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.
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“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.”
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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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President Donald Trump threatened D.C. home rule when asked Thursday about the race for D.C. mayor.
In the Oval Office Thursday, Trump warned if Janeese Lewis George wins next week’s Democratic primary and becomes D.C.’s next mayor, the federal government could take over the nation’s capital.
“Well, I wouldn’t like it, and maybe we’d take back Washington and run it on the federal basis,” Trump said. “We won’t put up with it. We’re not going to lose our businesses. By the way, Washington, now, is a safe, beautiful place.”
“People are coming; restaurants are thriving,” the president added. “The restaurants were all closing, closed. Nobody wanted. Now you can’t get restaurant space, you can’t get into. We have a thriving community; we got rid of the crime.”
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The president suggested his administration could take over D.C. if Janeese Lewis George wins the mayor’s race.
Trump was responding to a reporter asking about Lewis George running a “Zohran Mamdani campaign,” in reference to New York City’s mayor, that focuses on “socialist” policies.
“We are not going to get ICE off our streets by fearing this president,” Lewis George said in a statement. “We are not going to protect our rights or Home Rule by obeying in advance.
“Threatening Home Rule because you do not like how residents vote is an attack on democracy itself,” she said.
News4’s Mark Segraves hosted a conversation Thursday between D.C. mayoral candidates Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie. NBC4 selected the participants based on publicly available polling.
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The campaign for Kenyan McDuffie, Lewis George’s main competition in Tuesday’s primary, released a statement saying, “The stakes of this election couldn’t be higher, but DC decides who will be the next mayor, not Donald Trump.”
The statement defended home rule and noted overreach by the Trump administration, promising to “revive our economy that Trump’s policies have decimated, including the tens of thousands of residents who have been laid off by his unconscionable actions with Elon Musk.”
The president’s comments insinuated threats to D.C. he’s made dating back two years to his campaign.
Mayor Muriel Bowser has tried to keep the Trump administration at bay, but Trump did federalize the Metropolitan Police Department, deploy the National Guard in the city and establish the Safe and Beautiful Task Force.
Trump needs Congress to overturn home rule in the District, and at least through 2026, Republicans control the House and Senate, which have shown willingness to interfere in D.C.
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It’s been two weeks since Washington’s worst industrial accident in nearly a century. More than a half-million gallons of a caustic liquid known as white liquor flooded through the Nippon Dynawave pulp mill in Longview after a storage tank imploded. Eleven people were killed. As the investigations continue, KUOW’s environment reporter John Ryan has been looking into chemical safety at other Washington pulp mills.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Kim Malcolm: You found three other paper mills in Washington that use the same white liquor chemical stew that killed workers at the Nippon Dynawave mill. Tell us about them.
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John Ryan: There are two other mills in Longview. There’s the Smurfit Westrock mill and the North Pacific Paper Company (NORPAC) mill. Then there’s one in Port Townsend called the Port Townsend Paper Company mill. I asked each mill how much white liquor they have, how they store it, and what, if any, safety measures they’ve taken in the wake of the Nippon Dynawave disaster. The Smurfit Westrock mill in Longview declined to comment. The NORPAC and the Port Townsend mills didn’t reply to my requests at all.
How concerned should people living near these mills be about the chemicals there?
The main risk is to workers inside these plants. Even this Nippon Dynawave disaster, the worst in nearly a century, had minimal, I would say, environmental impacts beyond the boundaries of the plant.
There were some fish killed in a ditch outside the Longview plant, but the vast majority of those fish killed were actually introduced or invasive species, so, kind of a small environmental benefit, if you will. But it is hard to say how much of a risk these above-ground tanks of white liquor pose because there’s little information about them.
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They’re not very tightly regulated, unlike underground tanks and unlike containers of other types of hazardous materials. I spoke with Marissa Baker, a professor of occupational health and hygiene at the University of Washington:
“The federal or state agencies would not have kind of purview on inspecting, maintaining the tank. Is it structurally sound? Is it being cleaned as it should? That’s going to really fall on the employer.”
While these tanks aren’t tightly regulated, Baker makes the point that our state constitution does require every worker to have a safe workplace, and that was clearly not the case at Nippon Dynawave when multiple workers were killed on the job.
Wouldn’t people in communities like Port Townsend and Longview have the right to know what is being done to keep people and workers safe?
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Well, these mills are private businesses, and generally what they do is private information. But when you’re dealing with large amounts of hazardous materials, federal law says the public does have a right to know what’s going on there and what’s being done to keep the community safe.
Once a year, these mills are required to disclose how much hazardous material they have on-hand and how they store it, and they’re supposed to make that information publicly available. You might think this would end up on a website somewhere that anybody could just search for and find, but that’s not the case.
You have to file a public records request to get this information. I did that with the counties and the state to get this information. This morning, Cowlitz County told me they found the records I requested, but they couldn’t send them to me yet. They’re giving the mills two weeks to seek a court order to prohibit disclosure of these records, and that’s even though the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act says those reports must be available to the public. Again, the public does have a right to know.
That Community Right-to-Know Act also requires the mills and local governments to have plans for what to do if they do have a hazardous material spill. The local emergency planning committees in the mill counties are having their first meetings since the Nippon Dynawave disaster coming up very soon. If people want to try to find out more in person, the emergency planning committee for Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties is meeting tomorrow [Thursday] afternoon. For Port Townsend, in Jefferson County, there’s a meeting in July.
Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.
Gov. Bob Ferguson is proposing a statewide ban on cellphones in Washington’s public schools. Neighboring Oregon is among a majority of states banning or restricting the devices.
At a press conference on June 9, 2026, at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School in North Seattle, Gov. Bob Ferguson announced that he wants to see a cellphone ban in all Washington state public schools.
Freddy Monares / KNKX
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At Robert Eagle Staff Middle School in North Seattle, something is notably missing as kids walk through the halls, changing classes: cellphones.
The school has required students to lock their phones away during school hours since implementing their “away-for-the-day” policy in 2024.
Gov. Bob Ferguson used the school as a backdrop for a press conference Tuesday to announce that he wants to see a cellphone ban in all Washington state public schools. The majority of states in the U.S. now have a type of cellphone ban or restrictions in place.
“In our schools, digital distractions are causing kids to miss what’s written on the white board. They’re focusing more on memes than on math,” he said.
In Washington, many individual public schools have cellphone policies, but there is no broad ban coming from the state.
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A recent study from the University of Washington shows that, on average, teens spend more than an hour a day on their cellphones while at school.
No phones at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School
Zach Stowell, principal at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, said at the press conference that he’s seen positive changes after taking students’ phones away.
“The classrooms are more vibrant, students are engaging, there’s more social time,” he said. “At the end of the day … our test scores are up, and I’m seeing kids smile at rates that we’ve never seen before.”
Zoe Taggart, a seventh grader at the school, said the policy has also helped her outside of school hours.
“After school, everybody’s hanging out with each other, and then again, it’s still phones away, because we know there’s better things to do,” Taggart said.
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Washington educators advocate for phone bans
Some educators have been pushing lawmakers for phone bans in schools.
The Washington Education Association, which represents 84,000 educators in the state, passed a resolution in April in support of a statewide cellphone ban in public schools.
Larry Delaney, the organization’s president, said he’s proud of the work state educators do on a daily basis.
“Their creativity is unmatched, but no amount of ‘gamifying’ or enhancing lessons will off the stimulation that the latest TikTok trend will. I’m 57 years old, and I find myself getting sucked in,” he said.
During the legislative session earlier this year, state lawmakers approved studying how cellphone use affects kids during school hours. Ferguson said that’s not enough to protect students.
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He said he and his team will meet with students and educators across the state to discuss the policy and hear feedback.
Ferguson expects to announce a detailed proposal by Sept. 15. If approved by the Washington state Legislature, it would be implemented by the start of the 2027-2028 school year.
Adia White from the Northwest News Network contributed to this report.
Freddy Monares is a reporter with KNKX. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.
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