Agency ordered to stop sewage overflows into Yough

http://www.2partyreform.blogspot.com/
finding practical ways to move from a republic towards a democracy and holding the media accountable for substantive, critical reporting of important issues....

various quotes from the article:

Agency ordered to stop sewage overflows into Yough
Friday, January 25, 2008
By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08025/852084-85.stm?cmpid=localstate.xml

The Elizabeth Township Sanitary Authority, which illegally has allowed millions of gallons of raw sewage to flow into the lower Youghiogheny River during the past five months, has been ordered to reduce and eventually stop the overflows.

The overflows date to at least the summer of 2006, when a fisherman on the Yough reported seeing raw sewage along the river bank near the treatment plant's discharge pipe. The sanitary authority was ordered to put in a flow meter to measure the untreated sewage, but didn't do so until last August.

Part of the problem is that pipes connecting aeration and clarification tanks within the plant are too small to handle the flow of sewage. That prevents the plant from operating at full capacity, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection, which is working with the Health Department in the ongoing investigation.

"We don't understand how someone would not know there is a problem," said DEP spokeswoman Helen Humphreys.

The treatment plant and the township's separate sanitary sewer system were built in the early 1960s. The treatment plant, which originally had a capacity of 890,000 gallons a day, was upgraded several times, most recently in the late 1990s, and now has a maximum capacity of 2.3 million gallons a day.

The plant's average daily capacity is 1.4 million gallons, but Veolia Water North America Operating Services, a French-owned company hired to operate the facility, reported that it has been treating less than 1 million gallons a day, even while overflows have occurred.

[what:pittsburgh,reform,us,city,state,council,politics,political,primary,open,primaries,pa,riders,waste,accountable,govt,government,local,news,national,congress]
[where:pittsburgh,pa]

[category:news,politics]