Troubled Broad River sewage plant could cost Richland big money

COLUMBIA, SC Richland County is looking at a bill of more than $1 million to fix a troubled sewer system with a recent history of polluting the Broad River.

County Council has called a special meeting Thursday afternoon to discuss the Broad River wastewater plant, a facility on Shadywood Lane that is owned by Richland’s utilities department.

Interim County Administrator Gerald Seals said Richland is looking at system improvements of $1.5 million.

Last year, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control fined the county $6,000 for a series of water pollution violations and ordered Richland to fix the system. The problems date to 2013, records show.

“We’ve got some issues that DHEC has found, and we are just trying to get ahead of them and get it fixed so we can be back into compliance,’’ County Council Chairman Torrey Rush said Wednesday. “We need to go ahead and get it done.’’

Councilman Greg Pearce said problems found by DHEC have “not been adequately resolved.’’ Pearce said the Broad River is in no substantial danger from sewage discharges, but “the equipment is faulty.’’

Rush and Pearce said they expect the council to approve spending the money to improve the Broad River wastewater system.

The Broad River, which flows into the Midlands from the Upstate, is a drinking water source for the city of Columbia. It joins with the lower Saluda River to form the Congaree and is one of the three signature rivers in the Columbia area. DHEC records show the Broad River below the wastewater plant has had problems in recent years with elevated fecal coliform bacteria levels. Elevated bacteria levels can indicate the presence of disease-carrying pathogens.

Troubles with the Broad River system are surfacing amid a public outcry over pollution from sewage plants on the lower Saluda. DHEC advised people not to swim in parts of the Saluda near Irmo this summer after a Carolina Water Service treatment plant sent poorly treated wastewater into the river at Saluda Shoals Park. Carolina Water also faces a fight to continue discharging to the Saluda from another plant at I-20.

DHEC officials did not provide a comment on issues surrounding the Broad River treatment plant, which is much smaller than Columbia’s expansive metro plant. But the agency released an enforcement order taken against Richland County in February 2015 over problems with the Broad River treatment system.

According to the Feb. 26, 2015 DHEC enforcement order, the wastewater plant violated discharge limits for fecal coliform bacteria multiple times from December 2013 through December 2014. Problems were noted in at least six different months, including “fecal violations” on Christmas Eve 2014, the order says.

At one point, the county spent $49,000 making repairs. The order says some of the county’s problems were related to power outages and power surges that affected equipment. A generator in the plant was unable to compensate for the power problems, the order says.

DHEC’s enforcement action ordered the county to submit plans for necessary upgrades. Among the priorities to be addressed were wastewater pump stations, manholes and broken sewage pipes. The order also told the county to develop a plan on how “operations and maintenance of the’’ system would be funded.

The agency told Richland County to provide a summary of work it had done to upgrade the wastewater system every six months until the issues were resolved. Failure to obey the order “shall be grounds for further enforcement action,’’ the February 2015 enforcement order said.

“If we don’t fix it, yeah, there are fines they can give you,’’ Pearce said.

This story was originally published August 24, 2016 at 8:40 PM with the headline "Troubled Broad River sewage plant could cost Richland big money."