Group threatens to sue Atlanta over sewage polluting Chattahoochee River

The city has struggled with sewer problems for decades and is under two federal consent decrees to improve its wastewater treatment system, and now faces the possibility of having to spend billions on needed water system upgrades.

In their letter, SELC attorneys detail a litany of potentially dangerous discharges from Atlanta’s wastewater treatment facilities that have entered the river nearly every month since January 2023. All three of Atlanta’s wastewater treatment plants — South River and Utoy Creek, as well as the city’s largest facility, the RM Clayton Water Reclamation Center — are implicated.

Atlanta’s state permits set limits on the concentrations of certain pollutants the city is allowed to discharge into the river from its three wastewater treatment facilities combined. For other water quality parameters, each individual plant has its own restrictions.

The notice filed on behalf of the riverkeeper says the city has exceeded its combined wastewater limits 56 times in the past 17 months by releasing higher than permitted levels of ammonia, phosphorus and other contaminants.

Credits: Riley Bunch/[email protected]

Credits: Riley Bunch/[email protected]

The RM Clayton plant, which is licensed to discharge up to 100 million gallons of treated wastewater into the river each day, recorded 69 other effluent violations between July 2023 and May 2024, according to the group’s notice. These included discharges of high levels of fecal bacteria. Escherichia coli and other materials that may threaten human health and the environment.

The notice states that each violation of the permits constitutes a separate violation of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

The city has acknowledged the problems with the RM Clayton and recently submitted plans to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) to address them. But the city’s sewer problems appear to persist.

On June 6, the river guard said its staff had measured high levels Escherichia coli concentrations from the RM Clayton spillway near Atlanta Road, south of Vinings. The group recommended that people limit their contact with the Chattahoochee along a 70-mile stretch between RM Clayton and West Point Lake, near LaGrange.

“We are seriously concerned about the high levels of organic matter and nutrients entering the river from the plant’s discharge, which violates the plant’s permit,” Jason Ulseth, executive director of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, said in a statement.

Credits: Jason Getz / [email protected]

Credits: Jason Getz / [email protected]

The potential lawsuit is the latest in a series of troubling incidents involving Atlanta’s water and sewer infrastructure.

In March, the city was cited by the EPD for dozens of violations stemming from the RM Clayton. No fines were proposed for those violations, but the city was fined $163,000 by the EPD in May for a separate series of 106 raw sewage spills over the past two years.

Then, in late May and early June, a series of water main breaks left large portions of the city without drinking water for days, costing businesses and residents millions of dollars.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Watershed Management declined to comment on the letter threatening legal action, citing the risk of litigation. A representative for Mayor Dickens’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Editor’s Note: This is a news article and will be updated.