FROM GLOUCESTERTIMES.COM
May 17, 2005
Treatment plant breakdown: Warning rules not followed
By Richard Gaines
Staff writer
Gloucester's clam beds remained closed yesterday, eight days after the privatized sewage treatment plant failed and 600,000 gallons of wastewater were pumped into the Annisquam River before notification to shellfishermen who went to work for a day's harvest of condemned clams.
Public Works Director Joseph Parisi said yesterday the clammers were not told of the diversion until hours after it ended because EarthTech, the California-based plant operator, had not been informed by the city of a written requirement to notify the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and the city shellfish warden of a release of wastewater into salt water.
The balky facility abutting the river on the west side of Essex Avenue is the only major municipal plant in Massachusetts not required to put its daily 5 million gallons of wastewater output through advanced treatment.
"They weren't aware of the protocol," said Parisi, who was reporting from days of meetings to sort out the incident. He and representatives of EarthTech met yesterday with Mayor John Bell.
Parisi said he could not explain why EarthTech had not been told of the protocol that was signed by city officials last September.
The memorandum recalled past diversions of wastewater to the river through a storm drain at the plant. The agreement required that the state and the shellfish warden be notified "immediately" of a similar event by the operator.
EarthTech last September was running the plant on a temporary contract after the previous operator was allowed to void its contract to settle a chronic dispute with the city. It signed on afterward to operate the plant on a $2 million contract.
EarthTech yesterday declined to answer questions about the failure to follow the protocol.
"It wasn't (followed)," said Bell. "We're all in agreement about that."
The plant was unstaffed due to only a four-hour scheduled shift Sunday, May 8, when what is believed to have been a power surge set off a chain reaction that disabled three pumps. They are used to push the effluent out a 36-inch pipe to an outfall well beyond the Dog Bar breakwater.
By the time the wastewater reaches the pumps, solids have been removed and chlorine has been added to begin killing toxic bacteria. The wastewater remains contaminated by bacteria, however, according to Christine Millhouse, the city's environmental engineer.
In addition, said conservation agent Nancy Ryder, the chlorine "is a biocide it kills things," and entered the estuarial system in the wastewater just as herring and striped bass were beginning their spring return.
Last week, Parisi said he had funding to add a dechlorination process at the plant.
In a written response to written questions from the Times yesterday, he said the money could be taken from a $2 million appropriation authorized by the City Council to finance a long-delayed effort to cap open pits of sewage and control noxious odors from the plant.
With the pumps disabled May 8, EarthTech staff, once contacted, faced a possible backup of untreated sewage into the harbor from storm drains unless the flooded pump room was cleared and the wastewater entering the plant at a rate of close to 200,000 gallons an hour was diverted.
Bell and Parisi praised EarthTech for bringing in portable pumps to divert the wastewater to the river. Bell said "a catastrophe" was narrowly averted.
According to a report to the state Department of Environmental Protection by Millhouse, EarthTech called the DPW to have a portable pump brought across town to begin the diversion process. It reportedly arrived at 8 p.m. but didn't work correctly, requiring EarthTech to call a private distributor for a second pump, Millhouse said.
She declined to answer questions yesterday.
The protocol identifies Millhouse, who is based at the plant, as the city official responsible for informing the Division of Marine Fisheries and the shellfish warden of possible diversions. She was on vacation May 8.
Parisi declined to answer questions about whether she was required to carry a receiver for emergency communications.
The diversion began to the river at 10:30 p.m., according to Millhouse's written report to DEP, and ended at 3:45 a.m.
The Division of Marine Fisheries and the shellfish warden, John Burlingham, were not notified of the diversion until after 8 a.m. Monday. Three hours earlier at about 5 a.m., Burlingham, oblivious to the diversion, had posted a notice on the shellfish hotline that the beds were open, and more than a dozen fishermen went to work.
By the time they returned to shore here or reached buyers in Rowley and Ipswich, word had gone out that the shellfish had been condemned as a precaution and their catches were destroyed.
Monday, Burlingham submitted a handwritten letter of resignation effective May 27 as part-time shellfish warden. The city has been without a full-time warden since the death last November of Robert "Stubby" Knowles.
Without a warden by then, the flats will be closed, according to City Clerk Robert Whynott, though Russell Jacobs, chairman of the Shellfish Advisory Board, said it is more likely the state will take over management of the 270 acres of working flats in the Annisquam estuary.
A job description for a full-time warden was posted Friday, according to the mayor's office.
Michael Hickey, chief shellfish biologist for the Division of Marine Fisheries, said the flats will not reopen until the state is sure the plant is reliable.
Parisi said the plant has been working fine since the morning after the diversion though it was running on only one of the three pumps. According to Millhouse's report to DEP, a second pump was put back on line last Thursday. The third pump was expected back tomorrow.
The incident at the 21-year-old plant last week was the second in the last three months involving EarthTech. In February, its plant manager allowed a truck driver to mix two chemicals in the basement, causing a fog of toxic chlorine and hydrogen chloride that led to an areawide evacuation.
