Attorney General Brown’s lawsuit against DC Water omits the part where Maryland walked away from its own river.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
When 240 million gallons of raw sewage began pouring into the Potomac River on January 19, Maryland did what it often does in a crisis: it pointed at someone else.
Governor Wes Moore’s position, stated publicly on February 18, was unambiguous. “This is a Washington, D.C., pipe on federal land,” he declared. “Maryland has nothing to do with this.”
That was three months ago. On April 20, Attorney General Anthony Brown filed a lawsuit against DC Water in Montgomery County Circuit Court, demanding civil penalties of up to $10,000 per day per violation, full environmental cleanup costs, and natural resource damages. The press release called DC Water’s conduct “gross negligence.” It called for “accountability.”
It did not mention that Maryland had already declined to provide any.
The Federal Government Said It Out Loud
The federal Clean Water Act complaint filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and EPA on April 21 — one day after Maryland’s suit — contained language that the Brown press office would rather you not read carefully.
“The collapse occurred within the boundaries of the State of Maryland,” the federal complaint states, “yet Maryland disclaimed any responsibility and refused to hold DC Water accountable.”
The EPA went further, noting that Maryland’s posture was not just politically convenient — it was legally wrong. As a condition of accepting federal primacy for Clean Water Act implementation within its borders, Maryland agreed to enforce the CWA against violators. Governor Moore’s February disclaimer did not just deflect political blame; it abandoned a legal obligation.
Neither DC Water nor the District of Columbia had requested federal assistance when President Trump approved an emergency declaration on February 20 and designated EPA as the lead response agency. Before that federal intervention, the crisis response was driven largely by DC Water’s own crews, while Maryland watched.
Federal resources ended the active crisis by mid-March. DC Water completed emergency repairs and restored full flow to the Potomac Interceptor on March 14.
Maryland filed its lawsuit five weeks later.
Governor Moore’s claim that ‘Maryland has nothing to do with this’ wasn’t just political — it abandoned a legal obligation.
The Infrastructure Failure Had a Regulatory Paper Trail
The collapse of the 72-inch interceptor near the C&O Canal National Historical Park did not come without warning. The pipe was more than half a century old. DC Water’s own records showed signs of corrosion. Maryland’s lawsuit correctly notes that DC Water delayed capital improvements — but the full story is more complicated than the complaint lets on.
DC Water has noted in response to the lawsuits that since 2018, it had been working with the National Park Service on site assessments, environmental reviews, and emergency repairs on portions of the pipeline. The utility previously requested a categorical exclusion to accelerate rehabilitation of this specific pipe section. That request was not approved. Federal permitting requirements for work within a national park created the bureaucratic friction that slowed the very repairs now cited as evidence of negligence.
DC Water is not blameless. Aging infrastructure, deferred maintenance, and an inadequate initial mitigation response that polluted the C&O Canal while attempting to reroute sewage are all documented. The utility used the canal as a bypass channel — diverting wastewater through a national park treasure — before a more robust pumping system was established. That decision drew legitimate criticism.
But the accountability picture is more distributed than a single-defendant lawsuit suggests.
Political Optics Dressed as Environmental Enforcement
The timing and framing of Maryland’s lawsuit deserves scrutiny. Governor Moore took sustained reputational damage from the February blame exchange with President Trump, who publicly accused Democratic leaders of gross mismanagement of the spill. Moore pushed back, but the image of a governor claiming “Maryland has nothing to do with this” while 240 million gallons of sewage fouled a river running through his state was not a flattering one.
The April 20 lawsuit lands differently when read in that context. Attorney General Brown — a Democrat with statewide political standing — is now filing suit over a crisis the state officially washed its hands of during the acute phase. The complaint seeks penalties and restoration. It does not acknowledge Maryland’s own regulatory inaction during the critical eight-day discharge window, or the month-plus afterward, before the federal response was organized.
Maryland is not wrong that DC Water bears primary responsibility for the aging infrastructure it owns and operates. That case may well succeed in court. But the state’s transformation from bystander to plaintiff — after the federal government did the cleanup work — is a performance of environmental stewardship, not its substance.
What Accountability Actually Looks Like
Real accountability for the Potomac Interceptor collapse requires asking questions Maryland’s lawsuit is not structured to answer.
Why did Maryland’s Department of the Environment, which monitors water quality in the Potomac, not trigger enforcement mechanisms during the eight-day discharge event? What was the MDE’s regulatory relationship with DC Water during the years when corrosion warnings were accumulating? If Maryland holds federal primacy for Clean Water Act enforcement within its borders — as the EPA explicitly states — why did the state need a federal emergency declaration before any serious response materialized?
Those questions are not in the complaint. They are not in the press release. They are not in Governor Moore’s public statements.
They are, however, the questions that accountability journalism is obligated to ask — even when, and especially when, the party filing suit happens to be the state government.
Source documents for this piece include the Maryland Office of the Attorney General complaint filed April 20, 2026; the U.S. EPA/DOJ complaint filed April 21, 2026; the EPA emergency response press release from February 21, 2026; and DC Water’s public incident timeline.
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