Sewer system managers in Salem say it happens six or seven times every winter — their sewer systems are overwhelmed by heavy rains, and raw sewage has to be diverted directly into the Willamette River. So far this year, not counting this emergency diversion, 72 million gallons of raw sewage have been dumped directly into the Willamette. The most recent occurrence was over two days, January 28 & 29, 2004. Local news stations broadcasted that people should avoid direct contact with the river water since it is full of harmful bacteria (that can cause serious illness). News reports say that Salem’s stormwater systems are separate from their sewer systems, but this is not accurate. These stormwater systems have not been completely separated from the sewer facilities. If they were separate, then this kind of repeat overflow problem would not occur with heavy rains.
Since the City of Salem’s municipal sewage treatment facilities are incapable of functioning properly under certain weather conditions, it means Salem does not have adequate stormwater management plans in place. It also means that Salem’s sewage treatment facilities are inadequate for their needs, and these facilities should be upgraded rather than being allowed to continually poison the waterways and threaten the public’s health.
In the Newburg Pool, an area of the Willamette River between Salem and Oregon City, there are huge numbers of deformed river fish. Sunfish, Bass and Chiselers are known to have twisted spines and malformed fins. These deformities are known to be caused by high concentrations of parasites. In turn, these high concentrations of parasites can be attributed to high concentrations of nutrients caused by urban waste from leaking septic tanks and spills from sewage treatment facilities, as well as agricultural waste from fertilizers and pesticides.
Every time there is more than one-tenth of an inch of rainfall in the Portland Metropolitan area, the combined sewer overflow is also dumped directly into both the Willamette and the Columbia Rivers. With only one-tenth of an inch of rainfall, the St. John’s Treatment facility ceases effective treatment of sewer wastewater. This untreated sewer wastewater then flows into the Willamette. The St. Johns facility normally treats about 200 million gallons of raw sewage a day, but this capacity is greatly lessened with rainfall.
The stormwater and sewer systems in Portland are obviously faulty and are in need of redesign. However, in the late 1990′s, Portland negotiated a 30 year agreement with the Environmental Protections Agency (EPA), under which the EPA will not enforce sewer overflow events that dump raw sewage into the waterways. Such events are violations of the federal Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act requires that municipalities either completely separate stormwater systems from sewer treatment systems, or to treat 100% of all the sewer water, even if it is mixed with stormwater. In exchange for the 30 year moratorium on enforcement of sewage spills, the City of Portland will take that time to redesign and rebuild its stormwater and sewer systems in a massive conversion and upgrade program that will cost about $40 billion. Under such plans, 12′ tall stormwater pipes are being installed along the banks of the Willamette that will send stormwater to a treatment facility, where before it was being dumped right into the river. Some say that in granting this moratorium, the EPA denied more than a generation of safe use of the Willamette and the Lower Columbia River and allowed the City of Portland to escape sanctions and cleanup costs when it has repeatedly dumped raw sewage into the environment. There is no 30 year moratorium in Vancouver and Clark County.
Both of Vancouver’s sewage facilities (east and west sides) currently operate at their maximum thresholds. The east side site operates at 16 million gallons per day, and it is presently undergoing upgrades to treat up to 20 million gallons per day. Neither of these facilities currently suffer from overflow problems like the facilities in Oregon, but they are not serving anywhere near the same sized population.
The Clark County treatment facility in Salmon Creek is presently working beyond its designed capacity. As of the summer of 2003, maximum capacity of this facility was also only 16 million gallons a day, but (without upgrades) it was treating about 21 million gallons a day. (According to an official with the Hazel Dell Sewer District, approximately 10.3 million gallons of this daily load is generated by Hazel Dell, the remainder being generated by Meadow Glade and Battle Ground.) When a facility is operating beyond its maximum capacity, it means that treatment time for sewage entering the facility is greatly lessened, and the quality of the outflow, therefore, is compromised because it has higher levels of bacteria, organic matter, pathogens and nutrients that are all dangerous to humans. This compromised outflow also lowers the water quality so that it will no longer support fisheries. All Vancouver and Clark County Treatment plants outflow into the Columbia River.
Plans are currently underway to upgrade the Salmon Creek facility to treat 24 million gallons a day in order to accommodate the growing population in Battle Ground. Nine miles of sewer pipes will be installed to transport Battle Ground’s sewage to the Salmon Creek treatment site. Many people feel that Battle Ground should build its own sewage treatment facility since it will inevitably outgrow Salmon Creek’s maximum capacity to adequately treat sewage.
The Willamette River converges with the Columbia River at the Port of Vancouver’s Flushing Channel. Therefore, any sewage spill from Oregon (introduced into the Willamette or the Columbia Rivers) can travel downstream directly into Vancouver Lake and also into Lake River through the gates of the Flushing Channel. Since this happens several times during the winter, this means that many millions of gallons of human waste from the state of Oregon are polluting the Vancouver area.
Though they are not currently impacted by rainfall, Vancouver’s sewer systems are also polluting the ground and surface water in this area. Miles of sewer pipes run within various waterbodies such as Cougar Creek, Salmon Creek, Suds Creek, Curtain Creek, Mill Creek, & Burnt Bridge Creek. Sewer effluent does escape from these sewer pipes because they are constructed without solid seals at pipe junctions. Sewer effluent can (and does) seep through bell-shaped seals at various points along the concrete sewer runs. Furthermore, anaerobic bacteria within such systems can actually eat away at concrete pipes, causing even more sewer waste to escape into running water as the pipes degrade.
These outmoded sewer pipes are the same kind that were in place in London, England between 200 and 300 years ago. This is not modern technology. It is now against the law to use bell-shaped unsealed junctions in sewer systems when they are located within running streams. Vancouver sewer systems are riddled with such outdated pipes, and it will be virtually impossible to mitigate the contamination of these various endangered waterbodies until all such sewer pipes are removed. These leaking pipes are currently violating the Clean Water Act, but these violations are not being enforced. New technology has developed sewer pipes that are made of flexible plastic that can be permanently sealed and run under pressure to prevent leakage. Such pressurized pipes can also increase sewer efficiency by transporting greater sewage volume through a smaller pipe.
The only way to monitor where sewer pipes are failing is to run an extensive series of dye tests. Dyes are injected into household toilets, and the flow of the dye through the sewer network is tracked. This dye can even indicate where sewer pipes are leaking into ground and surface water. However, both the Clark County and the City of Vancouver have local ordinances that prohibit the introduction of dyes into the stormdrains or sewers without advance notification and approval by the local jurisdictions. This means that both the County and the City have to pre-authorize such dye tests. Neither jurisdiction is inclined to permit such tests because they will likely show failures in the sewer network.
Vancouver also does not have to meet federal stormdrain outfall standards for many years, because the City is just now applying for its NPDES (National Pollution Discharge Elimination System) permit. Phase I permits were required for all cities with populations of 100,000 or more at the time of the 1990 census. At that time, Vancouver was a smaller population, and was allowed to wait for Phase II applications in 2003. Annexation that would have clearly identified Vancouver as a Phase I city (population of 100,000 or more) occurred after the 1990 census took place. Clark County did not apply for their Phase I NPDES regulatory permit until they were taken to court by local activists in 1994.
Vancouver is currently working on its Phase II NPDES permits, but the Washington State Department of Ecology has not yet established the requirements for Phase II applicants. Those requirements were due to be completed last year, but Washington state legislators were not willing to finalize the plans. These plans are only now being finalized due to litigative pressures applied by activist groups such as Northwest Environmental Advocates, who are filing multiple lawsuits against the States of Oregon and Washington as well as the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to comply with and enforce the Clean Water Act.
