Moundville Lagoon discharges into the Black Warrior (Hale Co.)Nearly 100 wastewater treatment plants have permits to discharge throughout the Black Warrior River watershed. Over the past three years we have assessed operations at the majority of these facilities in order to determine whether or not they are in compliance with their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits under the Clean Water Act. We found that roughly 35-40% of them were violating their permits.

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management is supposed to regulate these permits, since they are the agency that provides them. Unfortunately, ADEM is very lax when it comes to enforcement of permit violations. Often times a facility is allowed to violate its permit for years, discharging partially and untreated sewage without any fines. ADEM does not ensure that wastewater operators notify the public or health authorities when they spill raw sewage, even though permits they write require it.

We believe that raw sewage from collection line overflows and plant bypasses are a serious threat to public health that need to be addressed. That is why we are working with operators to clean up their facilities and taking legal action against those who refuse to work with us. People deserve clean water for drinking, fishing, and swimming and we aim to protect those uses.