Sludge Watch ==> Milwaukee dumped untreated and 'blended' sewage - more details

[A.P.Lino Grima]

We have the same phenomenon [storage tunnels for combined sewage] in Toronto 
too and the current plan is to build more.  These tunnels will also increase 
the amount of sludge that has to be dealt with.
Lino Grima 
Centre for Environment/UofT
http://myprofile.cos.com/grima



Quoting maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca:

> Sludgewatch Admin:
> 
> Milwaukee seems to be deep in the doo doo these days.  The study on sewage 
> releases and children's health should be available for posting in a few 
> weeks.  And here is more background
> on problems with discharge of untreated and partially treated sewage into 
> Lake Michigan.
> 
> In addition, the City decided not to line the deep tunnels that take in 
> sewage and overflow and hold them for later treatment.  I hear that there is
> 
> now fecal contamination of deep wells below the City.
> 
> .............................................................................
..........
> 
> 
> May 3, 2006
> 
> Sewage issues warrant further study
> 
> 
> Lynn Broaddus, PhD, MBA, Executive Director of Friends of Milwaukee's
> Rivers
> 
> 
> 
> Sewage blending - doesn't sound very appetizing, does it? The practice of 
> 'blending' partially treated sewage with fully treated sewage is a 
> permissible, if controversial, practice under certain, limited situations.
> 
> 
> The idea is that when its pouring rain and the sewage treatment plant is at
> 
> full capacity, it's better to take a shortcut than to dump completely 
> untreated sewage. But because of the rapid chlorination and the fact that 
> the sewage misses the biological treatment, there is a higher level of 
> viruses and bacteria entering the water.
> 
> This week we read about a preliminary study released by the Medical College
> 
> of Wisconsin which found that the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin's 
> Emergency Room saw an increased number of patients for diarrhea and related
> 
> problems during two large 'blending' events in 2003 and 2004. (Full story) 
> 
> You may have read that the lead investigator is my husband, Dr. Marc 
> Gorelick. What's that about?, you may ask.
> 
> Marc, who has been very candid about his relationship with Friends of 
> Milwaukee's Rivers, has a long-standing research interest in the public 
> health aspects of emergency room visits, including diarrhea and
> dehydration.
> The solid research reputation that he has helped build for the pediatric 
> emergency program was cited as one of the reasons the emergency room of 
> Children's Hospital of Wisconsin was ranked as the #1 program in the country
> 
> by Child, Inc. magazine.
> 
> It was entirely Marc's idea (not mine) to study the correlation between 
> sewage blending and emergency room visits. Last year he asked me how to get
> 
> the data on sewage blending. It's publicly available information, but it 
> helps to know where to look. Cheryl Nenn, our Riverkeeper, helped Marc and 
> coauthor Dr. Ryan Redman obtain the data and understand the sewage treatment
> 
> process. Knowing that the results would be subject to extreme scrutiny, he 
> brought medical statistician Daniel Eastwood onto the team to review their 
> analysis.
> 
> As the newspaper headline states, his work raises a 'red flag'. It's not the
> 
> final word, but it raises enough questions about this controversial practice
> 
> that it certainly merits further investigation.
> 
> Which brings us to perhaps the most important revelation that has come from
> this: how are we supposed to know when sewage spills occur? Today's paper 
> carried a report about three 'blending' events from 2004 that turned out to
> 
> be events that skipped the primary sewage treatment as well as the secondary
> 
> sewage treatment. (Full story)  As you can see from MMSD's own website, this
> 
> does not meet the definition of 'blending'.
> 
> The timing of these two stories is not unrelated. During the background work
> 
> that Riverkeeper Cheryl Nenn did for the study, she noticed that the list of
> 
> blending events were coded differently. As it turns out, these codes led us
> 
> to the realization that MMSD was including on its report of 'blending' three
> 
> events that skipped even primary treatment. This would seem to be a clear 
> violation of the spirit of the water quality permit, even if it somehow fell
> 
> through a loophole.
> 
> Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers, along with our partners at NRDC, Sierra Club,
> 
> and Midwest Environmental Advocates, met with the Wisconsin DNR last week to
> 
> get answers about this and a number of other issues regarding Wisconsin's 
> sewage blending policies. We will continue to press for accountability and 
> transparency on all issues that stand between the citizens and clean water.
> If you have suggestions or additional information to share with us, please 
> contact us. The more we know, the more we can help.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> May 3, 2006
> 
> Dumping slips by officials
> 
> Members of the commission that governs the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage 
> District say they were unaware that virtually raw sewage was dumped into 
> Lake Michigan at least three times in 2004.
> 
> Journal Sentinel article
> 
> Dumping slips by officials
> Nearly raw sewage dumped 3 times in '04
> By MARIE ROHDE
> mrohde at journalsentinel.com
> Posted: May 2, 2006
> Members of the commission that governs the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage 
> District say they were unaware that virtually raw sewage was dumped into 
> Lake Michigan at least three times in 2004.
> 
> 
> MMSD Dumping
> Recent Coverage
> 4/26/06: Accidental dumping of sewage still a mystery
> 3/31/06: Dumps violated MMSD permit, DNR says
> 3/30/06: Partially treated sewage flows into lake in testing mishap
> 
> Archive Coverage
> Archive: Previous coverage of MMSD and local sewer issues.
> 
> Preston Cole, a commissioner who heads the commission's Operations and 
> Maintenance Committee, said Tuesday that he is demanding an explanation of 
> whether he and others were misled when they were told that the dumping of 
> about 12 million gallons of sewage was "blending," a term commonly used to 
> describe a process allowed under rare circumstances of partially treating 
> sewage at treatment plants.
> 
> "Am I concerned about this?" asked Cole, superintendent of environmental 
> services for the City of Milwaukee. "You bet I am. I doubt that anyone on 
> the commission believed that the effluent received less than partial 
> treatment."
> 
> Cole said he would demand that officials from MMSD and United Water Service,
> 
> the private firm that operates the sewer system, come before his committee 
> Monday and explain what happened.
> 
> Kevin Shafer, the sewerage district's executive director, said Tuesday the 
> district reported the incident as quickly as possible.
> 
> "It never was our intent to hide anything," Shafer said. "In hindsight, 
> maybe we could have done it better."
> 
> Described as 'blending'
> As recently as last week, district officials described the incidents as 
> "blending" and made no distinction between those events and others where the
> 
> sewage was partially treated.
> 
> The dumping in question occurred in 2004 on March 28, June 19 and June 21 
> during relatively dry weather.
> 
> During emergency situations - such as heavy rain - the district is allowed 
> to dump up to 60 million gallons a day of sewage that skips a portion of the
> 
> treatment process to avoid releasing sewage that has no treatment or to 
> avoid the damage that sewage backing up in homes or overwhelming the 
> treatment system would cause. The process is commonly known as blending.
> 
> "It was definitely not blending," said Charles Burney, a top state 
> Department of Natural Resources official who oversees the district. "It 
> didn't meet any of the conditions in their permit."
> 
> But Burney struggled to describe exactly what happened because a "glitch" in
> 
> the district's 66-page permit never anticipated such an event.
> 
> Thus, the DNR was not able to cite the district for the dumping, he said. 
> Instead, the DNR issued a letter in December 2004 reprimanding the district
> 
> for not testing the untreated effluent in a timely manner for chlorine, E. 
> coli and its pH level before mixing it with fully treated waste, then 
> chlorinating it before releasing it into Lake Michigan.
> 
> The state Department of Justice brought a lawsuit against MMSD regarding the
> 
> dumping of untreated sewage during heavy storms in May 2004, but the 
> "blending" events were not included in the lawsuit.
> 
> Both MMSD and officials from United Water maintain that the mere mixing of 
> the undiluted waste with the treated effluent constituted blending.
> 
> "What happened was disclosed," said John Cheslik, the United Water project 
> manager in Milwaukee. "It was all in a document that was sent to the DNR."
> 
> Four members of MMSD's governing commission - Cole, West Allis Mayor 
> Jeannette Bell, Rep. David Cullen (D-Milwaukee) and Rep. Pedro Colón 
> (D-Milwaukee) - apparently never got the document. They said they understood
> 
> that all of the so-called blending events skipped only one step in the 
> treatment process.
> 
> "If all it got was chlorination, it should have been reported as an 
> overflow," Cullen said.
> 
> While Burney described the three incidents as dry weather events, John 
> Jankowski, the MMSD official in charge of making sure that United Water 
> complies with its contract, said it was raining on two of the days.
> 
> The flow at the treatment plant was at its highest on June 19 at 120 million
> 
> gallons, less than half of its capacity of 300 million gallons a day.
> 
> As much as 10% of the daily flow received no treatment other than 
> chlorination but when combined with the sewage that was treated, all of the
> 
> state standards for the effluent were met, according to the DNR.
> 
> Investigation began in late '04
> The incidents were undetected until September 2004 when district and United
> 
> Water officials began an investigation of an anonymous letter that made 
> several allegations, including that sampling reports at the treatment plant
> 
> were cooked "to disguise the true level of human waste entering Lake 
> Michigan." While the allegations were never proven, United Water discovered
> 
> the three instances in September.
> 
> The incidents were blamed on a faulty piece of equipment in an underground 
> channel in June.
> 
> Cheslik and Jankowski said they thoroughly explained the mishaps at the Oct.
> 
> 25, 2004, commission meeting. A review of the videotape of the meeting shows
> 
> that the two consistently referred to the incidents as "blending" events and
> 
> did not differentiate them from events where the sewage was partially 
> treated.
> 
> 
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