First of two parts
Fawn sewage officer Val Thickey is not a man who goes with the flow -- especially when it used to dump raw sewage straight into Bull Creek.
He's been working hard for nine years to get the tiny township in northern Allegheny County connected to sewers, but despite a crusty can-do attitude, he's only a little more than half done.
Last month, he was finishing up the latest project, a $300,000 job on Donnelville Road that ties another 35 homes to the sewer system and will cost each property owner $3,400.
"That's the tap-in fee, plus then they'll get a bill every month for $50," Thickey said. "I am not a nice guy, not the most popular guy around."
But he's doing the dirty work that has finally stopped sewage from flowing untreated into the creek. He's got 525 of the almost 1,000 homes connected to sewers now, and the rest are hooked to septic systems, although he concedes that if he checked every one, he might find some aren't working as well as they should.
It's a microcosm of the same dirty work facing hundreds of other government officials in 11 southwestern Pennsylvania counties as they wrestle to comply with a federal edict to stop illegal sewage discharges -- an edict that could cost them $10 billion to comply with.
"If I had the money I could do it all tomorrow, but no one has all the money they need for this kind of work," said Thickey, who estimates he needs $20 million to complete Fawn's sewer work.
Multiply Fawn's sewer funding dilemma by millions of flushes, and a picture of the challenge facing the region on fixing its sewer and septic problems begins to emerge.
Warning flags
Almost every day since mid-May this year, the Allegheny County Health Department has been flying its orange and black "CSO flag" at marinas up and down the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers.
The flapping flags mean the region is experiencing another Combined Sewer Overflow day, which means people have to limit their contact with river water for health reasons, during a summer season that fills the rivers with pleasure boats, jet skis, rowing shells and fishing skiffs.
The overflows are the final consequence of a whole string of problems. Because the region has so many leaky sewer pipes or pipes that are designed to carry both sewage and storm water, heavy rains can send a lot of extra water into the Alcosan treatment plant on the North Side.
When that happens, the Alcosan system is designed to divert the extra water, which would otherwise overwhelm and damage the facility. The result? Untreated sewage flows right into the rivers through 414 pipes.
While cleaning up the rivers has been the main focus of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's push to end the region's illegal sewage discharges, John Schombert, executive director of 3 Rivers Wet Weather, said a full understanding of the problem required an even broader view.
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| | | The case for improvements
A recent survey found that only 2 percent of the people interviewed in the Pittsburgh region ranked sewage and water quality as important issues. Their answers might have been much different if they had known these stark facts:
 About 27,000 homes in the 11-county Southwestern Pennsylvania region still dump untreated household wastes into ditches or streams.
There are 414 combined storm and sanitary sewer outfall pipes that dump 16 billion gallons of raw sewage and storm water annually into area rivers during wet weather. That's the equivalent of 2 million bathtubs full of contaminated water each and every day of the year.
There are 300,000 septic systems operating in the 11 county region, and most are not functioning properly.
About 120 communities in the Pittsburgh region have sewer tap-in restrictions, meaning they can't add any more homes or businesses to their sewer systems until improvements are made.
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"We need to step back from the rivers and look at the small streams," Schombert said.
While the rivers are usually polluted by sewage only during heavy rains, surveys done by 3 Rivers -- 2nd Nature, a river assessment project funded by The Heinz Endowments, shows that even in dry weather, most of the region's small streams don't meet water quality standards because of sewage contamination.
Collectively, those streams are four times as long as the region's rivers, and present proportionately greater health risks, especially for children who may play in or near the flows.
Schombert offers another reason to care about sewage flowing into rivers and streams: they supply almost 90 percent of the region's public drinking water.
"The philosophy is that you should be treating the best possible source," he said.
Removing as much sewage as possible, he added, reduces treatment needs at water plants and cuts people's exposure to viruses, bacteria and such parasites as cryptosporidium and giardia. Those pathogens can cause diarrhea and dehydration and are especially risky for children, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems.
A national crisis
If it's any consolation, southwestern Pennsylvania is hardly alone in facing expensive sewage problems.
The federal government has been cracking down on several water-polluting cities, including Atlanta, Seattle, Baltimore, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and New York, as well as Philadelphia and Erie in this state.
Last month, it finalized a consent order with Baltimore that includes a $600,000 civil penalty, requires the installation of a $2.7 million system to remove agricultural runoff pollutants and mandates an extensive sewer system upgrade that will cost about $940 million over the next 14 years.
Fast-growing, sewage-spewing Atlanta has paid more than $20 million in fines to state and federal environmental agencies and has announced plans for $2 billion in sewer improvements to comply with a federal consent decree.
Estimates of what it will cost to fix all of the nation's sewage problems soar as high as $500 billion.
Some of those fixes, prodded by EPA and the state Department of Environmental Protection enforcement actions, are already under way around the region.
Just a smattering of examples: In Beaver County, the DEP has a consent order with Ambridge requiring it to fix sewer overflows. Uniontown in Fayette County is working under a consent order to replace its combined sewers with sanitary sewers and expand its treatment plant. And Herminie, an old mining town of 300 homes 10 miles west of Greensburg, is working with the DEP to create a new treatment plant, because right now, every time someone there flushes a toilet raw sewage flows into a small creek.
While the EPA's enforcement effort in the Pittsburgh region may be just one piece of its national cleanup puzzle, it's one of the most complex jobs, because in the Alcosan treatment area alone, it has to deal with 83 governments and sewer authorities that control parts of the sewage system. Alcosan itself only oversees the main collection pipes and the treatment plant for the system.
"It's probably the most complicated challenge [EPA has] faced because we have a collection system split into 83 parts," Schombert said. "You wouldn't build an electric utility system that way, but we have a sewage system built that way."
In the 11-county region, the fragmentation gets worse -- there are 595 municipal jurisdictions, with 492 water and sewer providers.
Philadelphia, by comparison, has less than six separate sewage systems that regulators have to coordinate.
Also raising red flags for the EPA is that Alcosan has 50 sewer overflows that are illegal under the federal Clean Water Act, yet the region has relatively low sewage rates. The average bill is about $22 a month, well under the $40 a month that a federal formula says most customers here could afford.
"EPA," Schombert said, "has got to be thinking, 'They've got all the overflows and they're not spending money. Something is wrong here.' "
Public ignorance
By almost any measure, the sewage problems plaguing southwestern Pennsylvania are among the worst in the nation.
"We could be the model for the rest of the country," Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey said. "Our problem is so severe, if we can fix our problem, anybody can fix their problem."
But one impediment to a solution is that most people in the region don't understand how big the problem is.
In a recent survey of 300 Allegheny County homeowners by the polling company Public Opinion Strategies, 68 percent of respondents said local rivers and streams were only somewhat or not very polluted, and 63 percent said they had never heard of the county Health Department's river water advisories, which warn people about sewage overflows.
The survey results show that people know the region's waters are demonstrably cleaner today than they were 30 years ago, when steel mills and other industrial plants were fouling the rivers with abandon.
They also demonstrate the challenge regional leaders face in preparing the public for the higher rates needed to pay for sewer improvements.
"The average homeowner doesn't even know the problem exists, because it's underground, out of sight," Roddey said. "Everyone just expects to be able to flush the toilet and have it work and everything's fine. They don't see it overflowing into the rivers."
Mike Lambert sees it.
As director of the Three Rivers Rowing Association, Lambert has seen fecal matter and toilet paper pouring into the Allegheny River near his organization's boathouse.
"People wouldn't believe it unless they actually saw it," Lambert said. "When you actually see it .... Folks, this is the water you drink."
Health effects?
The pro-business Allegheny Conference on Community Development has taken the lead in the sewer cleanup campaign.
The message: Sewage contamination threatens public health, stymies economic development, hinders water recreation, harms the environment, violates federal regulations, and -- bottom line -- grosses people out.
When Public Opinion Strategies asked people to pick the most important reason for resolving the sewage problem, 43 percent, the largest plurality, chose "The public's health is in danger."
Is it? There's no simple answer.
"When you look at sewage, there are hundreds of different viruses and bacteria and protozoans and parasitic worms," said Geoffrey Butia, chief of drinking water and waste management for the Allegheny County Health Department. "It's very well-documented that the potential is there to create disease in humans."
People with weakened immune systems, such as cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and those who are HIV-positive, are the most vulnerable to the pathogens found in sewage. In fact, the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force advises clients to avoid drinking tap water.
Drinking water treatment plants in the region have been upgraded to remove cryptosporidium parasites and other sewage-related contaminants. But the plants are not 100 percent effective. Last year, the Pennsylvania-American Water Co. mailed a brochure to 2 million customers warning people with weakened immune systems to boil or filter their tap water, or not drink it at all.
"We've really improved water treatment plants, but we shouldn't be challenging them all the time with sewage overflows," Schombert said.
In 1993, an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis, attributed to parasites in feces-tainted drinking water, afflicted more than 400,000 people in the Milwaukee area, resulting in more than 100 deaths.
Last year, 23 cases of cryptosporidiosis were reported in southwestern Pennsylvania, along with 28 cases of E.coli-related illness and 161 cases of giardiasis, all maladies that can be caused by pathogens in sewage.
The county Health Department has not conclusively identified sewage as the culprit in any of those local cases, but it's also true that many cases of intestinal distress caused by polluted water probably are never reported.
Generally, when people suffer diarrhea, they don't know if it came from the General Tso's chicken they ate for lunch or the tap water they drank before bed. And they generally don't see a doctor about it.
A 2000 draft report prepared for the EPA concluded that establishing a link between sewage overflows and illnesses requires "extensive efforts, which are likely to be undertaken only in dramatic instances when the connection becomes clear, and when many people become ill. As a result, the actual number of waterborne outbreaks that are due to [sewage overflows] is not known."
The obvious difficulty of proving that someone's illness was caused by sewage has led at least one person to doubt whether a serious threat to public health actually exists.
Brad Tupi, a former Upper St. Clair commissioner, questions the need to spend $10.3 billion on the region's sewage problems.
"The sewage overflows may be so diluted that there is really no health risk," Tupi said. "We're not really talking about polio here or the plague. We're talking about relatively nonthreatening ailments.
"We're not dealing with such a serious health threat that it justifies $10.3 billion in expenditures."
Cramping recreation
It's only slightly easier to measure the effect of sewer problems on the region's economic development.
"If we don't fix the overflows, our ability to continue to grow, both commercially and residentially, is going to be severely limited," Roddey said.
Under a state DEP program, municipalities experiencing chronic sanitary-sewer overflows are banned from permitting new development unless they make at least incremental improvements to their sewer systems.
In the Alcosan service area, those development restrictions will disappear once the municipalities approve the consent agreements that have recently been fashioned with the federal EPA. But scores of communities elsewhere in the region will still have to deal with the DEP restrictions.
Less tangible, but not necessarily less troublesome, is the damage sewage contamination does to the region's reputation, to its desirability as a place in which to live, visit, play or work.
"Condoms floating down the river don't make for an attractive regional amenity," said Tim Collins, director of 3 Rivers -- 2nd Nature, the multi-disciplinary research project based at Carnegie Mellon University.
This morning, athletes from at least 14 states will compete in the Friends of the Riverfront Pittsburgh Triathlon. But event organizers have advised all the entrants that the swimming portion of the triathlon may be canceled because of combined-sewer overflows into the Allegheny River.
"It's disappointing," said John Stephen, Friends of the Riverfront executive director. "The reason our rivers can't be used for more contact recreation is because we're somewhat irresponsible about our sewage."
The sport of rowing has made a strong comeback in Allegheny County over the last 15 years, but many crew and kayaking trips have been spoiled or even aborted by sewage overflows.
No fewer than four sewer overflow outfalls mar the north bank of the Allegheny River across from Herrs Island, the site of the Three Rivers Rowing Association boathouse.
"After a heavy rain, there is this white stuff, it looks almost like detergent or foam, that comes out from the outfall right opposite the boathouse," Lambert said. "It smells so, so, so bad until you get by it."
Regular boating seems less affected, though.
Although the county's CSO flags have been flying during most of this year's boating season, they haven't stopped many boaters from leaving the docks.
But sewage in the rivers does have an impact on boaters, said Andy Talento, general manager of the Tri-River Marine Trade Association, an association of local boating businesses.
"Even though you can boat, you can't get in the water to enjoy it," Talento said. "You can't water ski and all those activities."
Fishing, like rowing, has achieved renewed popularity locally. But unlike rowers, many anglers are drawn to the very spots where sewage is entering the river.
Algae often grows on the smooth concrete of the sewer outfalls, attracting algae-eating shad, which in turn attract shad-eating bass and walleye. That makes for good fishing.
Mike Koryak, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers biologist, was shaking his head one day this spring after catching sight of a family fishing in McKeesport, just a few feet away from an outfall that was pouring sewage into the Youghiogheny River.
"It's a terrible irony that the best access [for fishing] at many points along the rivers is the combined-sewer overflows," Koryak said. "You just laugh."
If fish are congregating at those spots, is sewage really hurting the environment?
Sewage acts almost like a turbocharged fertilizer, and can cause an explosion in the growth of blue-green algae. Eventually, the algae can deplete the water of the oxygen that fish need, greatly reducing fish populations.
That might help explain the absence of fish in many streams in the region. On the other hand, fish have returned to the three major rivers in encouraging numbers now that fewer coal mines and steel mills are polluting the waterways.
Larger fish, such as bass and walleye, tend to migrate up and down the rivers, rarely spending prolonged periods in areas of concentrated sewage contamination.
Plant life, another indicator of the rivers' health, is abundant along the river banks, even near sewage outfalls.
That shows nature's adaptability as much as anything else. "Certain plants like to grow in areas with sewage problems and certain plants will not," said Jessica Dunn, a University of Pittsburgh botany research assistant affiliated with 3 Rivers -- 2nd Nature.
Federal hammer
So, to one extent or another, sewage releases are threatening some people's health, retarding economic development, hindering water recreation, and harming the environment.
But despite all that, political and business leaders wouldn't be contemplating a $3 billion solution for the Alcosan area and a $10 billion fix for the 11-county region if the federal government wasn't forcing the issue.
"I would like to say that responsible government leaders would have taken the initiative on their own. But the truth is, we probably would not have, given the politics and the cost," Roddey said.
The 83 municipalities in the Alcosan area have negotiated consent agreements with the EPA, and now they must sharply reduce the amount of raw sewage released into rivers and streams.
Roy Seneca, in EPA's Philadelphia water quality office, said the comment period on the consent agreements expired June 30.
"We'll take two weeks to evaluate the comments and make whatever changes are necessary, then mail them back to the municipalities. They'll then have 60 days to sign them," Seneca said.
"We're hopeful that all or most will go along with this. There are plenty of known violations and discharges out there, and we think this is the best way to correct them."
Southwestern Pennsylvania has little choice.
The EPA served notice of its seriousness in the early 1990s, when it made an example of Penn Hills.
For more than a decade, the eastern suburb had ignored repeated calls from state and federal officials to revamp its sewer system. Eventually, regulators determined the municipality lied about releasing untreated sewage.
Penn Hills received the first municipal conviction for an environmental crime and a federal court order to revamp the sewer system at a cost of more than $50 million.
The municipality has raised sewer rates to among the highest in Allegheny County to pay for the bonds.
A similar fate could await the other municipalities in Allegheny County if they don't bring sewer systems into compliance with federal regulations.
"We've got to do it," Roddey said. "Otherwise, we're going to be fined. If we don't do it ourselves, the federal government is going to come in and order it to be done. They'll take control of the process."
Tomorrow: Our leaky water system
Correction/Clarification: (Published July 17, 2002) An information box accompanying Sunday's front-page story about the region's sewer problems contained misleading information on the number of combined sewer overflows. There are 414 combined sewer overflows in Allegheny County, 279 of those in Alcosan's service area. The 279 in Alcosan's service allow an estimated 16 billion gallons of untreated sewage and storm water to flow into rivers a year.
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