DEM And City Disagree On Whether Sewage Entered Blackstone

The DEM confirmed on Wednesday that they still believe wastewater entered the Blackstone River on June 30, despite Public Works Director Sheila McGauvran claiming otherwise.

McGauvran said she had talked to officials from Veolia, the private contractor that runs the wastewater plant, on Tuesday morning and that they told her the wastewater did not reach the river.

The DEM sent out a press release on July 1 that reported an estimated 162,000 gallons of wastewater had spilled out of the treatment basins at the plant and that some of it may have found its way into the Blackstone River.

McGauvran said that the water spread out over the grass and a nearby parking lot. She said Veolia staff was able to act quickly enough to suck up the wastewater with large trucks before it made it to the river.

“162,000 gallons of water sounds like a lot of water,” said McGauvran, “But when it spreads over acreage, it’s not a lot. It was only like a quarter to a half inch high… it just spread out in the area, across the parking lot and the area around it.”

McGauvran said she did not view the spill herself and did not know if any other city official went down to the plant after the spill. She also said she didn't speak with DEM about the spill and instead has relied on reports provided by Veolia.

Bill Patenaude, principal engineer in the DEM’s Office of Water Resources, said that reports taken from plant operators at the time of the accident by his office indicate that the partially-treated wastewater found its way down a nearby storm drain as well as across a grassy area, and down a bank into the river.

“From the information that was given to us,” said Patenaude, “we estimate that there was a high probability that wastewater entered the Blackstone River.”

Patenaude said his office was notified of the spill on the evening of June 30, after it was closed. Veolia is required in their contract to notify DEM within 24 hours of a failure or emergency taking place. After finding out about the spill, DEM sent an inspector to the site on the morning of July 1. The inspector noted that morning that there was no longer any standing wastewater at the site. The inspector is currently working on a report about the incident, which will become public after it is finished.

Patenaude admitted that the 162,000-gallon figure used in the press release may be high.

“Because it’s a public health issue we don’t have the luxury of using something less just because we want to,” said Patenaude. “We have to use the maximum amount. Was it 162,000 gallons? Maybe. Was it something much less? Very well likely could have been.”

“But it doesn’t seem like it was zero,” added Patenaude. He said on Wednesday that Veolia has not sent his office any evidence saying that the wastewater didn’t reach the river.

Neither McGauvran nor Patenaude knew if there were any pictures taken of the spill.

162,000 gallons is not a significant amount of water compared to the 48-mile-long Blackstone River. For example, an Olympic size swimming pool holds about 600,000 gallons. On October 2, 2003 a 4 million gallon discharge of untreated wastewater entered the river from the Worcester treatment plant, and was diluted about a week later, according to the DEM.

The spill on June 30 in which a circuit breaker broke causing a pump to shut down for 45 minutes, which led to an overflow of the containment basins, according to McGauvran. The basins are about 100 yards away from the river, separated by a small parking lot, grass and a line of trees and shrubs.

Patenaude said that by now everything that has been discharged has been cleaned up by the natural process of the river.

“Wastewater treatment plants mimic the natural process of pollution treatment,” said Patenaude, who explained how water is cleaned over miles in the Blackstone River through biological processes and microorganisms consuming pollutants.

Veolia must submit a written report of the incident to the DEM within 5 days of the spill. DEM will then take that information, as well as the verbal information received within the first 24 hours of the spill and compile that into a full report. Patenaude did not know when that report would be released.

“Potentially, if we find any violations of regulations, then we have options to take legal action, or a letter of warning depending on the severity of the situation,” said Patenaude, “Or if it was an unexpected, unavoidable event and they took all the steps they could have humanly taken to mitigate it, then we’ll take no action.”

He said the investigation is being undertaken to learn more about wastewater spills.

“We always try to learn from every event, so we can share that knowledge with other facilities,” said Patenaude, “Our goal is no sewage goes into the waters of the state.”