Beyond the Potomac River, sewage spills threaten cities with old infrastructure and little funds

WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.

At least 18.7 million people are served by one of roughly 1,000 utilities that are in serious violation of pollution limits. At least 2.7 million live with a system that violated federal clean water rules continually over the last three years, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data.

In Maryland it is Baltimore, not the nation's capital nearby, that has seen hundreds of sewer overflows in recent years often caused by broken pipes, tree roots or severe storms. Cities like Houston, Memphis and Cahokia Heights, Illinois, have reached court agreements to address their problems. And in places where sewage and rain flow through the same pipes, heavy rains made worse by climate change can make overflows to waterways more frequent and severe.

President Donald Trump called state and local leaders “incompetent” over the spill, but some experts say his administration's funding cuts are adding to the national problem. Many utilities can’t afford upgrades — the Environmental Protection Agency says hundreds of billions are needed over the next two decades.

“We’re going to see probably more incidents like we saw with the Potomac sewage spill,” said Becky Hammer, a senior attorney with the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.

A neighbor's message alerted Teddy Bloomquist to a potential flooding problem. Downstairs in his Baltimore row house, cloudy brown water with chunks of human waste was coming up from the shower drain. It was the third sewage backup that winter, each potentially leaving behind harmful bacteria.

“We’re taking buckets and it turns out every time someone’s flushing their toilet, it’s coming up,” Bloomquist said. “It’s just coming so fast.”

Baltimore’s sewer system is more than a century old, with some parts of its tangled web of pipes mapped only in recent decades. Many cracked and leaked from decades of decay, letting rain in and worsening backups that surge through maintenance hole covers, drain into city rivers and flow into basements.

“A spill that happens in a community, in somebody’s house, or right next to their house — that will be a memory for them forever,” said Sri Vedachalam, a water and climate expert at the consulting firm Corvias Infrastructure Solutions.

Since the start of last year, roughly 15 million gallons (57 million liters) of sewage spilled in Baltimore. A map shows the spill sites scattered like measles across the city.

One neighbor was left with bits of toilet paper frozen into the snow in his backyard and spent the day heaving sewage out of his tub and toilet. Repairs cost thousands, including replacing his bathroom floor. Another neighbor said she used her wet vac to suck up roughly 120 gallons (454 liters) of sewage.

The city has spent nearly $2 billion over more than two decades under a consent decree with federal and state regulators. They’ve installed new water mains, closed off outlets where sewage easily overflowed and stopped sewage bottlenecks from occasionally forming in pipes that feed a treatment plant.

Baltimore’s efforts are reducing sewer overflows but take time and must be balanced with cost, according to city’s Department of Public Works. They’ve made considerable progress --- sewer overflows are sharply below a rainy 2018 when their volume equaled about as much as the Potomac spill — but the city has proposed extending a deadline to complete necessary work to 2046.

Officials offer up to $5,000 to residents cleaning up sewage backups after certain storms, though activists say more is needed. The city said the program is governed by specific eligibility criteria.

Maryland’s progress is known because it's among states that publicly report overflows. About half of states don't, according to an Associated Press review of state reporting practices. For a majority of states, the EPA recently extended a federal electronic reporting deadline, from 2025 to 2028, to report overflows. The agency said extensions were needed to smooth the transition.

Flooding and water quality needs over the next two decades have ballooned to at least $630 billion, the EPA estimated in 2024. Local residents will pay most of that. The federal government has a smaller role that’s expanded in recent years, but may soon decline.

The 2021 infrastructure law added billions for water needs, but this is the last year money will go out to states for loans to local projects. The Trump administration last year proposed deep cuts to that program and to grants that help states fund environmental oversight including monitoring and protecting water. Congress rejected those cuts, preserving access to funds for Baltimore and other communities, said Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat.

But environmental justice efforts to help poor, often largely minority areas were cut as part of the Trump administration’s attack on what it scorned as radical ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ programs.

Some small grants were canceled, like $14 million to install septic systems in majority-Black Alabama counties where residents live with sewage piped from their homes onto their property. So were regional assistance centers intended to help small communities plan complex projects and compete for a big pool of new money.

One such center that served six Midwest states was setting up to test drinking water and clean up mold in the East St. Louis, Illinois, region, said Bonnie Keeler, who led the center. That project was just one of dozens planned before the program was spiked.

There still are major sources of financing. In November, the EPA announced $6.5 billion for wastewater and drinking water projects through a loan program, plus another $550 million that would be handed to states. The loan program for states has run for nearly 40 years and provided more than $180 billion for over 50,000 low-cost loans, the agency said. The agency offers some technical assistance as well.

“EPA helps invest in our nation’s water infrastructure by identifying needs, funding infrastructure projects through multiple programs, and providing technical assistance to connect communities and tribes to federal funding,” the agency said.

Bloomquist wants Baltimore to pay for damages and prevent it from happening again. He had to miss several days of work after the January backup and has to replace his basement floor.

“It’s been a saga and now everyone’s on edge. You know, we’re on our group texts, people are like, ‘Oh no, it is raining,’” Bloomquist said.

Wildeman reported from Hartford, Connecticut. Associated Press writers Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, and Gabriela Auon Angueira in San Diego contributed.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

Cones sit near an area of Baltimore that previously suffered a sewage backup on March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Phillis)

A cone with the letters of the Baltimore City Department of Public Works, which managers the city's wastewater services is visible on March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Phillis)

Teddy Bloomquist, who suffered a sewage backup earlier this year, poses at his home in Baltimore on March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Phillis)

Workers build a cofferdam to stop the flow of raw sewage into the Potomac River after a massive sewage pipe rupture in Glen Echo, Md., Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

People walk around Baltimore's Inner Harbor on March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Phillis)

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Press freedom in the Americas suffered a “dramatic deterioration” in 2025, a regional watchdog said on Tuesday, following an assessment of conditions for the profession in 23 countries across the Western Hemisphere.

“This has been one of the worst years in the region, with homicides, arbitrary arrests, and impunity” for crimes committed against journalists, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) said in its annual report.

The Miami-based group has been publishing an annual freedom of speech list, known as the Chapultepec index, since 2020. It evaluates how the United States, Canada and Latin American countries do when it comes to protecting media freedoms.

The 2025 index ranked Venezuela and Nicaragua as nations “without freedom of speech,” while Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, and El Salvador fall into the “high restriction” category. Other democracies including Canada, Brazil, Chile and Panama were ranked as countries with “low restrictions” on freedom of speech.

The United States ranks as a nation with “restrictions” on freedom of speech, the IAPA said, noting that there were 170 attacks against journalists there in 2025. The report added that attacks during coverage of procedures undertaken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had raised concerns about journalistic freedoms.

The researchers found that in the U.S. “there was poor government action against disinformation, as well as government actions aimed at limiting free expression and access to information.” U.S. President Donald Trump and other White House officials have “stigmatized” media outlets that are critical of the administration, they added.

The IAPA notes that attacks on journalists have increased in the region as “authoritarian presidents” emerge in different countries. It said that in Venezuela, “self-censorship” became the norm among local media outlets, which provided almost no coverage of the Nobel Peace Prize granted to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, fearing government reprisals.

In Nicaragua censorship is “institutionalized,” the report said, with a constitutional reform that put all branches of government under the control of the presidency.

The report classifies El Salvador as a country with “high restrictions” on freedom of speech, noting that government officials try to intimidate journalists with lawsuits and criminal investigations. It said that 180 attacks against media workers were recorded in the Central American country between May and July.

There were 290 acts of aggression against journalists in Ecuador last year, including four murders, committed allegedly by criminal gangs. One journalist was also shot in the shoulder by police while broadcasting a protest organized by an Indigenous community.

Haiti was included for the first time in the annual report and was ranked as one of the countries with the least press freedom in the Americas. It noted that two journalists were killed in 2024 by gang members who attacked the reopening ceremony of a hospital in Port-au-Prince.

Furthermore, the report said that crimes against journalists go unpunished in Haiti, where gangs control large swaths of the capital city, and have waged an intimidation campaign against media workers and local residents.

The IAPA has more than 1,300 member news organizations and promotes press freedoms throughout the Americas.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Journalists take photos and videos of a car carrying the remains of who authorities identified as the late Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera, alias "El Mencho," to Recinto de Paz cemetery in Guadalajara, Mexico, Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Refugio Ruiz)