Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
Stopping overflows
SEWAGE SPILLS CONTINUE DESPITE MILLIONS IN SPENDING
Officials say plans are in place to improve the systems. The EPA says more money and cooperation are needed.
BY DAVE SCHLECK
247-7430
Published November 28, 2004
Despite millions of taxpayer dollars spent on improving the public sewer system,
nearly 16 million gallons of untreated sewage spilled in Hampton and Newport
News in the past two years, according to records collected by the Virginia
Department of Environmental Quality.
That's enough untreated sewage to fill about 20 Olympic-size swimming pools.
Local governments and military bases blame Hurricane Isabel for most of the
overflows and say they have a plan in place to improve their sewage systems.
Some, like Hampton, Norfolk and Fort Eustis, have signed legal agreements with
state regulators, promising to improve pump stations and leaky lines.
But that didn't stop overflows in Hampton from breaking the million-gallon
threshold in 2003 and 2004, the highest amounts in at least a decade.
Although public works officials discount a connection between these spills and
the high bacteria levels that closed several area beaches the past two summers,
the Environmental Protection Agency recently released a report saying more money
and government cooperation is needed to combat sewage spills.
Bacteria from sewage spills cause up to 5,500 cases of gastrointestinal illness
a year in the United States, affecting people who swim in and accidentally
swallow contaminated water, according to the EPA. Health officials say no local
illnesses have been directly connected to the beach bacteria, although a
Huntington Beach lifeguard suffered an eye infection from an unknown cause after
responding to a water rescue this summer.
Last year, 75,000 sewage overflows discharged 10 billion gallons of untreated
water into the country's neighborhoods and rivers. Yet the public is largely
unwilling to pay the $88.8 billion the EPA estimates it would cost to solve the
problem, said Charles Hagedorn, a researcher at Virginia Tech who has studied
the Peninsula's beach water.
"It is difficult to obtain voter approval on bond issues to spend money for such
things as sewer upgrades, building storm-water capacity, etc.," he said. "The
public too often does not make the connection, or seems to feel that they can
have it both ways without paying for it."
Federal funding for sewage upgrades isn't as plentiful as it used to be,
according to John Thibodeau, spokesman for the Association of Metropolitan
Sewerage Agencies. In the 1980s, the federal government replaced a sewage grant
program with a system of loans.
"We really feel that the federal government needs to get in here and provide
grant funding," Thibodeau said. Most local governments are doing everything they
can, he said.
The burden of fixing the system is shared by local governments, which own
smaller sewage pipes and some pump stations, and a regional body called the
Hampton Roads Sanitation District, which operates larger sewage pipes, pump
stations and treatment plants.
Hampton signed an agreement with the DEQ and the sanitation district in 2002,
promising to inspect sewer lines and come up with a plan to patch leaks and bad
connections that allow rainwater and groundwater to leak into the sewage system
and overload it. The spillover often comes out of manholes and flows into
ditches that carry the diluted household waste into rivers.
Despite the agreement, nearly 2.1 million gallons of sewage overflowed in
Hampton in 2003 and about 1 million so far this year - the biggest annual totals
in 10 years.
Hurricane Isabel, and its accompanying power outages at pump stations, accounted
for about 1.7 million gallons of Hampton's overflows in 2003.
Maria Nold, DEQ regional enforcement manager, said it is too early to expect
Hampton's efforts to produce a reduction in sewage overflows. Hampton is
basically in the study phase, figuring out where the problems are that need to
be fixed.
"Until they have that done, they don't know where their problems are and how to
implement upgrades," Nold said.
Unlike other localities, Hampton is not using a state-run revolving loan fund to
help pay for sewer upgrades. Again, it's too early to pursue funding for sewer
upgrades, said Jason Mitchell, the city's public works operations manager.
"It's a little hard to ask for the money if you don't know where the problems
are," he said.
Hampton's agreement with the DEQ focuses on the Claremont Avenue area near the
neighborhood of Wythe. The city spends about $700,000 a year inspecting lines
and about $1.4 million repairing and maintaining the sewage system.
"I'm sure over the next 15 to 20 years we'll have another consent order and
start fixing other problems," Mitchell said.
It's unrealistic to expect a locality to have no overflows, Nold said. What is
important, she said, is measuring the problem, targeting priorities for upgrades
and fixing the problem based on what is affordable.
Overflows in southeastern Virginia aren't significant compared with the 3
billion to 10 billion gallons of annual overflows nationwide, said Chris
Hornback, regulatory director for the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage
Agencies.
"The Hampton Roads Sanitation District is probably a jewel in comparison to the
nation's sewage agencies," Hornback said. "They are a leader in maintaining and
operating their system."
Virginia's revolving loan fund helps pay for about $80 million in sewer upgrades
every year, said Bob Aaron, DEQ regional project engineer. But since sewer pipes
continue to age while others are replaced, it's hard for the funding to catch up
with the need.
"We may never make up the lost ground," Aaron said. "You might say the agency
was not aggressive enough 20 years ago."
But 20 years ago, the state focused on another important issue: upgrading sewage
treatment plants, Aaron said.
The number of sewage upgrades cities can perform is also limited by the size of
their engineering staffs.
Newport News officials say the city has a strong reputation for investing in its
sewer infrastructure - spending an average of $3.2 million in revolving loan
funds every year. If the city borrowed more money from the state, it probably
wouldn't be able to handle all the design work for the extra construction
projects, said Reed Fowler, Newport News' director of public works.
Despite the millions of dollars spent, 12.5 million gallons of sewage overflowed
in Newport News in 2003 and 259,635 gallons so far in 2004. Fowler stressed that
the trend over the past 10 years is mostly downward, and that Hurricane Isabel
made 2003 exceptional.
"Just about every pump station we had in the city was overloaded because there
was no power," he said. High tides put some pump stations in the East End
underwater. The city is working to rebuild those stations on higher ground.
Nold said the DEQ looks monthly at the largest sewage flows in Hampton Roads to
spot trends and areas that may need upgrades. But looking at the total amount of
sewage flows in a single locality isn't as helpful.
"It really doesn't give an accurate picture of how sanitary overflows are being
managed," she said. A city such as Hampton may be working hard to identify
problems but just hasn't reached the upgrade stage yet. Also, sewage lines
within one locality can be owned by several entities - the city, the sanitation
district or the military.
During a recent 11-month period that did not include Hurricane Isabel, sewage
spills at Langley Air Force Base accounted for 28 percent of Hampton's
overflows. Sewage overflows at the base increased from 11 last year to 19 this
year.
Military officials say they recently became more stringent about reporting
spills and are about to spend millions of dollars upgrading the base's World War
II-era sewage system. The system includes about 25 miles of pipe that is 40 to
75 years old, outliving its design life. A three-phase, $11 million construction
project began in August to repair and replace pipes and pump stations.
Fort Eustis has signed an agreement with the DEQ to evaluate its sewage system,
identify areas that need fixing and propose methods for preventing storm water
from leaking into the system. The agreement was triggered by a 100,000-gallon
sewage spill at the base in 2002.
During the same recent 11-month period, 260,000 gallons of overflows at a single
pump station in Newport News accounted for 90 percent of the city's overflow
total. Newport News Mayor Joe Frank points out that the sanitation district, not
the city, operates the pump station.
"While I'm sure they understand the problem, I don't understand why they don't
take the steps to correct that," Frank said. "It's their responsibility to
improve their facility to accommodate the input."
District officials say they are working on the problem with the city's Public
Works Department. But exacerbating the problem are rainfall and groundwater
leaking into pipes that flow into the pump station, said Ross Schlobohm, the
sanitation district's director of interceptor systems.
"There's so much rain in our system," Schlobohm said. "But there's not supposed
to be any rain in our system."
Newport News has spent about $2.3 million since 1990 to restore sewage lines in
the Hilton Village area. But so far, it hasn't prevented a vicious cycle of
flooding and sewage overflows near the Center Avenue pump station during heavy
rains.
City-owned sewage pipes in the Hilton area date back 50 years. Newport News is
investing $568,000 to replace old pipes several blocks away on Brandon Road,
which should help prevent overflows like the ones that plague the Center Avenue
pump station. The city has budgeted $650,000 to restore or replace sewer lines
in Hilton next year.
Confusion over who is to blame for sewage overflows is not unique to Newport
News.
Public works officials say people who pour cooking fat down the drain contribute
to the problem by causing grease clogs that back up the system. Construction
contractors sometimes pierce sewage lines while drilling for other utility
lines, causing leaks.
In Hampton, Public Works Director Ted Henifin said some overflows are connected
to heavy rainstorms that the sanitation district's system can't handle. At the
Claremont Avenue pump station, the district replaced a 42-inch-wide line with a
24-inch line, making the overflows worse.
"I don't want to paint this as a finger-pointing game," Henifin said, "because
we're both trying to solve the problem."
Schlobohm said the sanitation district made the line smaller after diverting
much of the sewage into a new main pipe under Victory Boulevard. But Schlobohm
said the district did not take into account that the city's collector lines
would have "excessive" flow in heavy rains.
"We used some reasonable judgment at the time," he said. "And sometimes with
good judgment you leave out something."
There is a point where overflows get so bad that the EPA gets involved.
This month, the EPA sued the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission for letting
millions of gallons of overflows get into Maryland waterways, posing "an
imminent and substantial risk to human health," according to The Washington
Post.
The Pittsburgh area's public works system was designed to dump excess sewage
into three rivers during heavy rain. The annual overflows are estimated to be in
the billions of gallons. The EPA is overseeing a $3.5 billion upgrade to the
sewage system.
Closer to home, Richmond has a combined sewer and storm-water system, designed
more than a century ago to dump millions of gallons of excess flow into the
James River every year. Richmond has spent $230 million to re-engineer the
system so far, including $14.1 million in federal money, said Gerry Seeley,
director of the DEQ's Piedmont Regional Office.
It's not clear how much of a health risk local sewage overflows pose.
Spills are reported to the state Health Department, which may issue a public
warning.
Reported overflows did not trigger the beach closures on the Peninsula this
year. Routine weekly testing of beach water found unsafe levels of bacteria from
sources that were unknown at the time. The problem was temporary at Buckroe
Beach in Hampton but persisted at several beaches in Newport News. Public works
officials say they've pinpointed areas in the sewage system that may have leaked
and are fixing the problems.
When it comes to the much larger issue of sewage overflows in the region, it's
important to remember that most of the flow is actually storm water that
infiltrated the sewage system and combined with human sewage, said Andrew
Thuman, an engineer with Hydroqual. Thuman's company used computer modeling to
conclude that a 2-million-gallon spill at the James River Treatment Plant in
2003 did not reach swimming beaches downstream.
"I wouldn't call it sewage. I'd call it diluted sewage," Thuman said. "That
minimizes the effects."