DC Mayor Bowser declares emergency over Potomac sewage spill, asks for federal help

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a disaster emergency over the Potomac sewage spill on Wednesday and requested federal assistance with the cleanup.

Bowser wrote a letter to Trump on Wednesday formally requesting that he issue an emergency disaster declaration, freeing up federal resources to help deal with the spill.

"Yeah, he is worried about that," Leavitt said. "Which is why the federal government wants to fix it. And we hope that the local authorities will cooperate with us in doing so."

Leavitt called on leaders in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. to "step forward and to ask the federal government for help and to ask for the Stafford Act to be implemented here so that the federal government can go and take control of this local infrastructure that has been abandoned and neglected by Gov. Moore in Maryland for far too long."

Moore's office has pushed back on the administration's rhetoric surrounding the leak, claiming the federal government has oversight over DC Water, the District's water and sewer utility. 

Leavitt continued Wednesday that environmentalists should "pray" that local jurisdictions call on Trump to step in and shore up infrastructure and carry out cleanup.

"For all of the environmentalists in the room and across the District of Columbia, let's all hope and pray that this governor does the right thing and ask President Trump to get involved, because it will be an ecological and environmental disaster if the federal government does not step in to help," she said. "But of course, we need the state and local jurisdictions to make that formal request."