Ohio Chapter

NEWS RELEASE

Ohio EPA Report Shows Sewage in Our Streams

On January 12, The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency released a report card on the health of Ohio waterways. One of the major pollutants of Ohio waterways is bacteria contamination from sewage. The report, covering about half of Ohio's watersheds, found that two-thirds of the watersheds sampled do not meet the state's fecal coliform criterion for primary contact in waters used for recreation. “Yet, the Bush administration proposal, which allows sewage treatment plants to discharge partially treated sewage, threatens public health,” says Sierra Club’s Jeff Cox.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a "draft guidance" that would allow sewage treatment plants to dump partially treated sewage in waterways. This new policy, which lifts the requirement that facilities fully treat sewage, would allow more viruses and parasites in the water Americans drink and swim in, according to the Sierra Club.

"USEPA had a clear choice, either continue to require treatment plants to clean up sewage, or allow them to dump it virtually untreated into our drinking water supplies," said Jeff Cox, Environmental Enforcement Chair of the Sierra Club Central Ohio Group. "It made the wrong choice. More Americans will get sick from waterborne illnesses because of this indefensible and illegal policy change."

The new guidance would significantly change what is called the "bypass" regulation, which now allows sewage treatment plants to forego, or bypass, treating sewage before discharging it into waterways only when there is no feasible alternative and it is necessary to prevent personal injury or property damage, such as during a flood. The new guidance would allow sewage bypasses even when feasible alternatives exist, such as adding more capacity to handle sewage or storing it until it can be fully treated. “The guidance proposal,” says Katie Danko, Sierra Club Ohio Chapter Conservation Organizer, “would violate the Clean Water Act.”

Traditional secondary sewage treatment, which has been the industry standard since the early 20th century, involves a three-step process: solids removal, biological treatment and disinfection. The proposed policy would allow facilities to bypass the second step and "blend" partially treated sewage with fully treated wastewater before discharging it into waterways.

But it is the second step of the process, the biological treatment unit, which removes most of the pathogenic organisms and other pollutants from wastewater. Biological treatment is effective because it uses microbial digestion to render pathogens and other pollutants harmless. Neither solids removal nor disinfection effectively removes viruses or parasites, such as cryptopiridium and giardia, and it has limited effectiveness in removing bacteria. In addition, the higher levels of chlorine needed to kill bacteria without biological treatment create cancer-causing disinfection byproducts that have been linked to miscarriages, birth defects and other reproductive problems.

"The Bush administration's proposed policy change is backsliding," said Cox. "It should require treatment plants to upgrade their aging sewer systems and help them out with more federal funding. Instead, it cut funding and now is proposing to allow facilities to discharge viruses and bacteria into our water."

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