Groups Charge Sewer Agency is Violating Federal Law
http://www.enn.com/aff.html?id=41
Conservationists Announce Lawsuit Against WSSC for Contaminating
the Anacostia River and Threatening Public Health, Groups Charge Sewer Agency is
Violating Federal Law
September 23, 2004 — By Natural Resources Defense Council, WASHINGTON, D.C.
(September 22, 2004) – The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) is
illegally allowing sewers to overflow into Maryland streams and rivers,
polluting the Anacostia River and its tributaries and endangering area
residents’ health, according to a lawsuit announced today by four conservation
groups. One of the 10 largest water utilities in the nation, WSSC serves 1.6
million people in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.
According to WSSC’s own reports to Maryland’s Department of the Environment,
from January 2001 through July of this year, WSSC’s sewer system experienced
445 overflows that dumped more than 91 million gallons of raw sewage into
streams and rivers in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. Discharges of
raw sewage are illegal under the Clean Water Act.
“There has been a lot of press coverage lately on bureaucratic dysfunction at
WSSC, but the bigger problem is that the agency is failing to do its job to
protect public health,” said Nancy Stoner, director of the Clean Water Project
at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), one of the plaintiffs in the
case. “It doesn’t even have a system in place to monitor pipe breaks or
sewer overflows, and has to rely on area residents to report them.” Given
WSSC’s inadequate monitoring system, Stoner said that there were likely many
more than 445 sewer overflows over the last three-and-a-half years. Those were
just the discharges WSSC reported.
WSSC’s system includes approximately 640 pipe stream crossings and hundreds of
miles of sewer pipes that run alongside Maryland rivers and streams. The sewer
pipes are more than 50 years old, and many are broken, decaying and exposed. The
Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS), one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, has
been documenting WSSC sewer system problems for several years, and estimates
that there are hundreds of miles of broken and separated pipeline that may be
leaking sewage into the water table in Maryland.
In addition, AWS has sampling data from several points along the Anacostia River
in Washington and Prince George’s County that suggests that sewage from
WSSC’s system is responsible for contaminating the Anacostia River. “We
found higher concentrations of fecal coliform in the northern part of the
Anacostia River by Bladensburg, Maryland, than downstream where the District of
Columbia discharges sewage from its combined sewer system,” said AWS President
Robert Boone. “We conducted DNA testing on the fecal coliform and found that
14 percent of it was due to human waste. If the WSSC sewer system were working
properly and in compliance with federal law, then there would be little or no
human fecal coliform in the water.”
Fecal coliform poses a significant threat to public health, said Bailus Walker,
a professor of environment and occupational medicine at Howard University.
“Area residents fish, swim, and paddle in Maryland rivers and streams, and
when those waterways are contaminated with human waste, they are at risk for
contracting such waterborne illnesses as gastroenteritis, which includes
vomiting and diarrhea, and hepatitis.” Boaters on the Anacostia River in
Maryland have contracted skin infections on their hands and bodies after coming
into contact with the water, Walker added. And when sewers back up, local
homeowners wind up with basements filled with sewage, which is a threat to their
health.
A popular creek in Silver Spring, Sligo Creek, is one of the many waterways in
the WSSC service area that are despoiled by sewage overflows. “Families and
their pets like to come down to Sligo Creek on the weekends, and we are
concerned about their health,” said Ann Hoffnar, co-president of Friends of
Sligo Creek, one of the plaintiffs. “WSSC has a $466 million annual budget, so
why can’t it keep our waterways free of sewage?”
The four conservation groups filing the suit – NRDC, AWS, the Audubon
Naturalist Society and Friends of Sligo Creek – are calling on WSSC to
overhaul its sewer collection and pipeline system and establish procedures to
monitor and prevent overflows.
“WSSC has to replace decaying pipes, rehabilitate others, and clean out and
maintain the system as a whole,” said Neal Fitzpatrick, executive director of
the Audubon Naturalist Society. “Without a comprehensive approach to this
problem, the number of sewage discharges will only increase as development
spreads in the Maryland suburbs.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, non-profit organization of
scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public
health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 1 million
e-activists and members, served from offices in New York, Washington, Santa
Monica and San Francisco. More information is available at NRDC’s Web site, http://www.nrdc.org/.
The Anacostia Watershed Society is a non-profit environmental organization
working to protect and restore the Anacostia River and its watershed. AWS seeks
to fulfill its mandate of a swimmable and fishable river through its programs of
education, action and advocacy. For more information, go to http://www.anacostiaws.org.
The Audubon Naturalist Society of the Central Atlantic States, Inc. fosters
stewardship of the Washington region's environment by educating citizens about
the natural world, promoting conservation of biodiversity, and protecting
natural habitat. Founded in 1897, the independent, non-profit Society focuses
its efforts in the mid-Atlantic region. For more information, go to http://www.audubonnaturalist.org/.
The Friends of Sligo Creek is a local, volunteer organization with 500 active
members. FSC is committed to restoring to health the water quality, natural
habitat and ecological well-being of the 8-mile creek and its watershed by
bringing neighbors together to build awareness, improve natural habitat and
protect the community’s heritage. For more information, go to http://www.fosc.org.
