This is a bit awkward: The D.C. government is suing one of its biggest, most influential contractors.
Loose Lips hears that Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit against Fort Myer Construction last week, alleging that the company has been illegally dumping wastewater, petroleum, and other pollutants into the city’s stormwater system for years. The suit claims that the paving giant has repeatedly ignored orders from D.C. regulators to fix these problems at its Ward 5 headquarters, befouling Springhouse Run, which flows through the National Arboretum and into the Anacostia River.
Fort Myer has attracted complaints about air pollution at its asphalt facilities in Brentwood and Eckington for years, but Schwalb’s lawsuit deals instead with the company’s vehicle storage yard just off of South Dakota Avenue NE. He claims that inspectors with the Department of Energy and the Environment observed the company illegally dumping pollutants down storm drains at least 20 times between 2015 and 2023, yet Fort Myer repeatedly refused their efforts to address these issues.
“For years, Fort Myer Construction threatened District residents’ health and safety by polluting our waterways in blatant violation of environmental laws,” Schwalb writes in a statement to LL. “The company ignored repeated orders from D.C. agencies to clean up its facility and obtain proper permits, choosing instead to put its profits over the protection of D.C.’s critical natural resources. My office will continue working to ensure that all businesses play by the rules, and that all Washingtonians have access to clean water.”
Schwalb’s suit is asking for an unidentified amount of civil penalties against the company, which was filed in D.C. Superior Court on Oct. 10. Fort Myer Construction spokesperson Josh Brown wrote in a statement that “we do not agree with the allegations in this lawsuit and look forward to defending our record in court.”
“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,” Brown added.
The case represents not only some of the District’s most substantial environmental action against the company, but also a major clash with one of its most favored contractors. Whether it’s simple road paving or major construction projects, Fort Myer has demonstrated a unique knack for winning business in the city over the past few decades. Twenty years ago, as the company dealt with accusations that it bribed D.C. officials, it said that D.C. government contracts represented roughly half of all its operating income.
Memorably, a 2017 D.C. Council investigation found that top officials in Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration took “extraordinary” and “unprecedented” steps to benefit the company, which also happened to be one of the major donors to her campaign (not to mention the campaigns of her Council allies). At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds also worked as an executive for the company for years before winning office.
Surely, Schwalb’s case will ruffle a few feathers. Notably, his own suit acknowledges the company’s “extensive client list (including the District government).” Nonetheless, the AG’s office argues that Fort Myer “repeatedly flouted the District’s environmental laws and regulations despite directive orders and warnings from the District.”
The suit claims D.C. regulators first became aware of problems at the storage yard back in March 2015, when conservationists working in the Arboretum detected a “pollutant discharge” in Springhouse Run and notified DOEE. The agency quickly settled on Fort Myer’s facility as the culprit, determining that a fire caused the incident.
When DOEE inspected the storage yard again a few months later, it found other concerning practices. For instance, the company would wash its vehicles and drain that pollutant-contaminated water directly into a storm drain, the lawsuit claims. Over the next few years, DOEE repeatedly issued notices of infraction to the company after observing petroleum discharges into the drains and other bad wastewater management practices, but the lawsuit says, the company only made halting efforts to change its ways.
This process continued until 2022, when DOEE found evidence of more illegal discharges and demanded documentation from the company about its pollutant control plans and devices it installed to purify its water. “The documents revealed a failure by [Fort Myer] to maintain the pollution control devices and an illegal bypass pipe located within the manhole where the DOEE inspector had observed the petroleum product,” the suit alleges. “The bypass allowed stormwater to circumvent the pollution control device.”
Despite all of this, DOEE found evidence of additional stormwater contamination by the company as recently as May 2023, the AG claims. The lawsuit adds that Fort Myer didn’t even obtain necessary federal environmental permits to operate the facility until earlier this year, roughly 10 years after regulators first informed the company that it needed these documents.
“[Fort Myer] has been a persistent violator of the [District’s Water Pollution Control Act] and must be held accountable for its repeated discharge violations and failure to comply with directive orders,” the AG’s office wrote.
The company has yet to respond to the suit’s allegations in court, and the case is scheduled to go before a judge on Jan. 10.
If the AG can prove any of his allegations, Fort Myer Construction could be on the hook for hefty financial penalties. The suit notes that each “willful violation” of the water pollution act is subject to a fine of up to $250,000, and DOEE documented at least 24 different occasions the company may have violated the law.