Cincinnati Agrees To $1 Billion Clean Water Settlement

The Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) of Greater Cincinnati will spend more than $1 billion to bring its sewer system into compliance with the Clean Water Act under a settlement with the federal and state governments.

The final settlement with the Board of Commissioners of Hamilton County and the city of Cincinnati was announced by the Justice Department, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the state of Ohio and the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO).

The settlement intends to end long-standing sewer system violations and address raw sewage backing up into residents’ basements.

The MSD of Greater Cincinnati is a department of the City of Cincinnati that serves more than 800,000 customers throughout Cincinnati and Hamilton County and operates seven major wastewater treatment plants. More than 200,000 separate sewer connections tie into MSD’s 3,000 plus miles of sanitary and combined sewers.

For years, the city and county have discharged untreated sewage when it rains through overflow pipes from its sanitary sewers, or sanitary sewer outfalls, including some that were constructed long ago in MSD’s aging sanitary sewer system.

Under the Clean Water Act it is illegal to discharge untreated wastewater from sanitary sewers. The EPA estimates that there are at least 40,000 sanitary sewer overflows nationally each year – the untreated sewage from these overflows can contaminate waters with bacteria, pathogens and other harmful pollutants, causing serious water quality problems.

The MSD has also caused significant additional pollution of the Ohio River and local streams from combined sewer overflows (CSOs).

Significant portions of Cincinnati’s sewer collection system are “combined systems” –this means the system accepts not only sewage but also stormwater when it rains.

When the combined sewers get too full, they overflow and Cincinnati’s CSOs discharge an estimated six billion gallons of untreated sewage mixed with rainwater each year.

Although defendants have a permit for their CSOs, the plaintiffs complaint alleges that defendants’ discharges do not comply with the permit’s terms.

Today’s final settlement completes the relief obtained by the 2002 partial consent decree that required defendants to address certain specified SSOs and to develop with a plan to eliminate the rest of them.

This final decree requires defendants to carry out that SSO plan and to develop and implement a plan to bring their CSOs and wastewater treatment plants into compliance with the law.

The final decree requires that all work under the two major plans must be completed by February 2022.

The decree allows defendants to request additional time if the projects are estimated to cost more than $1.5 billion dollars, although the schedule must still be as expeditious as possible, and is subject to the approval of EPA, the state, and ORSANCO.

The settlement was lodged in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Ohio and is subject to a 30 day public comment period. Both consent decrees are subject to final court approval.
Provided by theEnvironmental News Service.