Nonprofit sues Atlanta over sewage dumping in Chattahoochee River
Atlanta faces lawsuit over Chattahoochee sewage
The nonprofit Chattahoochee Riverkeeper has slapped the city of Atlanta with a federal lawsuit. It claims the city continues to dump a lot of sewage into the iconic waterway that hasn't been properly treated. It also alleges that for months – the city hasn’t done enough to address the problem.
ATLANTA - A lawsuit against the city of Atlanta over sewage dumped into the Chattahoochee River is moving forward.
On Friday, the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper - an environmental nonprofit working to preserve the health of the river - filed a lawsuit in federal court against the city for reported violations of the Clean Water Act.
The group has been warning the city since July of their plans to sue unless city officials fix the R.M. Clayton Water Reclamation Center, Atlanta's largest treatment facility.
According to the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, R.M. Clayton is permitted to release up to 100 million gallons of treated wastewater every day into the Chattahoochee River, but says that the facility has been "illegally discharging pollutants" for months.
"We’re talking 80,000,000 gallons per day going into the Chattahoochee River that is only partially treated," Jason Ulseth, the executive director of the group, told FOX 5's Rob DiRienzo in July.
The group says since March, they have detected high levels of E. coli and other hazardous bacteria.
"We discovered that all of the E. coli and pollutants were coming directly out of their treatment plant," Ulseth said on Tuesday.
"There were significant problems in each and every stage of treatment within RM Clayton," Ulseth added.
Ulseth first became aware of the issue in March but claimed the plant continued to dump dangerous water into the river. In July, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper filed a notice of intent to sue the city if the plant wasn't fixed within 60 days. However, that deadline has passed without sufficient action, according to the organization.
"Over the past five months, I’ve actually been surprised by the lack of communication that we’ve had from the city," Ulseth stated. "I was hoping it would be more open and more transparent."
In response, the mayor's office said it had offered Chattahoochee Riverkeeper tours of the plant and water samples, adding that improvements to the facility are ongoing. The city also pointed out that recent state and federal reports showed improvement in the quality of the plant’s treated water since March.
"We’ve certainly seen improved water coming out of the treatment plant," Ulseth acknowledged, "but it’s still not where the treatment plant needs to be."
The lawsuit, which accuses the city of violating the federal Clean Water Act, seeks a court mandate requiring the city to maintain safe bacteria levels in the river.
"The crux of this issue right now is to get it fixed, stop polluting the Chattahoochee River, and lay out the guidelines that are going to be used in the future to make sure this never happens again," said Ulseth.
While city attorneys have agreed to meet with Chattahoochee Riverkeeper representatives, the two sides have yet to schedule a time for that meeting.
"Daily testing conducted by CRK at the outfall found E. coli levels were on average 340 times higher than the amount recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for safe water recreation," the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper said in a statement.
After the group threatened the lawsuit, the Atlanta Department of Watershed Management responded saying that "Both the City of Atlanta and CRK are aligned and share the same goal of protecting the water quality of the Chattahoochee River. Thus, we believe our collective time and efforts are best spent working towards that goal, not pursuing expensive and protracted litigation."
However, the nonprofit says that the facility remains under disrepair "with problems at all stages of wastewater treatment and numerous safety hazards."
"The City of Atlanta knows that the R.M. Clayton facility is failing and poses a serious threat to the health of the Chattahoochee River and all the people and wildlife who depend on it," says Jason Ulseth, CRK’s Riverkeeper and executive director. "Yet the city has allowed operational and maintenance failures at the facility to compound over time, failing to follow through on even the most basic equipment repairs."
The lawsuit seeks to prohibit any additional violations and impose civil penalties.