Officials can’t explain yearslong delays in pipe repairs before Potomac’s historic sewage spill
by Matt Delaney · The Washington TimesDC Water’s top executive testified Wednesday on Capitol Hill that federal officials still haven’t explained why they never approved repairs to the aging sewer line that ruptured this winter, spewing nearly 250 million gallons of untreated human waste into the Potomac River.
CEO David Gadis told lawmakers the repair approval process that began with the National Park Service in 2018 remains ongoing, even after January’s pipe burst of the Potomac Interceptor and the ecological disaster it created in the waterway.
Rep. John Joyce, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the House Energy and Commerce’s subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, pressed Mr. Gadis about whether the utility had requested NPS to expedite its approval.
Mr. Gadis said DC Water was told the company “had to go through the process.”
“We do not feel that eight years is satisfying,” the executive added.
Mr. Gadis said no definitive cause has been determined for the pipe break, but he suggested the 60-plus years of wear-and-tear on the sewer line finally gave way and led to the catastrophic rupture.
Compounding the cleanup, Mr. Gadis said, were boulders along the pipe’s path that fell into the fractured section and created a dam. He said the rock dam exacerbated the initial five-day span in which most of the sewage overflows occurred.
Disease-carrying bacteria, such as those associated with E.Coli, MRSA and staph infections, were found in the water by rupture site in Montgomery County, Maryland.
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And D.C. officials shut down recreational activities on the river and told residents that the water was so polluted they should avoid touching it at all.
The sewage spill is considered one of the largest in U.S. history, and the incident helped cement the Potomac’s status as the nation’s most endangered river by conservation nonprofit American Rivers.
Congressional representatives said the only saving grace was the precise location of the pipe break.
“Luck played a large part in keeping D.C.’s drinking water safe,” said Rep. Yvette Clarke, New York Democrat. “If the Potomac Interceptor collapse had been further upriver, the capital’s water supply could have been contaminated.”
But boating, kayaking and fishing resumed on the Potomac by March.
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Jessica Kramer, who works with the Office of Water at the Environmental Protection Agency, said the river has been largely cleansed of its most potent bacteria and only some minor soil patches near the Potomac Interceptor continue to require removal.
Yet NPS officials who testified were cagey about why infrastructure upgrades to the pipeline remain in limbo.
It was previously reported that the agency took issue with the scope of the Potomac Interceptor repairs because of how it would affect trees and other vegetation in the area.
Edward Wenschhof, the NPS’ acting superintendent for the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park, said the approval process can accommodate some design changes after construction begins, but wholesale changes require utility companies to resubmit their proposals and start from the beginning.
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Mr. Wenschhof did say that construction permits from utilities typically take between six months to a year for approval.
He added that emergency orders following the rupture have allowed repairs to take place where the pipe busted, but an active lawsuit over the incident prevented him from talking about the specifics of the delayed approvals.
Lawmakers understood that reluctance, but expressed frustration at the length of the normal process and the ease with which it could be delayed.
“Eight years is too long to wait for an environmental assessment, and I say this in a nonpartisan way, because over those eight years we had Democratic and Republican administrations,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, Colorado Democrat.
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“One thing we need to do is we need to figure out how to speed up environmental assessments, so that we can make sure we don’t have these kinds of ruptures that are endangering public health,” she added.
Ms. Kramer said she thought Maryland officials did not jump to address the emergency as fast as they could have, given the severity of the pipe break.
The EPA official said during a prior stint while she worked for Florida’s state EPA, that agency raced to address a water-main break that threatened the environment. Maryland officials did not move with the same urgency against what could wind up being the nation’s worst sewage spill, Ms. Kramer said.
The ruptured pipe set off a political fight about who was responsible for the fiasco, with President Trump pointing the finger at the D.C. area’s Democrat-heavy leadership.
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Last month, Maryland and the Department of Justice both sued DC Water and the District, and accused the two defendants for being responsible for the degradation of the pipeline.
Maryland has also defended the wellbeing of the Potomac in spite of the sewage spill, with the state’s environmental officials saying the river is “healthier today than it was a generation ago” and calling the rupture an “acute, localized incident.”
DC Water said it expects to fully repair the Potomac Interceptor by the end of the year.
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Matt Delaney
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