Feb. 16 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Monday said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would play a key role in cleaning up 200 million to 300 million gallons of sewage that have spilled into the Potomac River.
Four weeks after a sewer line in Montgomery County, Maryland, collapsed on Jan. 19, Trump also criticized Gov. Wes Moore’s response to the spill, while local officials have said it will take months to repair the pipe.
The Potomac River runs between Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump blamed the spill on the “result of the Gross Mismanagement of Local Democrat Leaders, particularly, Governor Wes Moore,” and said that he is directing federal authorities to immediately start assisting in cleaning up the River and fixing the collapsed pipe.
Trump said he has directed FEMA to provide “all necessary Management, Direction, and Coordination to protect the Potomac,” and said that the agency, “which is currently being defunded by Democrats, will play a key role in coordinating the response.”
Congressional Democrats and some Republicans have held back an appropriations bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, of which FEMA is a part.
The members of Congress have demanded changes to the tactics that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Protection agents have used in the last year against people suspected of being in the United States illegally and people who are tracking or protesting the agencies’ actions – and specifically because of the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during a surge in that city.
As a result, DHS has partially shut down until Congress returns to Washington, D.C., to negotiate a solution and fund the department.
A spokesperson for Moore told Axios that “the President has his facts wrong — again,” adding that “for the last four weeks, the Trump administration has failed to act.”
Moore, in a statement, said that the Environmental Protection Agency refused to participate in a hearing about the spill on Monday and that Trump was using it as a political “talking point,” The Washington Post reported.
“If the federal government is just now showing up to take action, we will work collaboratively — as we always do — to be responsive and keep the public informed about the government’s plan to remediate the damage,” Moore said.
The spill started on Jan. 19 when a section of the Potomac interceptor in Montgomery County, which carries as many as 60 million gallons of wastewater daily from Virginia and Maryland to a treatment plant in southwest Washington, D.C., collapsed, according to The Hill.
As of Feb. 6, between 200 million and 300 million gallons of raw sewage were discharged into the Potomac and, while a bypass has been constructed to stop the sewage from flowing into the river, officials said it could take as long as 10 months for a permanent repair to the pipe.