Chattahoochee River in Columbus named to water coalition ‘Dirty Dozen’ list for raw sewage
When a heavy rain falls in Columbus, raw sewage spills into the Chattahoochee River at multiple points that include the city’s whitewater course.
That’s why Columbus’ section of the river was included Tuesday in the Georgia Water Coalition’s annual list of the state’s “Dirty Dozen” waterways in need of cleanup.
The nonprofit coalition that includes 260 groups advocating for improved water quality announced its 2020 list during a morning teleconference, and posted its report online at www.gawater.org.
“Whenever it rains hard in Columbus — a little more than a half inch — rainwater flowing into the city’s sanitary sewers causes the sewer lines to overflow and discharge into the Chattahoochee at 12 locations, ten of which release untreated wastewater to the river — many in the very stretch of river that hosts some 30,000 paddlers each year,” read the coalition’s report.
“In the first 10 months of this year, rainwater has overwhelmed the system at least 36 times.”
The Columbus Water Works, which operates the city sewer system, maintains that is incorrect.
“The information in that article is inaccurate,” water works spokesman Vic Burchfield said of the “Dirty Dozen” report, the 10th the coalition has compiled.
Burchfield said the rate of rainfall that would cause a sewage spill along the river downtown is .63 of an inch per hour, which on average occurs around four times a year.
“I can tell you that hasn’t happened 36 times this year,” he said.
The spills come from a “combined sewer overflow,” commonly called a CSO, in a drainage system designed under normal conditions to route raw sewage to a treatment facility, where the water can be cleaned before it is discharged into the Chattahoochee.
That system also is engineered to relieve pressure during floods, so a deluge that overwhelms the network pushes the raw sewage past the treatment diversion and empties it into the river.
The permit
Georgia so far has allowed Columbus to continue this under a 1995 permitting standard that the state enforcement agency, the Environmental Protection Division, now is updating. EPD wants the water works to monitor and limit the level of fecal bacteria coming from the outflows.
The Georgia Water Coalition says the water works currently has no limit on the amount of fecal bacteria it’s allowed to discharge, and the utility only has to monitor the pollutant five miles downstream from the whitewater course — “a distance that does not give a clear understanding of how the sewage releases are impacting the river’s health where people are recreating.”
Burchfield said the water works for 25 years has operated under what’s called a “demonstration permit” for maintaining water quality. That means the water works has to demonstrate that it’s in compliance with fecal bacteria standards by testing the water out in the river, not the water coming from the stormwater pipes.
It currently has a water-quality monitor near Upatoi Creek, but it also tests along the whitewater course three times a week, Burchfield said. The water works has offered to install more monitors in the river, to show it’s complying with the EPD’s standards, he said.
The sewer outflows include two major “outfalls” where the utility has built treatment stations upriver from Columbus’ main sewer treatment facility off South Lumpkin Road, just north of Upatoi Creek. One of the stations is called “Uptown Park,” off Second Avenue at 18th Street, and the other is off Lumpkin Boulevard by the South Commons softball fields.
Those “outfalls” treat stormwater during heavy rains, using chlorination, which people passing by the drain pipes sometimes can smell. The EPD wants the water works to dechlorinate the water coming from those outflows before it enters the river.
No such treatment occurs at the minor outflows, one of which is behind the rock island at the old Eagle & Phenix Mill powerhouse at 12th Street, right by the whitewater course’s signature rapid, where enthusiasts come to compete.
Burchfield said the amount of rain it takes to cause sewer overflows from the minor drain pipes so dilutes any bacteria that it presents no public health risk, and the bacteria from “background” storm runoff — from pet waste, bird droppings and other pollutants that wash off the ground into the river — is worse than what comes from the sewer system.
The Environmental Protection Division is governed by Georgia’s Board of Natural Resources. Columbus’ CSO issue last came before the DNR board in August, when the water works sought to alter how the regulations are enforced. The board voted unanimously to reject the water works’ proposal, and the EPD last week issued the utility a new permit for its sewer discharges.
Burchfield said the water works still is reviewing that permit, and believes the standards in it still are negotiable.
That the water works continues to fight further restrictions has riled environmental activists such as Jason Ulseth of the Atlanta-based Chattahoochee Riverkeeper organization. Ulseth, who was among those participating in the water coalition teleconference Tuesday, said the utility is the only permit-holder on the Chattahoochee River with no limits on its discharges.
“The state has been trying to put these permit limits on the city since 2004, and they’ve been fighting it the whole way,” he said.
Burchfield said the water works does not believe the cost of changing the system will significantly improve water quality.
The $100 million the water works has invested in its CSO projects has led to an “800-fold” improvement in removing pollutants from the river, and to the construction of the Chattahoochee RiverWalk, which has spawned other revitalization along the waterway, he said.
“The whole RiverWalk is there because of the CSO facilities,” he said. “It was the key change in the whole focus on the river.”