No Raw Sewage in Sewer Overflows Into River or Bay Says County Official
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Local governments are joining forces to expand use of the West Bay City Wastewater Treatment Plant.
You know those really scary news reports that occasionally come out saying so many million gallons of sewage has been dumped into the Saginaw River?
Well, according to Laura Ogar, the Bay County Director of Environmental Affairs and Community Development, the discharges are not as bad as they sound.
"The Bay area community has been actively working to prevent raw sewage from entering the Saginaw River for decades," she reported recently to the Save Our Shoreline group.
"In fact the City of Bay City has not had an overflow of raw sewage since the late 1970s when the last of the retention treatment basins were completed."
Bay City, Saginaw and Essexville, the three municipalities that had untreated combined sewage overflows, now all have retention and treatment basins.
"Untreated combined sewer overflows into the Saginaw River have been eliminated," an overview of the CSO programs recently presented to a local water quality leadership group states flatly.
In fact, Saginaw, which has seven retention basins, won the 1998 EPA National First Place CSO Control award and other engineering awards.
Bay City has received $65 million in federal grants to build five retention basins and has made an additional $12 million in corrective actions financed by revenue bonds.
The city also has spent $45 million to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant and $20 million for sewer repairs.
Essexville has spent $238,800 to upgrade is one retention basin and now has placed additional work on hold while planning proceeds to redirect its wastewater to the West Bay County wastewater treatment plant.
What is the stuff that gets reported on average six times a year?
According to Ms. Ogar, the "flash flows" in the sewer system that occur during heavy storms are actually treated very similarly to the water discharged every hour by the wastewater treatment plant.
That is, 90 percent of the time, she adds. In the next few months environmental and health officials in Bay and Saginaw counties will release information they have been compiling on actual quality of the 10 percent that is questionable.
It's not that there aren't serious concerns about water quality from community wastewater systems further upstream, we mainly from assume Flint and Genesee County where rivers drain into the Saginaw.
Actually, the Saginaw River drainage basin reaches all the way south to Livingston County, east to Sanilac County, west to Mecosta County and north to Ogemaw and Iosco counties.
"And we've got leaking septic systems around the bay to investigate and cow manure piles to keep away from ditches," said Ms. Ogar, adding:
"We need to insure land spreading of sewage sludge/septage for agricultural purposes is done right."
The retention basins built in Bay City in the 1970s cost about $80 million and were 80 percent paid by federal dollars. The 15-year municipal bonds the city issued for the other 20 percent of the costs have been paid off.
From 1974 to 1987 Saginaw and other municipalities constructed separation systems or built first-stage retention treatment plants in response to the federal Clean Water Act of 1972.
In 1992 a national policy on Combined Sewage Overflows (CSO) was formulated, with Michigan taking the lead. However, the national policy falls short of that governing CSOs in Michigan.
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