{"id":510972,"date":"2026-03-08T10:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T10:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/510972\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T10:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T10:28:10","slug":"sewage-filled-potomac-river-risks-ruining-americas-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/510972\/","title":{"rendered":"Sewage-filled Potomac river risks ruining America\u2019s birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Underpinning all this is Mr Trump\u2019s conviction that he has rescued \u201ccrime-ridden\u201d Washington by sending in the National Guard<\/a>. He has also repeatedly called for the federal government to assume control of the Democratic-controlled city.<\/p>\n

Hilary Harp Falk, the chief executive of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental group, pinpointed long-standing issues contributing to the Potomac disaster, which she described as a \u201cwake-up call\u201d to the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Potomac spill draws long overdue attention to ageing wastewater infrastructure that every year sends millions of gallons of raw sewage into rivers across our region, from Harrisburg to Baltimore to Washington, DC to Richmond,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Fifty years ago, when Gerald Ford was in the White House, the tone was markedly different.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t Gerald Ford presents a Gerald Ford production of the Bicentennial. He saw it as much more of a, hey, the country is in a terrible state after Watergate and everything, so let\u2019s have a big national party and try to get people feeling better about that,\u201d Mr Galdieri said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, there was a community-oriented aspect to it, as opposed to it being about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Lord, who worked in the Reagan White House, added: \u201cThis is the 250th anniversary of the celebration of the country. It would be embarrassing to have something like that in the middle of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The blow, however, could be softened by encouraging people to focus on Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was signed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got Independence Hall there,\u201d Mr Lord told The Telegraph. \u201cWashington, DC as it were, didn\u2019t exist 250 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Underpinning all this is Mr Trump\u2019s conviction that he has rescued \u201ccrime-ridden\u201d Washington by sending in the National…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[12,192,3,79,615,231734,194,2805],"class_list":["post-510972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-donald-trump","tag-environment","tag-news","tag-science","tag-standard","tag-us-content","tag-us-news","tag-washington-d-c"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}