EPA IN DEEP SHIT

Literal Shit Exploded Out of a Water Fountain at the EPA

By Drew Schwartz

VICE News
December 15, 2017

Between the threat of budget cuts, major restructuring, and having a climate change skeptic run the show, it's been a pretty rough year to work at the Environmental Protection Agency. On Thursday, things only got shittier.

Employees at the EPA headquarters in Washington, DC, discovered that sewage was literally spewing out of the water fountains, E&E News reports. They got an email at about 9 AM letting them know that there was a "water line back up" causing an "issue" with the fountains. According to the folks inside, "issue" was an understatement.

"A sewer problem at EPA HQ has resulted in poop exploding out of water fountains," Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, told E&E.

The poopsplosion pictured apparently detonated outside the EPA's Office of Policy, in a hallway nearby EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's office, Mashable reports. According to E&E News, a few other water fountains overflowed on the same floor, and the odor from the black sludge wafted into nearby offices. The whole thing might have caught some unsuspecting employees off guard, but according to one former agency official, the water fountains at EPA HQ "A sewer problem at EPA HQ has resulted in poop exploding out of water fountains," Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, told E&E.

The poopsplosion pictured apparently detonated outside the EPA's Office of Policy, in a hallway nearby EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's office, Mashable reports. According to E&E News, a few other water fountains overflowed on the same floor, and the odor from the black sludge wafted into nearby offices. The whole thing might have caught some unsuspecting employees off guard, but according to one former agency official, the water fountains at EPA HQ have always been a little suspect.

"Sometimes there were some very odd smells coming out of those drinking fountains," he told E&E. "I can't imagine that anyone would actually drink out of those drinking water fountains. I think I used it to pour my coffee down."

Maybe the sewage misfortune was just a stroke of bad luck, or maybe Mother Nature was trying to mess with Pruitt, a guy who killed Obama's Clean Power Plan, didn't bother to mention climate change in the agency's four-year plan, and relies on oil and gas reps to help him do his job. Things have apparently been so bad under Pruitt that the agency has lost more than 700 employees under his tenure—not to mention, the office clearly has some issues with its plumbing.