A major sewer pipe collapse has dumped hundreds of millions of gallons of sewage into the Potomac River, highlighting a nationwide problem involving failing infrastructure.

The January collapse of a pipe as wide as a car dumped so much sewage into the Potomac River that officials tracked a spike of gut-wrenching bacteria drifting slowly past Washington for weeks, prompting an emergency declaration and federal assistance.

It was a disaster of historic scale — 244 million gallons (924 million liters) spilled — spotlighting the severe consequences of old, failing infrastructure. But smaller sewer overflows that draw far less notice are common. Tens of thousands occur every year across the U.S., contaminating rivers, flooding streets and sometimes causing backups into homes that threaten human health.

“It’s really one of those out of sight, out of mind problems that doesn’t rise to the top until it becomes a crisis,” said Alice Volpitta, the Baltimore Harbor waterkeeper with the nonprofit Blue Water Baltimore.

  • MasterBlaster
    1·
    15 hours ago

    Yep. Biden signed a bill into law to rebuild that infrastructure. Trump killed it.

    Much of it is over 100 years old, so it must be replaced. Flint Michigan learned that the hard way some years back. In Connecticut this year there have been several water main breaks in multiple towns that knocked out water for large numbers of people.

    We were literally decades ahead of the rest of the world when we built all this stuff. Which means we have to be decades ahead of the rest of the world to rebuild all of this stuff.

    It would be a lot easier if we didn’t have some 400 people taking about 80% of the wealth of this country.