BANGOR, Maine — The city has entered into a second consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice outlining a continuation of the separation of stormwater and sewage lines that began in the 1990s.
The agreement stipulates that the city has violated the Clean Water Act by allowing stormwater mixed with sewage to run into the Kenduskeag Stream and the Penobscot River.
Bangor is not being fined for those violations, according to court documents.
Other parties to the consent decree are the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Maine.
“This settlement ensures that the parties will all continue to work cooperatively toward controlling the city’s wastewater and stormwater discharges to Maine waterways,” Curt Spalding, regional administrator of EPA’s New England office, said in news release issued late Wednesday afternoon. “The city has made considerable strides with respect to controlling its pollution discharges in the past, and we anticipate it will persist in its efforts in the future so as to improve the quality of life for Maine citizens.”
The new 65-page consent decree was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Bangor. It outlines what the city must do through 2031 to comply with the Clean Water Act.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Torresen must approve the agreement after a 30-day period for public comment.
According to Bradley Moore, director of water quality management and superintendent of Bangor’s Wastewater Treatment Plant, the second phase is estimated to cost about $30 million.
The first consent decree was in place from 1991 until 2010. Its provisions included the construction of the secondary sewage treatment plant at a cost of $16.5 million in the early 1990s, according to a previously published report.
Bangor fully complied with the terms of an earlier consent decree with EPA but had not fully achieved the goals set forth in the Clean Water Act or in a federal discharge permit issued by the State of Maine, resulting in continued sewer overflows and water quality violations, the EPA said in the release.
“We understand this is an important public health issue,” Moore said Wednesday. “We are doing our best to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act.”
According to the EPA, the consent decree imposes a schedule that, among other things, requires that city to institute operations and maintenance programs, conduct sewer system evaluations studies, construct capital improvement projects, and implement sewer system remedial measures and a more thorough program to eliminate stormwater contamination in the city’s storm drains.
The city’s sewage system includes five pump stations and approximately 2,667 manholes that give access to 165 miles of pipe, according to the complaint filed with the consent decree. It also maintains about 110 miles of separate stormwater pipes with about 4,000 catch basins and 300 outfalls.
About 25 percent of the city’s sewer lines combine stormwater and sewage, the complaint said. That has allowed more than 725 million gallons of untreated sanitary and storm waste to overflow into the Kenduskeag Stream and Penobscot River since 2010.
Since June 2010, Bangor has had unauthorized overflows of sanitary sewage and other pollutants into the stream and river 21 times, the complaint said.
Those overflows happen in heavy rains at eight locations, with six on the Kenduskeag Stream and two along the Penobscot River, according to Moore.
The consent decree is unrelated to an EPA decision in February, in which the federal agency told state officials that, in order to comply with the Clean Water Act, Maine must adopt tighter water standards along the Penobscot River to better protect the sustenance fishing rights of the Penobscot Nation Indian tribe.