More on Local Water
A couple dozen residents showed up to speak with Alice Rubin from IDEM about the local watershed yesterday. More from the Pal-Item today: IDEM looking at E. coli levels
The watershed has three confined livestock feeding operations, but there have been no reported violations from those farms, Rubin said. Smaller livestock herds not large enough to meet confined feeding operation permit requirements may contribute to the contamination, she said.Richmond’s wastewater treatment plant discharges into the river, as does Brookville’s plant and the one at Wayne County’s Cloverleaf Mobile Home Park. Liberty’s wastewater treatment plant discharges into Silver Creek, which is also one of the impaired streams.
Richmond has four combined sanitary and storm water sewer outfalls that overflow during heavy rains, resulting in warnings of contamination of the river. There are three sanitary sewer overflows.
The paper also posts a map of the watershed. Of course, the local watershed shown is only part of the story. The trouble with water is it all runs downhill, so no matter how hard you try to clean up your own pollution sources, you still can get dirty water from those above you.
May 17th, 2006 05:55
No reported violations=no contamination from CAFO’s? Not saying that the combined sewer overflows, small farms, and wastewater treatment discharges are not part of the problem. Interesting how IDEM suggested that CAFO’s aren’t contributing ot the contamination.
As always, thank you for this information.