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March 24, 2007

Several Valley communities dumping contaminants in Wabash River

By Austin Arceo

TERRE HAUTE — Clinton resident Troy Jones lives near the Wabash River, which he avidly takes advantage of when he wants to go fishing and boating in and near Terre Haute.

But he has long since abandoned his childhood hobby of swimming in the river.

“To me, the water’s changed,” Jones said, “like it’s not as clean as it used to be.”

He knows of the potential health complications posed by contaminants, some of which come from the nine active Terre Haute sites known as outfalls that dump a combination of storm water and untreated sewage into the Wabash River during heavy rains or when excessive snow melts. A 10th outfall, the plant’s main discharge that normally releases treated water, discharges partially treated sewage “blended” with completely treated water during heavy storms.

City sewers initially designed to hold storm water became “combined sewers” when people started hooking indoor plumbing to the system, according to a city-issued brochure describing combined sewer overflows.

Now, when heavy storms overwhelm the sewers, rainwater and sewage escape through the system’s exit points — the outfalls — and directly into the Wabash River.

They’re known as CSOs, or combined sewer overflows.

In 2005, Terre Haute sewers discharged more than 350 million gallons of storm water and sewage into the Wabash River, Terre Haute officials reported to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Last year, reports showed the city’s sewers spewed almost 620 million gallons of the combined contamination into the river.

Terre Haute’s Long-Term Control Plan, a state-mandated proposal that offered solutions to limit local combined sewer overflows, estimates that 284 million gallons of the storm water and sewage is discharged in an average year.

But Keith Zinkovich, assistant construction foreman with the city’s Wastewater Utility plant, said that some of the calculations in the Long-Term Control Plan were inaccurate, causing the estimate to be lower than what it should have been. Part of the sewer model was changed, which better calculated combined sewer overflows that occur during smaller storms.

“So the new model not only shows more overflows because it narrowed down the margin of error,” Zinkovich said, but “now we have additional volume because of that.”

The river pollution creates a variety of complications to the ecosystem and poses a threat to people using the water in the days following a discharge.

Health complications

The contaminating sewage creates a variety of health hazards, including the bacteria Escherichia coli, better known as E. coli.

E. coli 0157:H7, an especially potent strand of the bacteria, typically causes bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps if consumed by people or accidentally ingested in water while someone is swimming, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site reported. Further health complications including eventual kidney failure can develop in children under 5 years old and the elderly, the CDC reported.

Government regulations during the “recreational season” from April to October prohibit E coli counts of higher than 125 units per 100 millileters of water as a geometric mean for five E. coli samples taken equally over a 30-day period, and single-sample counts of 235 units or higher during the same time frame.

The vast majority of Wabash River samples taken at several different Vigo County locations for the Long-Term Control Plan in October and November 2001 measured more than 100 colony forming units; five river sections surveyed on Oct. 15 registered E. coli counts of more than 1,000 units.

Of five IDEM samples taken from the Wabash River in Vigo County during June and July 2004, three samples tested above the maximum one-sample limit; one measured at a most probable number of 48 units and the other one measured at a most probable number of 166.4 units.

Water conditions and contaminants impact the amount of E. coli in the river, which would result in various counts at different river sections.

Yet Terre Haute’s Long-Term Control Plan reported that the single-sample E. coli standard “will likely be exceeded with any CSO discharge or with storm water runoff in urban and suburban areas.”

Most water sampled along the Wabash River from near the Indiana-Ohio state line to near Lafayette tested as being impaired for E. coli, according to an analytical report on the Wabash River available on IDEM’s Web site.

The report indicated about half the water tested at the rest of the IDEM sampling stations spread along the rest of the Wabash River tested was impaired for E. coli.

“… When these [CSO] incidents occur, it’s important for people to know there is that short-term exposure issue,” IDEM public information officer Amy Hartsock said in a telephone interview last year, “and they need to be informed there could be some ill effects from coming into contact with the water during those rain events.”

Despite the health risks, nobody suffered an illness investigated by the Vigo County Health Department in 2006 that could be attributed to contamination in the Wabash River, said Joni Foulkes, the department’s director of operations.

Aquatic alterations

Combined sewer overflows create additional complications. Sewage decomposing in streams consumes oxygen in the water, which can result in decreased oxygen levels for fish to breathe, said Todd Royer, assistant professor of environmental science at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

Surveys of the Wabash River near Terre Haute taken in fall 2001 showed that the dissolved oxygen levels fluctuated. But as with E. coli levels, various factors impact oxygen levels in streams at any given time.

The city’s Long-Term Control Plan reported that addressing CSOs “will help reduce the load of oxygen demanding constituents reaching the river.”

Other complications can arise from chemicals in the ground that mix with storm water before discharging into a river, said Darrell Leap, a retired Purdue University earth and atmospheric sciences professor.

Combined sewer overflows are “a very serious problem,” Leap said in a telephone interview with the Tribune-Star last year, “and a lot of cities just haven’t been able to come to grips with it.”

It’s hard to differentiate between combined sewer overflows’ impact since a variety of human behaviors can damage waterways.

“Things like … habitat degradation and other impacts also affect the same organisms that are affected by the sewer [overflows],” Royer said, “and in general, Indiana has pretty poor water quality in the streams and rivers, particularly in urban areas.”

Future repairs

Terre Haute is not alone in dealing with combined sewer overflows. In all, 13 municipalities including Clinton and Sullivan have combined sewers that discharge contaminants into the Wabash River. More than 100 Indiana communities contain combined sewer systems that government environmental agencies say must be addressed.

Terre Haute’s Long-Term Control Plan estimated that the city would pay about $45 million, which is expected to treat about 85 percent of combined sewage during “wet weather events.” The plan will be partially funded through bonds backed by the 2004 sewer rate increases.

City officials submitted the plan to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management nearly five years ago, which IDEM officials are currently reviewing and scheduled to issue a ruling in 2008.

More than 80 communities’ plans are currently under review, said IDEM public information officer Barry Sneed.

In the meantime, increases in construction costs and other variables will thrust the cost of the proposals in the plan to “somewhere in the neighborhood” of $60 and $70 million, Zinkovich said.

He added that sewer rates inevitably will need to be raised again to help pay for solving the sewer overflows. City communications director Peter Ciancone said that Terre Haute has enough remaining bonding capacity to effectively handle potential cost increases.

The city already has moved forward with some construction projects that address the combined sewer overflows. Several old brick sewers were reinforced with cement, which will help the pipes better maintain sewage as other projects will be constructed.

The current Fourth Street sewer replacement project is listed in the Long-Term Control Plan as a “CSO Related Work Item.”

Terre Haute is reviewing the plan, which included changing some simulation data for new testing. Zinkovich said that IDEM and the Environmental Protection Agency have raised expectations for a sewer system’s capabilities in the last few years, which is a factor for city officials reviewing the plan.

While the plan may be revised, it’s unlikely that the combined sewer overflows will be completely eliminated.

“It will come down to dollars and cents,” Zinkovich said. “It will be how much will IDEM or the EPA require the City of Terre Haute to spend, and then I think our job is to take that amount and get the most bang for our buck.”

Austin Arceo can be reached at (812) 231-4214 or austin.arceo@tribstar.com.

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