Sludge Spills into Olentangy River
By Spencer Hunt, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
Jul. 22–Lime sludge from a Columbus water-treatment plant burst from a corroded pipeline and left a large, gray stain on the Olentangy River today.
The city uses lime to help remove dirt and aluminum sulfate from water so that it is safe to drink. Leaked sludge can irritate people’s skin, choke off life on stream bottoms and make it difficult for bottom-feeding fish to find food.
Today’s leak is the third from a city waste pipeline since June and the seventh since 2000, according to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. As a city contractor worked to contain and clean up the latest spill, EPA officials said they’re pushing city officials to end these problems.
“What we really need is to not have these spills occur at all,” said Erin Sherer, surface-water enforcement and compliance coordinator for the EPA’s central district office.
Rick Westerfield, the city’s power and water division administrator, said the city is looking at plans to fix or replace the pipeline that leaked.
“It also includes a program to monitor its condition and monitor it for leakage,” Westerfield said.
Lime sludge from the Warren J. “Hap” Cremean water plant on Morse Road, one of three city plants, is pumped through a 12-inch pipe to an abandoned quarry off McKinley Avenue.
Neither the EPA nor the city had an estimate of how much sludge leaked from the pipeline or when the leak started. Mike Dalton, an EPA emergency-response official, said the sludge was noticeable in the water from Bethel Road south to Henderson Road.
In spring 2000, at least 300 tons of sludge leaked from the pipe to the Olentangy for about a month before the leak was discovered. The city spent at least $300,000 on a cleanup.
Another sludge spill into the Olentangy that was discovered June 16 cost the city an estimated $160,000 to clean up.
And Ohio EPA records show a July 8 spill from the city’s Dublin Road water plant that sent lime sludge into a storm sewer that drains to the Scioto River.
Westerfield and Lynn Kelly, the city’s water-supply and -treatment coordinator, said corrosive elements in the soil are causing the Hap Cremean pipe to break down years sooner than expected. The pipe was installed in 1978 but should have lasted 60 years, they said.
Sherer said the agency hopes to meet with the city in the next two weeks to go over options to prevent future spills.
shunt@dispatch.com
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