Issues: Water
Defend Our Water From Partially Treated Sewage
posted Jan. 23, 2004
The Bush EPA has released a proposal that, if finalized, would relax restrictions on dumping partially treated sewage into waterways during wet weather.
This practice (illegal under the Clean Water Act) known as "blending" allows mixing largely untreated sewage with fully treated wastewater prior to discharge.
Background
Sewer authorities have convinced the Bush administration that the answer to insufficient maintenance of aging sewer systems and capacity problems at some treatment plants during heavy rain is to relax current treatment requirements under the Clean Water Act. They want to avoid the cost of upgrading treatment facilities.
Clean Water Action opposes this guidance because:
- Blending is bad for public health
Blended sewage has significantly higher levels of pollution than sewage that has undergone full secondary treatment. This distinction is critical, because public health studies have documented that more than half of U.S. waterborne disease outbreaks in the past fifty years were preceded by heavy rainfall. The Centers for Disease Control estimates 7.1 million annual cases of mild to moderate and 560,000 cases of moderate to severe infectious waterborne diseases.
- Blending is bad for the environment
Allowing polluters to dump inadequately treated sewage into our waters will have long-term environmental consequences. Sewage in our waterways closes beaches, kills fish, shuts down shellfish beds, and causes gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses. In 2000 alone, sewage contamination caused or contributed to over 2,000 beach closings and advisories.
- Blended sewage does not meet current law
The Clean Water Act requires all wastewater to meet secondary treatment standards prior to discharge. EPA has found several sewer operators to be in violation of the Clean Water Act for using this illegal practice.
