests federal support in Potomac River sewage leak
Mayor Muriel Bowser has issued a request for federal support and is seeking reimbursement for costs to D.C. and its agencies dealing with a ruptured pipe that has dumped millions of gallons of wastewater into the Potomac River.
Bowser declared a public emergency Wednesday night, issuing a Presidential Emergency Disaster request.
“The main piece of that is that the District is requesting reimbursement for costs that have been incurred by the District and D.C. Water, for both the repairs that are going on in remediation,” D.C. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah said during a news briefing Wednesday.
In the mayor’s request for federal support, she asked for “100% reimbursement for costs incurred” by the District and D.C. Water.
Appiah added that city government has been coordinating support from federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency.
D.C.’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency has been working since Feb. 6 to conduct water testing, provide guidance to the community, coordinate with other agencies and evaluate the economic impacts, according to the mayor’s emergency declaration.
“We’re making the specific requests that we know that the District needs to ensure the safety of our waterways,” Appiah said. “Federal entities do exist to support this type of activity, and District residents deserve that.”
Appiah said federal agencies and President Donald Trump’s administration have been “operating within their lane,” but D.C. government is in a unique position where they “often have to coordinate lots of federal entities.”
“One of the reasons that the mayor has made the decision to make this request of a presidential declaration is because it allows the president to really direct FEMA to provide those funds, and that’s a little bit different than kind of the normal grant process of determining what jurisdictions are going to get,” Appiah said.
Appiah, who is the acting incident commander in this case, said city agencies and regional partners in Maryland and Virginia are working to respond to the incident.
“It’s a regional system and a regional response,” she said.
Lawmakers in neighboring Maryland — where the section of the sewer pipe broke along Clara Barton Parkway in Montgomery County — sent a letter to D.C. Water on Wednesday, pushing for an environmental remediation plan that includes continued testing and an evaluation for human impact.
President Trump said Monday he is directing federal authorities to step in to coordinate the response and protect the region’s water supply. In a post on social media, he faulted Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and other “local Democrat leaders” who he said have “mismanaged” the “ecological disaster.”
Moore pushed back, saying the president has been responsible for the Potomac Interceptor sewer line for decades, adding that the Trump administration has failed to act for the last four weeks and has put people’s lives at risk.
In a letter to D.C. Water, congressional lawmakers from Maryland and Virginia have also called for a strong environmental remediation plan, public briefings and vigilant monitoring of bacteria.