Sarah DeWeerdt: Leaky Sewers a Source of Pollution→

Anthropocene:

““Wastewater treatment facilities are not equipped to remove many pharmaceutical compounds,” lead author Emma Rosi, an aquatic ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, a nonprofit research organization in Millbrook, NY, said in a press release. “We were interested in how stream microorganisms – which perform key ecosystem services like removing nutrients and breaking down leaf litter – respond to pharmaceutical pollution.” Rosi and her colleagues studied biofilms—complex assemblages of bacteria and algae that make rocks and leaves in streams slippery – in four waterways in and around Baltimore, Maryland.

The study sites represent an urban-to-suburban gradient of habitats, and they each harbor a different assemblage of microbes, the researchers found. The biggest differences were between Gwynns Run, the most urbanized stream with a documented history of sewage contamination, and Gwynnbrook, the least developed stream.

First, the researchers looked for six different drugs in the streams: acetaminophen, caffeine, sulfamethoxazole (an antibiotic), diphenhydramine (an antihistamine), amphetamine, and morphine. They detected all of the drugs in all four streams, with the highest concentrations in the most urbanized stream and the lowest concentrations in the least urbanized stream.”

John Enger: Our Private Sewers Pollute→

MPR:

“The water that fills Ken Henrickson’s toilet bowl is pumped directly from the lake he lives on, and when he flushes, it goes back to the lake.

”I’m not sure if it’s a good system or not,” he said last month. Henrickson lives along the rocky shore of Rainy Lake, which forms part of Minnesota’s border with Canada, in the state’s far north.

Henrickson’s is one of the half-million Minnesota homes from which wastewater flows into buried septic tanks — systems that are maintained, and often ignored, by homeowners, not professional engineers. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency estimates one in every five septic systems across the state is failing.

The water off Henrickson’s piece of shoreline is laced with sewage — likely his own, and that of about 200 neighbors. There are at least that many failing septic systems in a 15-mile stretch from Henrickson’s neighborhood east to Voyageurs National Park.”

We really need to move to more advanced sewer systems in shorelands. 

Mary Anna Evans: The Sewage Crisis in America

The Atlantic:

“The EPA has called overflows from combined sewer systems “the largest category of our Nation’s wastewater infrastructure that still need to be addressed,” affecting Americans in 32 states, including the District of Columbia. The agency has been working with municipal water systems to address the problem for decades and much progress has been made, but to understand why it’s taking so long, you have to consider history. You also have to consider the massive costs that come with making changes to public works that have served millions of people for more than a century.

Combined sewers collect human waste, industrial waste, and stormwater runoff into a single pipe for treatment and disposal. (In other municipalities, these waste streams are handled separately.) In dry weather, a combined sewer ordinarily carries a relatively low volume of waste, delivering it to publicly owned treatment works, or POTWs for short, that are designed to handle that flow. In plain terms, when a combined sewer system is functioning properly, you can generally trust that when you flush, the contents of the toilet bowl end up where they’re supposed to go.”

Forget building more roads -- we should fix our human waste water infrastructure. Go down to the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis after a big storm and smell the human waste running into the river and then tell me that is acceptable. 

Joan Rose: Sewer Tanks Aren't Keeping Poo Out of Lakes→

MSU:

“The notion that septic tanks prevent fecal bacteria from seeping into rivers and lakes simply doesn’t hold water, says a new Michigan State University study.

Water expert Joan Rose and her team of water detectives have discovered freshwater contamination stemming from septic systems. Appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study is the largest watershed study of its kind to date, and provides a basis for evaluating water quality and health implications and the impact of septic systems on watersheds.

“All along, we have presumed that on-site wastewater disposal systems, such as septic tanks, were working,” said Rose, Homer Nowlin Endowed Chair in Water Research. “But in this study, sample after sample, bacterial concentrations were highest where there were higher numbers of septic systems in the watershed area.””

Time to rethink the use of individual sewer system around our lakes. These systems are big polluters.

The PNAS paper.

Polluters Don't Pay→

Chad Selweski, reporting for The Macomb Daily:

“Two days after Oakland County officials admitted that they dumped an unprecedented 2.1 billion gallons of partially treated sewage into the Macomb County waterways during the massive Aug. 11 storm, environmental activists on Thursday called for a return to the policing of polluters that was in place several years ago.

These activists warned that drenching rainstorms are becoming more common, and sewage system overflows packed with fertilizers and other “nutrient-rich” discharges will increasingly lead to a Lake St. Clair shoreline plagued by algae, tainted water and seaweed-style aquatic plants dominating the water surface.”

The polluted Red Run Drain in Warren

Once you start down the dark path of mixing sewage with storm runoff, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

Project: Murky Waters (WisconsinWatch)→

The Capital Times and Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism collaborated on a four-part series to examine threats to the quality of the Madison area’s spectacular lakes, and ambitious new efforts that seek to improve them. 

Part 1:

WisconsinWatch

“The Yahara lakes — Mendota, Monona, Wingra, Waubesa and Kegonsa — are no clearer than they were 30 years ago, despite intensive efforts to improve them. During that time, lake scientists said, the increased heavy rainfalls that are part of climate change most likely offset gains from better land use practices, by washing giant volumes of pollution into the lakes.
“They are flatlining,” said Steve Carpenter, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who has studied the Yahara lakes since the 1970s. “There are no trends in the lakes. The lake water quality is not getting better. It’s not getting notably worse. It’s as if the interventions we’re doing are just holding the line, running in place like the red queen in Alice in Wonderland.””

— http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2014/04/23/yahara-beach-closures-highlight-algae-bacteria-threats/

Part 2:

Mike DeVries -- The Capital Times

“According to experts, agriculture accounts for roughly 70 percent of the phosphorus runoff in watersheds across the state, with urban runoff accounting for the remaining 30 percent.
It is closer to an 80-20 split in the Yahara Watershed in Dane County, said Carpenter, who hopes to find a way for the dairy industry to thrive while protecting water quality.
The agricultural runoff that often turns Madison’s lakes unpleasant by creating algal blooms that look and smell bad, clog boat motors and close beaches is expected to only get worse.”

— http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2014/04/30/manure-digesters-seen-as-best-hope-for-curbing-lake-pollution-but-drawbacks-remain/

Part 3:

 City of Madison Engineering Department

“A Milwaukee scientist who has found sewage migrating from old pipes through soil and into the stormwater lines that drain to lakes or streams says the problem is likely to occur in Madison and cities nationwide.

“In any urban area, this is going to be an issue,” said Sandra McLellan, professor and senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences.
From 2008 to 2012, McLellan and colleagues from her laboratory analyzed more than 1,300 water samples from stormwater outfalls in six Milwaukee-area watersheds, looking for a bacterium called Bacterioides that indicates the presence of human sewage...

They found the marker in every watershed. In the Menomonee River watershed alone, more than half of the outfalls were chronically contaminated with sewage.”

— http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2014/05/07/leaky-sewer-pipes-could-export-viruses-to-lakes/

Provided here to explain consequences on lake water quality, a lot of information is.  Hmmmmmm.

Human waste can be converted into valuable fertilizer→

Samantha Larson, reporting for National Geographic:

“Most conventional farms invest in synthetic fertilizer, which requires energy to produce and is associated with many environmental problems of its own. But by separating out human urine before it gets to the wastewater plant, Rich Earth cofounder Kim Nace says they can turn it into a robust fertilizer alternative: a “local, accessible, free, sanitary source of nitrogen and phosphorous.””

Closing the waste loop is good natural resource management.

Sewer system oversight studied for Whitefish Lake, MT→

Lynnette Hintze, reporting for The Daily Inter Lake:

“Last year the Whitefish Lake Institute released a study that confirmed pollution in Whitefish Lake due largely to failing septic systems.
It found contamination at City Beach, Viking Creek and Lazy Bay and pinpointed several shoreline areas at risk for future contamination.
The Institute’s probe confirmed a 1980s study that also found contamination in the lake from failing septic tanks. While the latest study concluded recreation is still safe on the lake, it sounded the alarm bell for city officials.
The Whitefish City Council appointed a community wastewater committee to prepare a report and make recommendations to the council regarding wastewater management.”

It is interesting to see communities struggling to deal with human waste. In this case it appears that the issue has been studied for 30 years but no solution has been acted on. The need for something besides traditional individual sewage treatment systems is long overdue. 

York ranks high for keeping sewage out of Great Lakes→

Sean Pearce, reporting for the Newmarket Era:

“An Ecojustice report ranks York Region, along with Durham Region, second among 12 municipalities when it comes to keeping sewage out of the Great Lakes.Receiving a B+ grade, York and Durham placed behind only Peel Region in the organization’s 2013 Great Lakes sewage report card. York and Durham scored high in the majority of categories, given their lack of combined sanitary and storm sewers and the fact there is no mechanism for untreated wastewater to bypass the Duffin Creek water pollution control plant.

Unlike most other treatment plants on Lake Ontario, Duffin Creek has no bypass capability, he said, which means only treated effluent is released into Lake Ontario, even during periods of extreme storms.”

Flooding forces sewage to be diverted into Lake Michigan→

Michael Hawthorne, reporting for the Chicago Tribune:

“After several days of rain, an overnight deluge overwhelmed Chicago’s underground labyrinth of aging sewers and giant tunnels Thursday, forcing a noxious mix of sewage and stormwater into local waterways and Lake Michigan.”

The city's old sewer infrastructure can not handle the volume of water, so it ends up polluting lakes and rivers. Time to invest in the basics (e.g., waste management) instead of luxuries (e.g., big roads dominated by single-occupancy cars). 

South Milwaukee flushing untreated wastewater to Lake Michigan