Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - NACWA in the News
Sewage, Rainwater Target of Treatment Proposal
National plan uses dilution to protect from bacteria.
By Erin Kelley
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
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 wastewater is diverted around the secondary treatment pools, where bacteria
normally would be 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, 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.
Springfield's Assistant Public Works Director Bob Schaefer said Friday he's
under the impression such a plan would largely involve older cities with
"combined" sewage collection systems that carry both sewage and storm water.
Springfield Public Works has been working to lessen the impact of infiltration
and inflow for several years, he said.
"We certainly agree that's a goal we need to get to, that we need to have as
tight a wastewater collection system as we can to exclude all groundwater and
storm water," he said.
The threat might be lessened because large amounts of storm water hit
Springfield sewage treatment plants when streams are flooding and not used for
recreation, but that's no reason to reject concerns, and that is why Springfield
is working with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to eliminate storm
water infiltration, Schaefer said.
In January, a record rainfall overwhelmed the Southwest Wastewater Treatment
Plant, flushing partially treated sewage into Wilson's Creek. The city sent the
overflow through a device called a peak flow clarifier, which adds chemicals to
make solids sink before releasing the liquid.
In some parts of the city, the flooded sewer lines popped covers off manholes,
flooding streets, and sewage was reported to have infiltrated some residential
basements.
The work needs to be done to protect the public, to make the city's sewage
treatment plants more efficient, and to keep area lakes and rivers clean,
Schaefer said.
That work includes checking thousands of feet of sewage collection lines each
year for breaks and developing a storm water control plan. It's a job that could
take years, Schaefer said.
Springfield will work with DNR for another four years before the initial effort
is finished, but Schaefer said he anticipates dealing with the flow of storm
water into sewer lines will be a continuous job.
Sewage plant operators hope the national 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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
News-Leader report Mike Penprase contributed to this story. Contact Erin Kelly
at ekelly@gns.gannett.com.