The Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (CRK) filed a lawsuit on Sept. 6 against the City of Atlanta for violating the Clean Water Act. The 34-year-old nonprofit, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), initiated legal proceedings in federal court for its continuing environmental disruptions in the Chattahoochee River.
CRK, a 501(c)(3) non-profit with more than 10,000 members, has spent decades educating, advocating and securing the protection of the Chattahoochee River and its surrounding water bodies.
CRK monitors over 200 locations on the river weekly through four Environmental Protection Division-certified laboratories. In those locations, they collect a pulse of the entire river system and can determine where pollution is and which areas are hot spots for disruption.
Federal and state standards say that all water bodies should have 126 colonies of E. coli or fewer in 100 ml of water. When CRK tested the amount of E.coli in the river in March, the colonies’ count was in the magnitude of 100,000.
The source of the E. coli was eventually traced back to the R.M Clayton Reclamation Center, Atlanta’s largest wastewater treatment facility. R.M Clayton is permitted to release between 80 and 100 million gallons of treated wastewater per day into the river. The state regulators who went into the plant the next day found major disruption at every single stage of treatment at the plant.
In a press release, Jason Ulseth, CRK’s director stated, “The City of Atlanta knows that the R.M. Clayton facility is failing and poses a serious threat to the health of the Chattahoochee River and all the people and wildlife who depend on it. Yet, the city has allowed operational and maintenance failures at the facility to compound over time, failing to follow through on even the most basic equipment repairs.”
The high counts of bacteria makes the river unsafe for civilians and wildlife. They can cause serious illness in young children, the elderly and the immunocompromised. CRK also found that the river’s oxygen levels are dangerously low, causing aquatic life stress.
“The oxygen levels, under the Clean Water Act, are not permitted to go under a certain point, and they did two times in July,” Ulseth said.
Following the discovery in March, CRK communicated several times with Atlanta officials and met with Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens. Ulseth recalled that they were promised site visits to the plants but never received an invitation.
In July, the nonprofit filed a formal complaint, notifying city officials that they would have 60 days to fix the discharge issue coming from R.M. Clayton or they would face legal repercussions. The 60-day notice is required under the Clean Water Act to allow for communication and potential resolution between the two entities. CRK followed through with the lawsuit after the city did not make an adequate resolution.
Senior attorney Hutton Brown of the SELC told Axios, “Because Atlanta’s leadership did not step up and show they’re serious about fixing this problem, we had no choice but to step in and ask the court to hold them accountable.”
This is not the first time CRK and the City of Atlanta have clashed in court. At the time of the founding of the nonprofit, the Chattahoochee River was dying largely due to aging sewer infrastructure that was essentially deserted. Sally Bethea, the founding executive director of CRK, filed a lawsuit in 1995 against the city for failing to control the discharge of raw sewage and harmful bacteria into the river.
CRK won the legal battle, and Federal Judge Thomas Thrash issued a consent decree, giving regulators more than a decade to enforce multiple projects and a $2.5 million fine aimed at the city. The projects saw a massive revitalization of the deteriorating environmental health in and around the river, upgraded the city’s drinking water system and began massive litter cleanups in 37 miles of streams.
Ulseth hopes to see a similar outcome to the current lawsuit.
“We essentially want to see a consent decree signed by a judge to put in hard deadlines and schedules for the City of Atlanta to not only bring this plant back into compliance for now but to make sure this never happens again,” Ulseth said.
Through this lawsuit, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper continues to serve its central goal of advocating for Georgia’s environmental health and waters.