Waste in the water? Fort Worth and Arlington trying to stop harmful sewer overflows.
As shoppers scooped up packs of toilet paper in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, city water departments across the country shared a similar concern: Would the toilet paper shortage lead to an influx of alternatives, including supposedly “flushable wipes” and Kleenex, and increase the number of clogs in the sewage system?
At least for water officials in Fort Worth and Arlington, the fear did not become reality. That doesn’t mean that both cities have not grappled with how to combat what are known as sanitary sewer overflows, a public health concern that involves the spilling of raw sewage into city streets or streams before it has reached a treatment facility.
Facing the double threat of fines and growing populations, water officials have taken steps in recent years to reduce the number of overflows. There are a variety of reasons why overflows take place, according to the Environmental Protection Agency: too much rainfall infiltrating the sewer system, sewer lines that do not have the capacity to carry the wastewater or a deteriorating system that has not been properly cleaned or maintained.
Because the overflows contain raw sewage, they can carry bacteria, viruses, parasitic organisms, intestinal worms and inhaled molds and fungi, according to the EPA. That’s why Fort Worth and other cities must act quickly to clean the area and take samples to ensure that harmful bacteria has been removed, said Stacy Walters, Fort Worth’s regulatory environmental administrator.
“All sewer overflows are a public health concern for us, which is why we have short term actions,” Walters said. “We understand the effects and that’s one of the reasons why we go through a lot of effort during the cleanup process because we’re trying to restore the environment as quickly as possible and without leaving any footprint in that process.”
Residents dumping large amounts of grease down the drain and flushing non-biodegradable materials are also among the top reasons that water departments are called to address blockages, according to city officials. In Arlington, 79% of the city’s overflows are grease-related, said Craig Gantt, the assistant director of field operations for the water department.
“In addition to those fats, oils and grease, it is those materials that should not be flushed down the toilet,” said Craig Cummings, Arlington’s water utility director. “Frankly, what should be flushed down the toilet is toilet paper and the other things should be going to a landfill. Keeping those materials out of the sanitary sewer system would go a long way to preventing some of the stoppages that we have.”
Overflows can have dire consequences for the environment, particularly when the wastewater spills directly into a body of water. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality fines cities for sewer overflows that pollute water bodies, measuring the impact in the amount of gallons spilled and the count of fish killed after the incident.
Last month, the TCEQ approved a $13,125 fine on Fort Worth for an October 2019 incident that led to the discharge of 3,500 gallons of untreated wastewater into a tributary feeding French Lake. Due to a collapsed sewer main, approximately 755 fish were killed before the city was able to clean the area, according to the TCEQ enforcement report.
“All sanitary overflows are critical and urgent,” said Chris Harder, Fort Worth’s water utility director. “One like this rises to the highest levels of criticality, and our remediation work was occurring over that weekend to ensure the area was cleaned as soon as possible.”
History of fines, high numbers of sewer overflows in Fort Worth
Fort Worth’s water department is no stranger to responding to high numbers of sewer overflows. In 2010, the city hit a peak of 525 sewer overflows, topping the previous year’s record of 522, according to totals reported by the water department.
Between May 2007 and July 2017, officials reported 3,936 overflows totaling about 57 million gallons of wastewater, according to a 2018 agreement between the city and the TCEQ. Most of those discharges were due to debris and grease blockages, in addition to some caused by structural issues with sewer lines and heavy rain that infiltrated the system.
“It’s really disappointing that they had that many incidents, but it’s not surprising because Fort Worth has for several decades now put an emphasis on rapid growth over sound, sensible infrastructure development,” said Lon Burnam, a former state representative and chair of the Tarrant Coalition for Environmental Awareness. “It’s almost inevitable that during that time frame, there was a really high incidence rate.”
Over the past five years, Fort Worth has been fined by the TCEQ at least five times for sewer overflows that resulted in killing 2,700 fish, according to the city’s compliance history with TCEQ.
Based on that history, in addition to other violations, the TCEQ rated Fort Worth’s compliance “satisfactory,” though the city’s 2019 compliance rating ranked among the worst when compared to other major Texas cities.
When it comes to the rating system, the lower the better: The top performers earn a rating of 0.10 or lower, while satisfactory performers receive a rating between 0.11 and 55. Fort Worth’s 10.10 rating was higher than Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso, though Arlington had a slightly higher rating at 12.06. Arlington has received at least three fines for sewage overflows in the past five years, according to compliance records.
While Arlington’s Cummings said he was unfamiliar with the rating system, Walters said the TCEQ rating, which is calculated each September, was inaccurate for Fort Worth.
“We realized that TCEQ has some violations in their compliance history that are not really violations of our permit,” Walters said. “We think we’re improving and I think we understand where our problems are. We just need to make sure that everything is being accurately reflected in TCEQ’s database as well.”
Maintenance, public outreach leads to reduction
Since 2007, Fort Worth has been part of TCEQ’s Sanitary Sewer Overflow Initiative, signing two 10-year agreements with the commission that require the city to document its progress on how it is expanding and cleaning sewer lines and constructing wastewater collection pipelines to reduce issues with overflows due to heavy rain, amid other long-term plans.
The last agreement, signed in 2018, has received a funding commitment of at least $375 million from the city, Harder said. He noted that sewer overflows have consistently decreased year over year since 2010. Fort Worth was successful in reducing the number of overflows to 134 in 2017, though that number saw a slight bump in 2019, when the city counted 172.
“We’re committed to rehabbing and replacing over 10 miles of sewer lines each year,” Harder said. “We have some of these big milestone projects that we have commitments to, but we also have our annual maintenance program that we’re committed to. With these new commitments, we anticipate seeing a further reduction in the amount of overflows.”
Currently, 104 municipalities and water authorities participate in the TCEQ program, according to TCEQ spokesperson Brian McGovern. Participation protects water systems from most formal enforcement measures for sewer overflow violations and allows officials to direct funding toward fixing sewer system issues rather than paying fines, according to the commission.
Arlington is not an active participant in the initiative, though the city does follow many of the guidelines outlined by TCEQ, Cummings said. Brad Franklin, the assistant director of engineering for the Arlington water department, said the TCEQ has allowed the city to implement projects and install new technology, such as smart covers to wirelessly monitor manholes and water levels, instead of paying penalties.
Both Arlington and Fort Worth have developed risk models to detect trends and predict where their field crews need to conduct more maintenance work before an overflow occurs. In Arlington, limited resources dictate that the city be smart about where it sends its expensive maintenance trucks, Cummings said.
“We’re seeing some improvement but it’s not going down dramatically,” Cummings said. “I think that’s because we can’t be in all places at all times. What we’re trying to do is find that happy medium between what is cost-effective and what is moving us forward toward driving that number of overflows down over time.”
Raising public awareness of how to help reduce overflows is a large part of the water department’s mandate as well, Harder said. Part of Fort Worth’s efforts have included launching a podcast, sending fliers with water bills and working with restaurants to ensure that their grease traps are working effectively.
“A great majority of overflows are preventable, but it has to be a collaboration,” Harder said. “We have a very robust public outreach program, and we’re meeting regularly to assess our operating performance and make modifications to our plan as we see opportunities. It’s one of the highest priorities we have as a utility.”
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
