Tuscaloosa sewer update

Ask The Tough Questions!  

It is election season and every candidate needs to be asked questions on the lack of progress made by Tuscaloosa City Sewer dep since we filed our lawsuit against the city of Tuscaloosa on July 28, 2023. 

You would think the city would be anxious to work with us instead of the continued misinformation and down right neglect to take adequate measures to correct the problems but that is not quite the case. In our initial contact with the city concerning action we were taking, we started out asking for a meeting to discuss the issues. Instead of trying to work with us the city never answered our request and instead, hired a staff of outside lawyers to fight us from holding Tuscaloosa Sewer Dep accountable for what I consider a major health and safety issue. At the time we sued there had been over 42,405,000 gallons of sewage spilled in the streets. 

The majority of these SSOs flowed into beloved streams where citizens recreate such as Hurricane Creek, Cypress Creek, Cottondale Creek, and the Black Warrior River. One such example is Hurricane Creek Park, a popular swimming hole and recreation area for the people of Tuscaloosa. Approximately 2,067,916 gallons of raw sewage had been spilled in Cottondale Creek (just upstream from Hurricane Creek), Hurricane Creek, and Little Hurricane Creek since 2017. 

After a recent file review I found that the Tuscaloosa Sewer Dep has discharged an additional 700,000 gallons of raw sewage into our streams just since we filed our notice with a request to meet. Of that number approximately 377,710 gallons was in the Hurricane Creek basin alone. Almost half! There seems to be a pattern to the overflows which start with the Mercedes Auto plant in the upper end of the watershed. Over 200,000 gallons of raw sewage have been discharged just from the lines associated to transport of Mercedes effluent. That's over half of the total for the Hurricane Creek basin and about 1/4 of the total for the entire system. 

When the plant was built, Tuscaloosa annexed a strip of land and built a water and sewer easement and ran cast iron pipe the entire length of the interstate from Tuscaloosa to the Mercedes location. It was adequate for the time and benefitted Tuscaloosa greatly with the creation of so many new jobs and tax revenue. It was much smaller then with fewer supplying businesses nearby. 

That was 30 years ago and the plant has expanded as well as several large scale industries on the line who supply Mercedes. It has exceeded its capacity while the pipes have been constantly deteriorating. If Mercedes was just discharging effluent from the toilets it would probably still handle the load but that is not the case. The Mercedes discharge permit allows them to pump industrial chemicals, some of which are very caustic and cause accelerated deterioration of the lines. Hydrogen Sulfide (h2S gas) which is also known to be in sewage is very caustic by itself. It stands to reason that a the entire line needs immediate attention but it seems the response has been more of a knee-jerk patch and go approach. 

On Nov. 7, 2022 I reported a major sewage overflow on JVC road that was leaving the site and going underground along I-59. As it turned out there was a string of failures that led to it and actually kept the city from having to report millions of gallons which I documented leaving the site for at least 6 days uninterrupted. This video was made before we found the extent and cause of the failure of not one but 2 major sewer lines transporting effluent from Mercedes to the Tuscaloosa treatment plant. 

Kimberly Michael, Tuscaloosa Sewer Dep. was quoted as saying “the city was making plans to reroute sewage away from that manhole and hoped to "limp along" until that project was finished, but said the failure came a few months before the work was to be completed.” Limping along with a major sewer artery, which delivers toxic sewage and industrial wastewater, is why the city sewer system is in such disrepair. It’s time to stop limping along and FIX the failures.

Since the action was filed there has been a lot of "negotiations" which have resulted in very little actual work on the ground to stop the overflows. Many of the lift stations have repeated problems where they have to go on "temporary bypass pumps" while parts are acquired to make repairs, or so I have been told. The problem with that is this: The same pumps are failing over and over and the temporary bypass pumps are an indicator of failure of the system. As it stands now, the majority of all lift station failures are in the Hurricane Creek basin and a vast number of those are coming from Mercedes.

I did not make these numbers up, they are SELF reported by Tuscaloosa and are available for public inspection. Don't believe me, look it up. You have the right to inspect any ADEM public record here. 

Here's a brief video explaining now tp use the E-file system. 

Below are 4 of the main lift stations in the Hurricane Creek Basin. All have shown major problems and in some cases have been on temporary bypass pumps, or life support as I call them. 41 has been on life support for about 8 months and counting. 

Lift Station 39, Around 17 days on life support and counting.

Lift Station 40 Around 38 days in 2023

Lift Station 40, Around 29 days in 24,

Lift Station 41, Around 8 months and counting continuous life support.

 

Lift Station 42, Around 3 months in 2024

Newly rebuilt Lift Station 10

Lift Station 10 used to be the most notorious for overflows with years of promises to fix it. Finally the EPA stepped in and issued an order to reduce the pathogens being discharged or face federal penalties. It took just over a year to completely overhaul the pumps and install a holding tank that looks to be a million gallons or more. It ceased being a problem. 

That is what it is going to take at most of the failing lift stations and piping along the Mercedes line. Tuscaloosa has an obligation, not only to the voting citizens but to Mercedes as well to create and maintain a safe transport of toxic industrial chemicals.

This is election season in Tuscaloosa and every person running needs to answer the question, "What are you going to do about this?" I have said for years that the politics that allow this are wrong. If you can't change the politics, change the politicians!