Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Sewer Over Flow - part 1


Getting to the truth


And now to the topic of City Officials and the FACTS related to Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSO?’s). You?’ll not by my earlier posting of 9/5 that contained with my comments were various purchase orders initialed by City Manager, Joyce Bushman, about cost incurred by the City to correct raw sewage discharge into people?’s basements. That, of course, is one form of SSO?’s. I?’ve asked the webmaster to assist me with the posting of two of the pages from Mr. Garner?’s report that document his findings within OEPA records of another 80 or so days where the Pickerington Wastewater treatment Plant?’s flow exceeded their OEPA capacity. This will be listed under ?“Our Pages?” Sanitary Sewer Overflows #1 & #2. In so doing the City of Pickerington released partially treated sewage into Sycamore Creek



Mr. Garner?’s report page ?–9-

Related to Pickerington?’s annexation requests, their sworn affidavit?’s in these annexation hearings and the ACTUAL flow rates at their current facility.

In addition, the ?“Service?” Ordinance states in error, as will be shown below, that:

1. ?“A plant expansion to be completed by 2002 ...........?”.
2. ?“Current service is approximately 1.1 million gallons per day. The City sewer system has an excess service capacity of approximately 700,000 gallons per day.?”


These two statements have also been contained in past ?“Statement of Services?” Ordinances ( and supplemented by similarly erroneous swore Service Director
Affidavits ) as shown in the next table pertaining to the City?’s WWTP sewage flows.

Wastewater treatment plant

a. proposed plant expansion

The City?’s ?“Service?” Ordinance statement pertaining to the WWTP expansion is in error because, as of the date of this Report, OEPA has issued the controversial Permit to Install for the WWTP expansion. It should be noted that the WWTP expansion is so controversial that OEPA had to hold a public hearing on January 10, 2002. The subject of this hearing was the increased pollution that would be caused in Sycamore Creek, a stream having limited pollution assimilative capacity, by the City?’s proposed expansion of the WWTP?’s hydraulic flow capacity from 1.8 MGD to 3.5 MGD. Therefore, at this time, the City cannot guarantee that a WWTP expansion will even occur, let alone as to when such an expansion will certainly not be completed. Based upon the writer?’s professional experience, the expansion will certainly not be completed in 2002. To try to guess when any additional needed WWTP expansion would be completed would really be even more speculative.

Sewer Over Flow - part 2


Getting to the truth

Mr. Garner's report page 9 continued

b. plant sewage flows

The City?’s current and past ?“Service?” Ordinances have been in error regarding the WWTP sewage flow of 1.1 MGD and the available WWTP capacity of 0.7 MGD as shown on the following table. Past sworn Service Director Affidavits ( the current Affidavit was not available as of the date of this Report ) have also been in error regarding the then current flow.

The City?’s ?“Service?” Ordinances in 2002, 2001, and 1998 contained the same 1.1 MGD current flow despite a variation in annual and monthly average flows for the years and months in which the Ordinances were enacted.

In preparing this Report the writer reviewed past sworn Service Director Affidavits. Five of those Affidavits in 2000 and 2001, which are on file with this Board of County Commissioners, had the identical WWTP flow to three decimal places ?– 1.142 MGD. In fact, for years in which the Affidavits were submitted, the annual average daily flows were 1.2 and 1.3 MGD. The monthly average daily flows for the months involved were 1.4, 1.1, 1.2, 1.7, 1.5 MGD.

The actual average daily WWTP sewage flows per month in MGD for the years 1999, 2000, 2001, as reported by the City to OEPA, are shown on the following table. Also shown in the table are the maximum average daily flows for each month and the number of days per month that the average daily flows were greater than the WWTP flow capacity of 1.8 MGD. Also shown in the table are the WWTP sewage flows contained in the City?’s ?“Service?” Ordinances and the City?’s Service Director?’s sworn affidavits ( as made available to the writer ) that were submitted to the Fairfield County Board of County Commissioners for annexation purposes during a particular month. All flows are in MGD.

In the following table, the 9 ( 25 percent of the months ) monthly average daily flows tht were equal to, or greater than 1.5 MGD and 23 ( 64 percent of the months ) months that had a maximum daily flows equal to, or greater than, the WWTP flow capacity of 1.8 MGD are in bold.

These tables listed under ?“Our Pages?” Sanitary Sewer Overflows #1 & #2.

A Question

Hey, so the sewer & water fund is supposed to be supported by us users right. And our city is trying to give all these incentives to the developers and the stuff that Harding quoted to the EPA came out of these funds, then is the city ripping me off as one of their users?

Sorry, but I?’m not about to sign this posting and get my basement full of raw sewage!

Your question is your answer

I believe you've answered your own question. But, ''ripping off'' is only a nicer way of saying things like ''misappropriating'' or possibly ''illegal or unethical''.