[caption id="attachment_6630" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Wastewater treatment plant"]
[/caption]Seattle – Jan. 5, 2011) - EPA/GHN News - World experts tell us that one of the most critical problems facing the modern world is the problem of water. We are running out of fresh water. In the meantime water contaminants remain a major problem.
The City of Bonners Ferry,
Idaho has agreed to pay a $12,300 penalty for alleged violations of the
Clean Water Act at its wastewater treatment plant, according to an order
from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
From June 2005 through May 2010, the plant had over 1,600 permit
limit violations. The city’s Clean Water Act violations included
exceeding discharge limits for Escherichia coli (E. coli), biochemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids, pH and total residual chlorine.
“The City of Bonners Ferry provides a valuable community service
by treating wastewater, but it must strictly follow its permit limits,”
said James Werntz, director of EPA’s Idaho Operations Office. “The
permit limits are in place to protect Idaho’s streams and rivers.”
The treatment plant, which serves nearly 2,600 people, is part of a
sanitary sewer system that receives domestic wastewater from
residential and commercial sources. The treated wastewater from the
plant is discharged into the Kootenai River. To address the effluent
permit violations, the city has reduced inflow and infiltration into
their collection system and is removing the sludge buildup in the sewage
lagoons.
The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit program
controls water pollution by regulating point sources such as pipes or
man-made ditches that discharge pollutants to surface waters.
Industrial, municipal, and other facilities must obtain permits if their
discharges go directly to surface waters.
Natchitoches, Louisiana, a small town in the South, periodically has released statements of water contaminants as well, although they underline these as minor at the moment. Natural gas drilling, something else the EPA is concerned about with its contamination of the water, is being undertaken in a major way in Natchitoches Parish and through parts of Central Louisiana into the northern areas bordering Texas. In New York, where there has been widespread contamination of the water through hydraulic fracturing, people are beginning to protest through their Congressmen.
