With sufficiently heavy rain, the area’s sewer system overflows and clogged or backed-up manholes dump raw sewage into creeks.
A YouTube video dated January 25 shows the extent of the problem: A manhole gushed raw sewage, toilet paper and tampons into Lodge Creek near Observatory Hill, which inevitably flows into Moore’s Creek.
Betty Mooney, a long-time water activist, says she was shocked by what she saw in the YouTube video. “I think those graphic videos were a wake-up call,” she says. “I have really no idea how bad the problem is, but it must be bad or the DEQ wouldn’t be sending out letters.”
The problem is so severe, it appears, that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) sent warning letters to the City of Charlottesville, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA) and the Albemarle County Service Authority. The letters are a “sort of first step in our process to notify entities that there is a problem that needs to be addressed,” says Gary Flory, water compliance manager for the DEQ.
Although the letter says overflows are not “uncommon in very wet weather periods,” Flory says that “we are actually seeing a trend here where we are seeing a significant number of overflows and something needs to be done to try to address these issues.”
According to the letter sent to the City of Charlottesville, the DEQ lists 40 unauthorized discharges from July 2008 through March 2010 into Schenks Branch, Meadow Creek, Lodge Creek, Moore’s Creek and the Rivanna River, among others.
Lauren Hildebrand, the city’s director of utilities, says that Charlottesville has been "in the midst of implementing a five-year plan capital program."
"We estimated that we need to spend about $26 million over the next five years" to replace existing sewers with larger ones, or to rehabilitate older sewer pipes that are already in place, according to Hildebrand.
“We have done flow monitoring in years past and you can tell by flow monitoring where your highest priorities should be set,” she says.
In a letter addressed to the RWSA, the DEQ’s records indicate that Moore’s Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant had 10 unauthorized discharges from August 2008 through March 2010. The letter sent to the Albemarle County Service Authority lists three instances when unauthorized discharges flowed into local bodies of water. In November 11, 2008, 5,000 gallons of sewer water flowed into the Rivanna River; on April 27, 2009, 500 gallons flowed into an unnamed tributary and on June 22, 2009 1,000 gallons of sewer water flowed into Carron Creek.
Flory says representatives from all three entities have met with DEQ staff. “What we have here is a regional problem, because we have a single waste water treatment plant that is owned by Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and we have all three of these entities having part of that collection,” he says. “What we have to look at is a sort of broad, regional approach in resolving this problem.”
The DEQ asked each entity to provide a written plan detailing ways to solve the problem.
Hildebrand says the city is in the process of sending the plan in draft form. In addition, the city is taking action. “Now we have contractors working and they are actually constructing sewers or rehabilitating them,” she says.
But for Mooney, rehabilitating seems the right approach. “Before you spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on new infrastructure for water and sewer, we’ve got to repair the infrastructure we already have and if, in looking into the repair, it would be more economical to replace, I am not against that. I think we don’t know that yet. I think we’ve got to have adequate information, which we don’t have,” she says. “We are literally poisoning our water with our inadequate sewer system.”
Calls to the Albemarle County Service Authority and the RWSA were not immediately returned.
