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Lawmakers press DC Water for transparency on Potomac sewage spill response
Several members of Congress from both Maryland and Virginia are demanding that D.C. water step up its efforts to clean up the environmental damage. FOX 5’s Tom Fitzgerald is live along the Potomac River waterfront in Georgetown tonight.
MARYLAND - Wednesday brought another round of conflict between the Trump administration and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
The back and forth concerns the Potomac sewage spill.
Now, nine members of Congress from both Maryland and Virginia are demanding that D.C. water step up its efforts to clean up the environmental damage.
What they're saying:
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen fired off a pointed letter to D.C. Water on Wednesday — along with some of his congressional colleagues — calling out D.C. Water to have more frequent and transparent public communication, provide a comprehensive environmental impact assessment and remediation plan and start regular public briefings with opportunities for the public to comment.
"D.C. Water needs to provide the public with more updates. They put information online, but they need to get out into the community," Van Hollen said.
The backstory:
The Potomac Interceptor sewage pipe failure has sent approximately 243 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River.
The Trump administration and Gov. Moore are again trading fire over who’s to blame.
Moore says President Donald Trump is just playing politics.
"The sewage pipe that he is talking about is on federal land and over the past four weeks the Trump Administration has failed to act," the governor said.
While the White House says Maryland needs to ask the president to help.
"The federal government can go and take control of this infrastructure that has been abandoned and neglected by Gov. Moore in Maryland for far too long," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Dig deeper:
D.C. Water says there have been no more overflows since Feb. 8,, but downriver, several businesses along the Potomac have been impacted.
On the Georgetown waterfront, restaurants like Tony & Joe’s Seafood Place are concerned.
"It’s going to smell really bad, and it’s going to deter people from sitting outside," said Jeff Honrade, who works at Tony & Joe’s.
Customers told FOX 5 that they’re tired of the blame game and they just want the problem fixed.
"The crisis of who’s to blame is going to lengthen the process of addressing the actual situation," one customer said.
"It’s kind of being ruined by, contaminated by something beyond our control," another told FOX 5.
What's next:
FOX 5 did reach out to the Environmental Protection Agency to ask what their response has been, but we did not get a response.
The Metropolitan Council of Governments — made up of leaders from the federal government, D.C., Maryland and Virginia — is set to hold a meeting on the crisis tomorrow.