Cities swamped by dated, overflowing sewer systems
Updates, enforcement of Clean Water Act would be expensive

By Tom Vanden Brook / USA TODAY

Overflows by the numbers        The Environmental Protection Agency says the number of sanitary sewer overflows each year nationwide is unknown. In some areas, overflows might not be reported or are underreported to the EPA and state environmental agencies. Even so, there are some estimates:    * The EPA says there are at least 40,000 sanitary sewer overflows each year. That figure does not include sewer backups in basements.    * An EPA survey last year of 2,445 beaches in the United States found that 672 -- or 27 percent -- issued advisories or closed at least once because of bad water quality. Elevated bacteria levels were responsible for 87 percent of the closings or advisories. More than half of the incidents had an unknown cause. Survey respondents said sanitary sewer overflows were to blame in 2 percent of the cases. Other sewer and septic problems accounted for 11 percent of the cases.    * A survey of 79 members of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies in 1994, the latest data available, showed that 65 percent of the respondents reported overflows during wet weather. They reported that as much as 35 percent of their sewers were filled above capacity and/or overflowed during wet weather.    * The EPA estimates it would cost as much as $10 billion per year to add capacity, repair and renovate. The agency said the nation's sewer infrastructure is worth $2 trillion.    * The environmental group Sierra Club estimates it costs homeowners $600 million each year to clean basements fouled by backed-up sewers.

   CINCINNATI -- SSO 700 is an unremarkable spot. Just a pipe, hidden by trees and brush, that empties into Mill Creek near downtown Cincinnati.
   "It just gushes, even in dry weather," said Mike Fremont, president of the Ohio environmental group Rivers Unlimited. "If you know what it is, you keep your distance."
   What it is, is human waste -- hundreds of gallons at a time flowing untreated from toilets into the creek. Sanitary Sewer Overflow 700 is not only disgusting, it is illegal. But the city won't shut it off because plugging SSO 700 and more than 100 pipes like it all over Cincinnati would require raising sewer rates about 1,500 percent.
   "It would bankrupt us," said Patrick Karney, director of the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati. "It would be, last one out, turn out the lights. Cincinnati would just be another wide spot on I-75."
   Dozens of cities like Cincinnati -- some with sewer pipes laid in the 1800s -- are dumping raw human waste into streams and lakes. The practice is prohibited under the 1972 Clean Water Act, however, it continues an estimated 40,000 times every year because cities balk at the enormous expense of modernizing and expanding their sewage systems.
   But if taking care of the problem is costly, so, too, is doing nothing, environmental activists say. Raw sewage in the water is a primary factor in the sickening of 1 million people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It poisons shellfish, closes beaches and endangers supplies of drinking water.
   "Raw sewage is a health concern," said Mike Cook, director of wastewater management for the Environmental Protection Agency. "Beach contamination is a concern. Human exposure to harmful microorganisms is a concern."
   After decades of threats and fines, federal authorities are cracking down:
   * In Baltimore, city officials agreed to pay a $600,000 fine and spend $940 million over 14 years to upgrade its sewer system. Since 1996, Baltimore dumped at least 100 million gallons of untreated waste into its waters. Some of the sewage spewed into tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay, one of the nation's top sources of shellfish.
   * In Baton Rouge, La., officials plan to spend as much as $461 million to improve their sewer system to avoid dumping 1.2 billion gallons of untreated waste each year into the Mississippi River.
   * In Greenwich, Conn., a million gallons of inadequately treated sewage has been dumped into local waters, according to the EPA. Local officials agreed in January to pay a $285,000 fine and upgrade the sewage treatment system.
   The Justice Department and the EPA have taken other cities to court over sewer problems, including Atlanta; Birmingham, Ala.; Honolulu; Los Angeles and Miami. Regulators expect to have completed this fall a set of proposed regulations requiring all sewage treatment facilities in the country to improve their systems and notify the community where overflows occur.
   But the proposal would still need to be scrutinized by the White House Office of Management and Budget.
   Environmentalists say the government has already taken too long to fix the problem.
   "We urge you to put the interests of the American public first and to move forward with rules that will at least warn our citizens before they take a dip in fecal-contaminated waters," reads a recent letter from 11 environmental groups to the EPA.
   The groups called on the EPA to adopt rules proposed by a federal advisory committee in 1999 that would require the agency to monitor sewer overflows and report them to public health officials.
   But not everyone thinks new rules are the answer. Ken Kirk, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, said the Clean Water Act fails to consider the limits of engineering.
   "There is no way to design sanitary sewers to accommodate a zero-tolerance policy -- period," Kirk said.
   In some cities, including Baltimore and Baton Rouge, pipes may be 100 years old or older. They break and crack, releasing waste, or they become clogged by tree roots. Often the pipes are too small to handle cities' population growth.
   Sanitary sewer overflows typically occur when rainwater seeps into broken sewer pipes and fills them past capacity. Treatment plants can't handle the rush of water and sewage, so overflow valves like SSO 700 in Cincinnati open up and let the disease-carrying waste spill out.