By Rebecca Martin
A little over a year ago, Kingston resident and KC.org contributor “Wilbur Girl” wrote an exceptional piece on her “Environmental Focus on Kingston” series titled “Give me an “C”, “S”, “O”! laying out the city of Kingston’s troubled sewage treatment problems.
She writes, “On average Kingston receives 47.48 inches of rain a year, with May being the wettest month. This summer alone (2009) we’ve been deluged with roughly 17 inches of the wet stuff. While my friends are all bemoaning the loss of blight ridden tomatoes, I’ve been worrying about a problem that runs a little deeper. Yup, I’ve been thinking about combined sewer overflow systems (CSO’s).
Kingston’s antiquated sewer system is a CSO. They were all the rage and considered the newest and greatest in waste flow management along the eastern sea board following the Civil War. The EPA defines these types of National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Systems as “remnants of the country’s early infrastructure and so are typically found in older communities.” They estimate there to be roughly 772 CSO communities in the US today.
A CSO was designed to collect rainwater runoff, domestic sewage and industrial wastewater all in the same pipe. This slurry of toxic sludge is transported to a sewage treatment plant. Periods of heavy rainfalls or quickly melting snow exacerbate the volume of storm water runoff so that it exceeds the capacity of the system. Excess, untreated wastewater instead empties directly into nearby bodies of water – in our case, the Rondout Creek. Also, because of their age, CSO’s often fail or collapse at an accelerated rate.”
I’ve included the link to her piece in full up above and encourage you to read it as a refresher. Here’s why:
Please be advised that the Office of the City Engineer will hold a Public Hearing on Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 6:30 PM in the Common Council Chambers at City Hall. The hearing is for the purpose of discussing the recently completed Combined Sewer Overflow Long-Term Control Plan submitted to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on November 1, 2010.
All interested persons are invited to attend and express their views.
A copy of the Plan is available for review in the Office of the City Engineer, Monday through Friday between the hours of 8:30 AM and 4:30 PM.
Please notify the City Engineer’s Office twenty-four hours in advance of the Public Hearing should special accommodations be required.
The plan is available at the Kingston Library also.
What are Combined Sewers?
Combined sewer systems (CSS) are sewers that are designed to collect storm water runoff, domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater in the same pipe. During rain events, when storm water enters the sewers, the capacity of the sewer system may be exceeded and the excess effluent will be discharged directly to the receiving water. A combined sewer overflow (CSO) is the discharge from a combined sewer system that is caused by snow melt or storm water runoff.
I hope that Kingston will enforce a grease trap ordinance in their city as restaurant grease still causes 50% of all sewer overflows in the USA.
Annual costs to repair pumping stations and clean out grease blockages is an astronomical cost to taxpayers in every city in North America.
Grease Trap additives must be banned or prohibited.
Grease Trap Chemicals and Bacterias push the retaurant grease from the standard grease trap directy into the sewer where the graese hardens again.
The restaurant grease clings to the sewer pipes until the pipes are completely blocked.
google “ultimate grease trap” for environmental impact from restaurant grease as well as Best Kitchen Procedures for restaurants.