After the sewage spill in the Potomac River a few weeks ago, DC Water began pumping the contaminated water and diverting it to the C&O Canal, but on Sunday, another spill released 600,000 more gallons of sewage into the river.
Sunday’s spill was caused by a massive clog of non‑disposable wipes flushed down the toilet, putting two of the pumps used to divert sewage out of commission, DC Water said.
At the same time, right about the time of the Super Bowl, they experienced a heavy flow of sewage coming through the interceptor that they could not keep up with, and there was an overflow, DC Water said. That’s really bad news for the environment and the Potomac River.
DC Water says E. coli numbers are 100 times higher than previously reported
DC Water also acknowledged that in recent days they put out some of their own testing data on the level of bacteria and E. coli in the river but had their numbers wrong. They blame human error, and it was way off…