US Sues City Whose Raw Sewage Flows Freely

MOUNT VERNON, NY — The U.S. Justice Department filed suit against Mount Vernon Thursday because the city has long failed to prevent raw sewage and other illicit pollutants from flowing from its storm and sewer system to the Hutchinson and Bronx Rivers and thence to Long Island Sound.

For almost 20 years Mount Vernon officials have refused to act to clean up the city's failing sewage system. That has meant raw sewage and its accompaniments dumped directly into rivers — and, very often, flowing into residents' homes. City officials have ignored several orders from state and federal officials.

The city's sewage system includes more than 195 miles of sewer lines, 3,200 catch-basins and 3,000 manholes. But since it doesn't work, as CBS2's Lou Young pointed out in 2016, the residents are basically defecating in the river, which runs like an open sewer through the city. Everyone can see it, and smell it.

“For years, Mount Vernon has discharged raw sewage and other illicit pollutants from its storm sewer system into the Hutchinson and Bronx Rivers," U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in an announcement about the suit. "Mount Vernon has consistently failed to comply with permit requirements intended to prevent these discharges, and has flouted EPA administrative orders intended to address the problem. Today’s lawsuit will protect the waters of this district by obtaining a judicial order compelling Mount Vernon to bring its sewers into compliance with the Clean Water Act.”

It's not the only pollution for which the city has been responsible but unresponsive.

• Cleaning Up Mount Vernon's DPW Yard
• More Pollution, Another Fine For Mount Vernon

The feds warned them last year that a suit was forthcoming over the sewers.

Since taking office, Mayor Richard Thomas has urged the City Council to get the city in compliance, saying that would be less expensive than if fines and lawsuit costs were added. Tuesday Thomas said he and Council Members Marcus Griffith and Janice Duarte had met with Justice Department representatives in Manhattan last week. They were warned that that millions of dollars in fines – up to $37,500 a day per violation – were imminent.

Every $500,000 in fines equals a 1 percent increase in property taxes.

In 2016, Thomas proposed a $2 million study of the system, using technology to snake through those 195 miles of pipes to find out where storm water is entering and overwhelming the system. But the City Council rejected that idea as too ambitious and expensive.

As alleged in the complaint filed Thursday in White Plains federal court, the Clean Water Act generally prohibits discharges of pollutants into navigable waters, absent a permit.

Many municipalities, like Mount Vernon, operate “municipal separate storm sewer systems” that carry storm water and discharge it without treatment into nearby waters. Because separate storm sewer systems do not treat the water they discharge, a municipality is required by its Clean Water Act permit to maintain a program for identifying and eliminating any sewage or other illicit pollutants that are flowing into the storm sewers.

The lawsuit alleges that Mount Vernon has failed to comply with these permit obligations and, as a result, has allowed raw sewage to flow into its storm sewer system, and then to be discharged into the Hutchinson and Bronx Rivers. Mount Vernon has also failed to comply with two EPA Administrative Orders issued to compel the City’s compliance with these requirements.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction compelling Mount Vernon to comply with applicable Clean Water Act requirements and an order imposing civil penalties for the city’s violations to date.

The State of New York and the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation are co-plaintiffs in this lawsuit, asserting parallel claims under state law.

“The City of Mount Vernon must take the appropriate actions to protect its residents and downstream communities from threats posed by raw sewage and other pollutants," EPA Regional Administrator Peter D. Lopez said. "EPA and New York State will continue to work together with the city to ensure that Mount Vernon understands how to fix the problems with its storm sewer system. In addition, we support efforts by the city to seek funding to assist Mount Vernon in getting the necessary work completed. This complaint gets to the core of EPA’s mission of protecting people’s health, and we will continue to work with the state and city to carry out that mission.”

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