Brad Devries on the Lower Yough

The Youghiogeny River is renowned as one of the best white water rivers in the eastern United States. Thousands of boaters, anglers and families flock to western Pennsylvania's Youghiogeny River every year because of its outstanding recreational value. Sadly, you know when a river shows up on this blog it rarely means something good and as someone who loves to paddle the Yough I'm troubled to be writing about this. Last week, the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette reported that over the past year the wastewater treatment plant in Elizabeth Township has released more than 95 Million gallons of raw sewage into the river, sometimes six million gallons a day! And this is the first the public has learned about this issue.

For a treatment facility that on average treats less than 2 million gallons a day this is incomprehensible. "There's just no question this is a stunning violation," said Helen Humphreys, a DEP spokeswoman. "It really brings into focus the need to focus on proper maintenance and oversight of the region's infrastructure."

My colleague, and fellow Slogger, Josh called Three Rivers Wet Weather, a group focused on raising awareness and curbing the problem of sewer overflows in the Pittsburgh metro area, to talk about this awful sewage spill discovery. The public record and public notification is so bad that 3RWW, a group whose focus on sewage issues in Pittsburgh, didn't learn of this problem until the reporter from the Post-Gazette called them for comment.

Although the lower section of the Youghiogeny is not as heavily used as the famous upper sections, it is still a popular recreation destination. People fish in the river. Families swim in the river. Towns draw their drinking water from this very source. This is always a bad sign in heavy rainfall, but to see this during dry periods is completely outrageous. People have a Right to Know when illegal and copious amounts of raw untreated human waste is dumped into their water supply. There is no excuse for this rampant disregard of the law.

A couple of signs just won't cut it this time. We are keeping a close eye on this one. We all like releases on the Yough, but lets keep them flowing from the dam and not the treatment plant!