IndianaLocalNews

At least 10,000 gallons of sludge leaks into St. Joseph River

(Tom Franklin/95.3 MNC)

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — A South Bend official says a wastewater treatment plant worker’s error sent at least 10,000 gallons of partially treated sludge into the St. Joseph River.

City Utilities Director Al Greek says the error caused a sludge holding tank to overflow on July 22, spilling an estimated 1 million gallons inside the plant boundaries. He tells the South Bend Tribune that employees were able to clean up all but the 10,000 gallons before it spilled into the river.

Greek says heavy rains that night and an ongoing $13 million construction project at the plant contributed to the spill. But he says it’s an accident that shouldn’t have happened and was caused by operator error.

State environmental regulators are working with the city to prevent other spills at the wastewater treatment plant.

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2 comments

Laughable as usual August 1, 2017 at 9:44 am

Does anyone believe this story? Operator error? I find it interesting that it is even possible for “partially treated sludge” (Fancy way of saying untreated sewage) to go into the river. If this were a private citizen’s sewage going into the river DNR, The City and State would come down so hard…There would be fines and possibly jail time. When it is the city I guess it is just “operator error”. Apparently South Bend does not have any procedures or processes in place for operators to follow. Was this operator trained? Is there any consequence for this operator? Will OSHA be investigating? Maybe we can get a “Round-about installed so the “waste” can just do endless circles rather than going into the river. I’m sure this will just quietly go away with nothing being done or changed. South Bend is awesome.

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Ditto that August 2, 2017 at 12:45 pm

The government does not come down on itself much though.

This just happened at Niagara Falls…on a busy weekend because they had a work crew coming in on Monday so they flushed sewage into the river to get ready (like it couldn’t have been done earlier)…but hey, they had all the proper paperwork filed so no biggie. Unless you were on the Maid of the Mist and surrounded by sewage…gives their rain ponchos a whole new meaning.

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