More than five months after millions of gallons of untreated sewage spilled into the Potomac River, aftershocks continue.
Litigation, emergency repairs and a major leadership shakeup have followed in the wake of the Jan. 19 rupture of the Potomac Interceptor sewage pipe near in Montgomery County, MD. As much as 300 million gallons of sewage spewed from the 6-foot-wide pipe into the Potomac River for about a week before it was stopped.
In April, the U.S. Department of Justice and Maryland’s attorney general announced separate legal actions on the same day against DC Water, the pipe’s owner. The lawsuits seek financial penalties and restoration of the spill site. In June, the Potomac Riverkeeper Network filed motions to intervene in both cases.
“We at PRKN had long feared that this disaster was not an accident. It was a failure of decision-making, accountability, and urgency,” said PRKN president Betsy Nicholas…