Investigations target DeKalb’s reporting of sewage spills, By Mark Niesse - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 5/6/16
Whenever a storm dumps heavy rain on
Joel Easley’s neighborhood, sewage overflows into his backyard. Waste water, feces and toilet
paper spout from a manhole,
cascading through a fence and then reaching a river, polluting public waters. “We
don’t let our kids in the backyard,” said Easley, who moved into the Oakhurst
neighborhood last summer. “It’s gross.”
The county and environmental agencies are
investigating the extent of the county’s
infractions, which breached the terms of a 2010 federal court agreement
that mandated upgrades to the county’s aging water and
sewer system, part of $1.35
billion in improvements being paid
for through customers’ water
bills.
DeKalb County acknowledged
underreporting sewage spills at Easley’s house and potentially many more
residences, violating federal and state environmental regulations.
At Easley’s house alone, the county
has responded to seven sewer spills in the last two years, according to records
obtained by The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution through
an open records request. Only three of those spills were noted in required
reports to environmental authorities.
The county could face fines from the
Georgia Environmental Protection Division and U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency at the conclusion of the investigation.
“The county has underreported
spills,” said Jac Capp, chief of the EPD Watershed Protection Branch. “If they
met the definition of a spill, they should have been reported as such.”
DeKalb’s government reported the
problems to environmental agencies, fired a watershed manager and hired a company
to conduct an investigation into the extent of the issue.
The county plans to discuss the
findings of the investigation with environmental regulators by the end of July,
said spokesman Burke Brennan. DeKalb’s government also changed its sewage spill
reporting practices to ensure future compliance with reporting rules.
Sewage spills have decreased since
2012, when the county reported 141 spills. Last year, the county listed 116
spills. Those numbers are now in question until the investigation is concluded.
But DeKalb needs to do better than
reporting spills — it needs to significantly reduce them, said Jackie Echols of
the South
River Watershed Alliance. “As it stands,
there is no limit on the number of spills that can occur as long as those
spills are reported,” Echols said. “This approach does not protect the public
and the environment.”
About a mile and a half from
Easley’s property, several residents also have had repeated difficulties with
sewage overflows. Raw sewage has repeatedly discharged tampons, toilet paper
and fecal matter onto sidewalks, roads and yards along Green Street in Decatur,
wrote environmental attorney Hutton Brown in a letter to regulators. DeKalb
reported only half of 12 sewage overflows in the area from January 2013 to
December 2015, according to his letter.
Brown said he focused on a community
where there were clear problems, and he suspects sewage spills are being
underreported throughout the county. “It certainly seems systemic,” said Brown,
an attorney for GreenLaw. “Our ultimate goal is for these overflows to stop
happening. The county has structural problems with its sewer system.” Untreated sewage in water can cause
a variety of gastrointestinal illnesses, he said.
The fired DeKalb manager, Charles
Lambert, said he was unfairly terminated, and county field crews accurately
reported all sewage spills as required. “If they did not actually see the
spill, they could not make a false statement that they did,” said Lambert, the
former assistant director for operations in the DeKalb Department of Watershed
Management. “They did record the information of each call, and if sewage was
present, they did clean up the area.” But that explanation isn’t adequate
for Easley, who said there was ample evidence of spills, such as debris, silt
and soaked lawns.
“It seems like there’s a lot of
incompetence involved or just hoping it would go away,” he said. “It’s really
just a matter of time with a few more rainstorms it will happen again.”
Related
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/investigations-target-dekalbs-reporting-of-sewage-/nrJNR/
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