BY NICOLE L. TRIPLETT, WHITE OAK NEW RIVERKEEPER
On the weekend of July 18, 2015, the Maysville Wastewater Treatment Plant (MWWTP) experienced a washout of approximately 15,000 gallons of raw sewage into the White Oak River in Maysville, North Carolina. Our members, who swim and fish downstream, were not pleased. What’s more, White Oak New Riverkeeper’s investigation revealed that the plant had already received thirty Notices of Violation for exceeding fecal coliform levels, total mercury concentrations, and frequency violations, some dating as far back as 2012.
After meeting with Department of Water Resources (DWR) officials, it was exposed that a plant employee stated that DWR inspectors were 1) misled about the plant having a composite sampler onsite, and 2) misinformed about a tertiary system being in use. To remedy the compliance issues the state officials ordered Maysville to agree to a Special Order by Consent (SOC) in order to avoid the EPA’s attention.
In September of 2015 the same facility received a Notice of Violation, Assessment of Civil Penalty for Violations and a Notice of Intent to Enforce. The Town of Maysville paid a $4,000 fine to the NCDEQ for violations dating from October 2014 to February of 2015 ranging from discharging waste water above permitted flow to exceeding the permitted monthly and weekly discharge of fecal coliform. Additionally failure to properly monitor mercury and pH was also included. Unfortunately, fines did not remedy the ongoing issues of the town’s plant dumping untreated sewage into the river when it rained.
To fix the ongoing source of fecal overflows, the Town of Maysville agreed, on December 15, 2015, to a Special Order by Consent with the state to upgrade its wastewater treatment plant over the course of two years. However, when we reached out to the state seven months later, in July of 2016, we learned that a Special Order by Consent had yet to be drafted or presented to the MWWTP.
After that push, Maysville was finally presented with an SOC by the state later in July. Unfortunately, the SOC was lenient and broadly worded. In all it took nearly two years for the state to even order the town to fix the problem. This case provides just one example of all-too typical delays and lax enforcement that result from a department that has been left understaffed by budget cuts and leadership inclined to cut deals with polluters.