DC Water CEO said there were too many white men in leadership roles ahead of Potomac sewage spill

A recently resurfaced clip of DC Water’s CEO and General Manager has shown the agency head saying that the majority of higher-ups at the utility company that serves Washington, DC, were white men, despite the majority of workers being people of color. This comes as the Potomac River has been hit with a sewage spill, resulting in over 200 million gallons of wastewater leaking into the river.

Gadis said that when he joined DC Water in 2018, "this was an organization that looked very similar to our industry. It was predominantly, you know, white male at the top, but this was a utility that’s, you know, more than 70 percent people of color work at this utility. And I really believe, and I still believe, and it has been fantastic. The outcomes have been fantastic."

"But the people at the top, the executives, the chiefs in that C suite, they should look like the employees that they serve and that they work with, and the same thing with the community. And so my executive team, you know, looks exactly like the community. It looks like it, looks like the employees, the staff, you know, be it people of color, women, men, and it is, it’s just a fantastic team that has come together to do a lot of great things here at DC Water and in the community for the customers." 

The clip came from a February 2022 Good Day AWWA! video from the American Water Works Association, in which Gadis spoke with AWWA CEO David Lafrance, who said Gadis’ leadership strategy "is really focused on diversity and inclusion and how a diverse and inclusive workforce can really help change a utility and a customer’s relationships, and he really focuses on the top of the organization."

Later in the interview, Gadis said he was "intentional" about hiring higher-ups at the utility company, saying "I was intentional about what it should look like, who should be where, and so forth and so on, and as a result of that, I think that we’ve been able to put together a great team and do some fantstic things here at DC Water."

He said his executive team at the time included "three women of color" and five men, "three are of color," and "two males that are Caucasian."

The resurfaced clip comes as DC Water has been working to fix a break in the Potomac Interceptor, which takes wastewater from towns up the Potomac River down to Washington, DC, for processing. The break, which was discovered in mid-January, resulted in hundreds of millions of gallons of sewage being spilt into the river. DC Water expects repairs to the line to take between four and six weeks, with a "longer-term rehabilitation phase" being expected to take upwards of ten months. This comes as authorities in Virginia, Maryland, and DC have issued warnings against coming into contact with the river over E. coli concerns.