Washington
DC AG sues contractor alleging decade of polluting waterways
D.C.’s attorney general sued one of the biggest construction firms in the region – which is also one of the biggest contractors doing business with the city – alleging the company has been polluting Washington’s waterways for almost a decade.
Fort Myer Construction handles much of the major road work in the District. Its headquarters in Northeast D.C. is not far from the Anacostia River.
According to the lawsuit, toxic runoff from the heavy equipment at the site has been making its way into the Anacostia since 2015.
“The heart of this lawsuit is that for the better part of a decade at this point, Fort Myer has been allowing petroleum-laden runoff to leave their Ward 5 facility into the stormwater system, which makes its way into the Anacostia River,” Assistant Deputy Attorney General Will Stephens said.
“D.C. agencies who are tasked with trying to work on this have tried to bring Fort Myer into compliance for several years, and the company’s continued to flout those efforts and continue to allow the runoff,” he said.
According to the lawsuit, the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment has been citing Fort Myer and instructing the company to correct the problem for almost 10 years.
The attorney general’s office alleges runoff from the facility flows into nearby storm drains and then empties into nearby streams that flow through the National Arboretum and empty into the Anacostia.
“We’re tasked with trying to protect these natural resources that belong to everybody, including the arboretum belongs not only to people the District, but the people of the United States – is run by the USDA – but the Anacostia River is one of our jewels, obviously, along with the Potomac,” Stephens said. “And so, we take very seriously trying to find ways to prevent and stop this kind of pollution, particularly with petroleum-laden chemicals and other gray water.”
A spokesperson for Fort Myer issued a statement to News4, saying, “Fort Myer Construction is proud to be an award-winning construction firm and leader in green infrastructure work. No construction company in the District has built more green infrastructure projects protecting our environment and making our neighborhoods more resilient to extreme weather caused by climate change. We do not agree with the allegations in this lawsuit and look forward to defending our record in court.”
According the attorney general, winning the lawsuit could mean millions of dollars in a civil judgement.
News4 reached out to the mayor’s office asking why the city would continue to award contracts to Fort Myer if it was not in compliance with environmental regulations, but the mayor’s office did not respond.
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Trinity Rodman signs record deal with Washington Spirit
USWNT forward Trinity Rodman signed a three-year deal with the NWSL’s Washington Spirit. The deal makes Rodman the highest-paid female footballer in the world.
unbranded – Sport
Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury has announced that she and her husband Matt are expecting a baby in July.
The couple made the announcement in a video on the Spirit’s social media channels, holding a baby goalkeeper jersey on the pitch at Audi Field.
Kingsbury becomes the most recent Spirit star to go on maternity leave, following defender Casey Krueger, midfielder Andi Sullivan and forward Ashley Hatch.
Sullivan gave birth to daughter Millie in July, while Hatch welcomed her son Leo in January.
Krueger announced she was pregnant with her second child in October.
Kingsbury has served as the Spirit’s starting goalkeeper since 2018, and has been named the NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year twice (2019 and 2021).
The 34-year-old has two caps with the U.S. women’s national team, and was named to the 2023 World Cup roster.
The club captain will leave a major void for the Spirit, who have finished as NWSL runner-up in back-to-back seasons.
Sandy MacIver and Kaylie Collins are expected to compete for the starting role while Kingsbury is on maternity leave.
The Spirit kick off their 2026 campaign on March 13 against the Portland Thorns.
YAKIMA, Wash. — Yakima could soon take a major step toward redesigning Sixth Avenue after the Washington State Public Works Board awarded the city a $985,600 loan.
The loan was approved for the design engineering phase of the Sixth Avenue project. The funding can also be used along Sixth Avenue for utility replacement and updated ADA use.
The Yakima City Council must decide whether to accept the award. If the council accepts it, the city’s engineering work will move forward with the design of Sixth Avenue.
The cost of installing trolley lines is excluded from the plan. The historic trolleys would need to raise the funds required to add trolley lines.
The award is scheduled to be discussed during next week’s City Council meeting.
Microsoft will ramp up its investment in the University of Washington.
Brad Smith, the company’s president, made the announcement at a press conference with University of Washington President Robert Jones on Tuesday.
That means hiring more UW graduates as interns at Microsoft, he said.
And he said all students, faculty, and researchers should have access to free, or at least deeply-discounted, AI.
“ Some of it is compute that Microsoft is donating, and some of it is pursuant to an agreement where, believe me, we give the University of Washington probably the best pricing that anybody’s gonna find anywhere,” Smith said. He assured the small group of reporters present that it would be “many millions of dollars of additional computational resources.”
The announcement today didn’t include any specific numbers.
But Smith said Microsoft has already invested $165 million in the UW over several decades.
He pointed to Jones’ vision to spur “radical collaborations with businesses and communities to advance positive change,” and eliminate “any artificial barriers between the university and the communities it serves.”
Microsoft’s goal is for AI to help UW researchers solve some of the world’s biggest problems without introducing new ones.
At Tuesday’s announcement, several research students were present to demonstrate how AI supports their work.
Amelia Keyser-Gibson is an environmental scientist at the UW. She’s using AI to analyze photographs of vines, to find which adapt best to climate change.
It’s a paradox: AI produces carbon emissions. At the same time, it’s also a new tool to help reduce them.
So how do those things square for Keyser-Gibson?
“ That’s a great question, and honestly, I don’t know the answer to that,” she said. “I’m highly aware that there’s a lot of environmental impact of using AI, but what I can say is that this has allowed us to make research innovations that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.”
“If we had had to manually annotate every single image that would’ve been an undergrad doing that for hours,” Keyser-Gibson continued. “And we didn’t have the budget. We didn’t have the manpower to do that.”
“AI exists. If we don’t use it as researchers, we’re gonna fall behind.”
Microsoft reports on its own carbon emissions. But like most AI companies, it doesn’t reveal everything.
That’s one reason another UW student named Zhihan Zhang is using AI to estimate how much energy AI is using.
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