Bowser requests Trump’s help on Potomac sewage spill

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser on Wednesday accepted President Donald Trump’s offer to help fix the massive sewage spill outside the city, making an unusual request for Trump to declare the area a disaster and pay for repairs.

Bowser’s request came days after Trump tried to blame the spill on her and other Democrats and said that if they want federal help “they have to call me and ask, politely.”

Bowser signed her letter “Respectfully” in asking for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to offset all "costs incurred" by the city and regional sewer authorities following the Jan. 19 collapse of a sewer line in Montgomery County, Maryland. FEMA usually pays 75 percent of disaster repairs unless damage is extreme.

Bowser’s office did not respond to questions Thursday morning about why she was making the request now. In addition to seeking assistance, the three-term mayor — who is not seeking reelection — declared a local public emergency and asked the federal government to support several other water quality and flood protection projects in the city.

No president has approved a disaster declaration for a sewage spill, according to an E&E News analysis of FEMA records dating to 1953.

President Barack Obama approved an emergency declaration in 2016 for water contamination in Flint, Michigan, that began in 2014. FEMA provides limited aid for emergencies.

But presidents have authority to approve disasters for a wide range of events. In his first term, Trump approved disaster requests for every state to cover their costs of handling the Covid-19 pandemic. FEMA has given states roughly $140 billion for pandemic costs.

Bowser’s letter contains no cost estimates — which governors routinely include in their multipage disaster requests — and acknowledges aid would help residents outside her jurisdiction, in Maryland and Virginia.

Federal law says that disaster requests “shall be made by the Governor of the affected State” — or by a government leader such as a tribal chief, territorial governor or the mayor of Washington, and that a disaster request must be based on a finding that a jurisdiction cannot handle an event by itself. Bowser’s letter to Trump makes no such claim.

Neither Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland nor Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, both Democrats, have requested disaster aid from Trump. DC Water, the sewer authority, operates the sewer line that extends from as far as Dulles International Airport to a treatment plant in the city and did not respond to a request for comment.

“Maryland will not be seeking an emergency declaration because the responsibility for the repair and subsequent clean up does not fall to Maryland,” said Rhylan Lake, a spokesperson for Moore, in an email. “Since Maryland owns neither the infrastructure nor the land, Maryland does not anticipate needing supplemental resources at this time.”

Neither the White House nor FEMA responded to questions Thursday about whether they planned to grant D.C.'s assistance request.

Considered the largest raw sewage spill of its kind in U.S. history, the broken sewer line has released over 250 million gallons of raw sewage in the Potomac River. Environmentalists have been raising concerns for weeks about the spill, which could render the river unsafe for fishing and boating and undermine longstanding efforts to repair the Chesapeake Bay.

Local environmentalists said they would welcome federal funding to help with the cleanup, but that the priority should be to increase water quality monitoring and better notify the public about whether it’s safe to use the river.

“Going directly from zero comments on it to an emergency declaration after the fact seems like an unusual pathway,” said Betsy Nicholas, president of Potomac Riverkeeper Network. “We haven’t heard anything from the mayor or the mayor’s office on this for an entire month, which in and of itself was a little surprising and frustrating.”

Representatives for the utility have previously noted that they are working to accelerate a previously planned rehabilitation project to fix the sewer line. The line dates to the early 1960s.

Trump administration officials and local authorities have traded jabs in recent days over who is responsible for the spill, with the exact cause still undetermined.

Trump has primarily cast blame on Moore, with the White House describing the state as responsible for protecting water quality in the Potomac. But both Moore’s office and Bowser say that EPA is the primary regulator of DC Water.

A FEMA report Thursday morning says DC Water “is engaged with” EPA, FEMA, environmental agencies in the District, Maryland and Virginia, and the National Park Service, which owns the wooded parkland where the spill occurred next to the Potomac.

“Since the incident was first reported, DC Water has provided daily updates,” the FEMA report says.