Wastewater Spills into the Potomac: Clean up Requires Manmade and Natural Teamwork
Northeastern University experts said cleaning up a raw sewage spill into the Potomac River this February will mostly depend on Mother Nature. Credit: mpi34/MediaPunch /IPX
At the end of January, a major sewage pipeline collapsed into the Potomac River, spilling 243 million gallons of raw sewage into the water. CEE Chair and Professor Edward Beighley and Associate Teaching Professor Annalisa Onnis-Hayden explain the environmental risks as well as the processes that will clear the spill.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Cyrus Moulton.
Potomac spill cleanup relies on natural more than manmade processes
A massive raw sewage spill that dumped 243 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River this winter will largely be cleaned up by Mother Nature and Father Time, experts say.
Part of a major sewage pipeline in Maryland managed by the D.C. Water utility company collapsed Jan. 19, causing millions of gallons of untreated wastewater to spill into the river in the ensuing days.
“At the volumes of water we’re talking about, you really can’t put a dent in anything beyond natural processes,” said R. Edward Beighley, distinguished professor and chair of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University. “Time will sort of take care of itself.”
Officials with D.C. Water said crews rigged up a system for the sewage to bypass the damaged pipe, and there have been no overflows of raw sewage into the river since Feb. 8. Officials announced that the river would be reopened to some recreation this week.
The cleanup from the spill, meanwhile, is estimated to cost $20 million for repairs and environmental remediation, news sources including the Chesapeake Bay Journal, and E&E News reported.
That pales in comparison to the roughly $2 billion spent to remediate the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, and the $8.8 billion for cleaning the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. (The total costs of the disasters, including fines and penalties and insurance payouts were markedly higher, approaching $40 billion for the Gulf of Mexico spill).
Even though spills released less volume of contaminants – 11 million gallons for Exxon Valdez and 134 million gallons with Deepwater Horizon – experts said there is a key difference between a sewage and a spill involving something like crude oil or gasoline.
“Something like oil, you can do things to actually take whatever the spill was out of the system,” Beighley said.
In contrast, sewage mixes with water.
“Anything that mixes into the water, once it’s mixed, then you’re really at the mercy of the system you’re dealing with,” Beighley said.
But as with oil spills, sewage spills bring environmental concerns.
Since the spill involved “anything that’s coming generally from a house, meaning paper products to whatever’s in the wastewater,” on its way to a treatment plant, according to Beighley, this raw sewage contained high levels of E. coli bacteria. These bacteria live in your gut or gastrointestinal tract and some types can cause infections such as gastroenteritis or, if they get there, infections in your urinary tract or bloodstream.
“If we’re going to drink the water, or eat something that essentially drinks the water, that’s when people could get sick,” Beighley said.
So vegetables irrigated with the contaminated water, shellfish that filter that water, or ingesting the water directly from the river are all off the table, Beighley said, at least until the E. coli die off.
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