Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - NACWA in the News
Sewage May Threaten Public Health After Heavy Rains
By Erin Kelly
Gannett News Service
Source: GNSD
Wednesday,November 16, 2005
Page: ARC
Dateline: WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON -- When you jump into your favorite lake, river or bay, the last
thing you want to hear is that you may be swimming in sewage.
But aging treatment plants can send barely treated sewage into waterways during
heavy rainstorms, exposing you to bacteria that can make you dangerously ill.
To better protect the public, two former adversaries -- environmentalists and
sewage plant operators -- recently came together with the encouragement of the
Environmental Protection Agency and devised a plan they believe will help solve
the problem.
The plan would still allow sewage treatment plants to divert wastewater around
secondary treatment facilities during rainstorms, but only when there is no
other feasible solution.
Many plants now do this routinely when storm water invades cracked sewer pipes.
The huge whoosh of wastewater is diverted around the secondary treatment pools,
where bacteria is removed, and sent into waterways.
Plant operators say the sewage will be diluted with rainwater and blended with
fully treated sewage and won't harm people. Health experts disagree.
Under the plan worked out by environmentalists and plant operators, plants must
identify what they can do in the future, such as building storage tanks that
hold wastewater during heavy rains and treat it once the storm has passed. Local
officials also would be required to notify the public whenever sewage is
released into waterways without undergoing full treatment.
EPA officials say they may adopt the gist of the proposal as guidance for what
local sewage plants should do to abide by the Clean Water Act.
"It's very promising," said Benjamin Grumbles, the EPA's assistant administrator
for water. "Their proposal is protective of public health and the environment
while still being practical and taking cost into consideration."
Sewage plant operators hope the plan will restore public confidence in the
safety of the water that comes out of wastewater treatment.
"Even though what the plants were doing was not resulting in any violations of
law, it was resulting in what I'd call a violation of public confidence," said
Alexandra Dunn, general counsel for the National Association of Clean Water
Agencies. "An engineer may say that sewage blending poses no real threat, but it
bothers the average person."
Each year, more than 7 million Americans are sickened by waterborne illnesses,
many caused by exposure to sewage, according to public health officials. The
estimate may be conservative because it's often hard to know how a patient
contracted a disease.
"When you come to me with a severe case of diarrhea, you aren't wearing a tag
that says, 'I was exposed to sewage,'" said Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths of Tufts
University School of Medicine in Boston.
Exposure can come from swimming, fishing, boating, water skiing or, in rarer
cases, from drinking water.
The threat of hepatitis A, respiratory infections and diarrhea caused by
exposure to sewage can be especially severe for children, the elderly and those
with weakened immune systems.
"A little boy I took care of several years ago with one of these diseases went
from 90 pounds down to 60 pounds and was in and out of the hospital for three
weeks," Griffiths said. "I've had AIDS patients die from these diseases."
Congress last spring defeated an EPA proposal that critics said would have made
it easier for plants to dump barely treated sewage into waterways. More than
98,000 Americans wrote to oppose the plan.
"It's obvious that people don't want untreated sewage going into their water,"
said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who helped lead the House effort. "Ultimately,
we should not allow any sewage blending whatsoever."
If it was up to Griffiths, none would be allowed now. But he said the compromise
offered by environmentalists and sewer plant operators is an important step
forward.
"Sewage is really bad for you," the doctor said. "The best solution is
prevention. We've got to get going now to keep this stuff out of our water."
But the solution comes with a hefty price tag.
The cost of repairing and modernizing the country's aging sewer systems would be
at least $181 billion, according to a 2000 survey of states by the EPA.
Realistically, the federal government's budget cannot meet all those needs, and
state and local governments will have to continue to pay most of the costs
themselves, Grumbles said.
That's getting tougher for many communities as they struggle to keep up with the
cost of fixing old pipes and plants and serving their growing populations, Dunn
said. More federal help is crucial, she said.
"We don't want to wait until people can't flush their toilets to really pay
attention to this problem," she said.
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Contact Erin Kelly at ekelly(AT)gns.gannett.com.
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On the Web:
www.epa.gov, Environmental
Protection Agency.
www.nrdc.org, Natural Resources Defense
Council.
www.nacwa.org, The National
Association of Clean Water Agencies.