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President Donald Trump is worried the Potomac River will still stink when America250 celebrations kick off this summer following a sewage leak that dumped millions of gallons of raw filth into the water outlining the nation's capital, according to the White House.
"There are a lot of events coming up for America 250," Fox News' Peter Doocy said to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt Wednesday during a White House press conference. "The president wants people from all over to come to the nation's capital. Is he worried that by the summer, the Potomac River will still smell like poop?"
Leavitt confirmed the president's concern, after chuckling.
"Yeah, he is worried about that," Leavitt said. "Which is why the federal government wants to fix it. And we hope that the local authorities will cooperate with us in doing so."
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A sewage pipe interceptor ruptured in January, releasing upward of 240 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River. The president has directed his ire toward Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, and other local leaders in Virginia and Washington, D.C., on the issue, claiming alleged incompetence led to the disaster.
Leavitt called on leaders in the two states and D.C. to "step forward and to ask the federal government for help and to ask for the Stafford Act to be implemented here so that the federal government can go and take control of this local infrastructure that has been abandoned and neglected by Governor Moore in Maryland for far too long."
"It's no secret that Maryland's water and infrastructure are have been in dire need of repair," Leavitt said. "Their infrastructure has received a nearly failing grade in the 2025 report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers. This is the same grade they've received, five years earlier. There has been no improvement under the leadership of Governor Moore. He's clearly shown he's incapable of fixing this problem, which is why President Trump and the federal government are standing by to step in."
Moore's office has pushed back on the administration's rhetoric surrounding the leak, claiming the federal government has oversight over DC Water, the District’s water and sewer utility.
"Since the last century, the federal government has been responsible for the Potomac Interceptor, which is the origin of the sewage leak. For the last four weeks, the Trump Administration has failed to act, shirking its responsibility and putting people's health at risk," a representative from Moore's office said on Monday. "Notably, the president’s own EPA explicitly refused to participate in the major legislative hearing about the cleanup last Friday."
Leavitt continued Wednesday that environmentalists should "pray" that local jurisdictions call on Trump to step in and shore up infrastructure and carry out clean up.
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"For all of the environmentalists in the room and across the District of Columbia, let's all hope and pray that this governor does the right thing and ask President Trump to get involved, because it will be an ecological and environmental disaster if the federal government does not step in to help," she said. "But of course, we need the state and local jurisdictions to make that formal request."
DC Water is currently leading clean-up efforts, while the state of Maryland was providing "regulatory oversight related to water quality standard exceedances in the Potomac related to unauthorized discharges of wastewater," according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin Tuesday.
He added that local leaders had not yet called on the EPA for assistance.
"This mess must be completely addressed as fast as humanly possible, and the Trump EPA stands ready, motivated, and highly capable to assist in any way possible to fulfill President Trump’s strong desire to END this disaster," Zeldin posted to X.
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