Sludge Watch ==> Toronto combined sewage storage tunnels - create more sludge

[Maureen Reilly]

From: "A.P.Lino Grima" <lino.grima at utoronto.ca>

Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 9:08 AM
Subject: Re: Sludge Watch ==> Milwaukee dumped untreated and 'blended' 
sewage- more details


> 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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