State fines City of Atlanta $163,000 for sewage spills

May 30th, 2024

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division issued an over $163,000 fine against the City of Atlanta for sewage spills. — The Chattahoochee River and its tributaries receive wastewater from several City of Atlanta wastewater treatment plants, including the R.M. Clayton.

Courtesy of: Chattahoochee Riverkeeper

The City of Atlanta was issued an over $163,000 fine from the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) on May 21 for sewage spills during 2022 and 2023.

The enforcement order, the official document laying out the consequences for violating a permit, said that from July 2022 to June 2023, several of the wastewater treatment plants owned and operated by the City of Atlanta put untreated or partially untreated water into the Chattahoochee and its tributaries that didn’t meet state regulations for cleanliness. It outlined ongoing troubles at the facilities and repeated contamination of the state’s rivers and streams.

In total, there were 106 documented spills, eight of which were major spills exceeding 10,000 gallons of wastewater that entered waterways.

Wastewater treatment centers receive millions of gallons a day of sewage — what people at home flush down the toilet as well as wastewater from businesses and industrial facilities, some of which clean their water before sending it to the plant. The water goes through several cleaning processes within the plant before it is sent back out into a river or stream via a large drainage pipe called an outfall.

But the EPD’s letter to the City said that the R.M. Clayton, Atlanta’s largest wastewater treatment plant, and several other plants failed to do this. It also said the R.M. Clayton’s treatment process failed due to what the City of Atlanta reported as an “illicit substance” entering the plant.

An illicit substance could be any chemical illegally dumped into the wastewater system, or chemicals from an industrial facility that weren’t properly cleaned before the facility sent the water to the wastewater plant. The EPD said the City of Atlanta conducted investigations to figure out where this chemical came from, but the City wasn’t able to figure it out.

The next week, the EPD visited the R.M. Clayton for an inspection and found several issues, like partially-working equipment and foam in the water going into the river.

A month later, the EPD says the City of Atlanta reported once again that illicit substances entered the plant causing it to fail and put untreated water into rivers and streams.

The EPD’s document goes on to list tens of sewage spills at the R.M. Clayton as well as at its associated facilities such as the South River Water Reclamation Center and Utoy Creek Water Reclamation Center.

Aside from paying the fine within one month, the EPD is asking the City of Atlanta to submit evaluations of what has caused several problems within the waste treatment process, what steps have already been taken to address the issue, and what additional actions the City has planned to implement to ensure problems don’t recur.

Additionally, the City of Atlanta has 90 days to provide the state an update on its investigation into the illicit substances entering the R.M. Clayton, as well as its plans on how to handle similar events in the future.