As of Thursday afternoon, excess water from Hurricane Ian has caused at least a dozen wastewater treatment plants in Florida to discharge untreated or partially treated waste. These wastes can contain bacteria and other disease-causing organisms, as well as high levels of nitrogen and phosphate. According to the state Environmental Protection Agency.
Now that the storm is heading toward South Carolina, attention is being directed to areas that may be at risk.
Charleston, which is in the expected path of storms, has many industrial facilities in low-lying areas adjacent to waterways, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. These sites include plastic pellet operations, paper mills, concrete and asphalt mills, and scrap metal facilities.
According to Jeff Gisler, senior attorney at the South Carolina State Law Center, South Carolina does not require such facilities to submit stormwater data or plans to the state, so how prepared are they? “I don’t know if they meet normal storm requirements,” he said. “We are very concerned that our facilities are not ready for such a major storm.”
Scientists say climate change is making storms like Ian more powerful and harder to predict.
Further inland there are hundreds of farms, including poultry farms and other types of farms.
Blakely Hildebrand, a senior attorney at the Law Center, expressed concern that heavy rainfall could cause chicken manure, which is often stored in uncovered pits, to wash into waterways.
In 2018, flooding and heavy rains from Hurricane Florence flooded industrial land in Carolina. Over 100 manure lagoons flooded, releasing nutrient-rich pig manure into the environment. This may contribute to algal blooms.
Several wastewater treatment plants in Florida have reportedly discharged waste, but it could take days, weeks, or even years before a full assessment of the harm is done, he said. said Eric Olson, senior director of health and food at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We won’t know what the damage is until people take soil samples,” he said.
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 600+ hazardous material spills, in locations including several Superfund sites and sewage treatment plants.Soil samples taken by NRDC found two years after him in Katrina elevated arsenic levels on the playground.
Another reason the extent of damage is difficult to determine immediately is that there are many small infrastructures, such as domestic septic tanks, that are not monitored by the state.
Farms, golf courses, and city parks can also use large amounts of fertilizer, which can wash into rivers and streams, especially after heavy rains and floods.
Katherine Kling, an environmental economist at Cornell University who has worked on water quality for the Environmental Protection Agency, said the state is not monitoring runoff at these locations. “These are everywhere and many small leaks can have a big impact on the environment,” she said.
High levels of phosphate and nitrogen in fertilizers and sewage are the number one water quality problem in the United States.
Florida’s marine ecosystem has been particularly degraded by such spills over the past few decades. Last year, he killed over 1,000 manatees in Florida. This is part of the record number of deaths recorded due to pollution and algal blooms.
Before the storm hit Florida, environmental groups had raised concerns about an outdoor drainage pond associated with Florida’s phosphate mining operations. Florida, in an area east of Tampa called the Bone Valley, produces most of the country’s phosphate, a key ingredient in fertilizers.
Pools of these phosphate sites could hold hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of gallons of wastewater containing radon, uranium, radium and other carcinogens, said staff at the Center for Biodiversity. Lawyer Ragan Whitlock said.
At the center of the concern were Piney Point, a closed phosphate factory, and Mosaic New Wales Ponds, a phosphate manufacturing plant. Representatives for both operations confirmed Thursday that they had not detected a breach.