Village of Bloomingburg Takes Corrective Actions to Address Sewer Plant Violations

An area manager with H2O Innovation showcases a bottle of completely treated wastewater before pouring it out into the Shawangunk Kill in Bloomingburg, N.Y., on June 27, 2024. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)

The village of Bloomingburg has temporarily fixed its sewer plant’s bar screen, which had been causing partially treated wastewater to flow into the Shawangunk Kill for months, Mayor Russell Wood said during a recent plant tour with concerned officials and citizens.

Orange County Legislator Robert Sassi organized the June 27 sewer plant tour, with officials from the neighboring towns of Wallkill and Crawford participating. He told The Epoch Times that he did so to add transparency to past plant violations and subsequent corrective actions by Bloomingburg.

According to Mr. Wood, the village became aware of the severity of its wastewater violations last winter, although it might have overlooked an earlier emailed violation notice from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which prescribes wastewater discharge permits.

The DEC told The Epoch Times that it had issued six violation notices to the village via email and mail since June 2022.

As of mid-December, the municipal sewer plant has self-reported daily to the DEC about its partially treated sewerage discharges into the Shawangunk Kill, averaging about 120,000 gallons per day, according to wastewater alert data published by the state agency.

A major trout stream flowing through Orange, Sullivan, and Ulster counties, the Shawangunk Kill travels through Bloomingburg before going northward for a few miles along the northern borderline of Wallkill and Crawford.

By state law, publicly owned sewer systems must report to the DEC within two hours—and to the public within four hours—of discovering untreated and partially treated sewage discharges.

Soon, Bloomingburg determined that the nonfunctioning bar screen, an automatic gatekeeper responsible for filtering out solid objects from raw sewerage, was to blame for the plant failure, Mr. Wood and H2O Innovation professionals said during the sewer plant tour.

Canada-based H2O Innovation has managed Bloomingburg’s sewer plant since it went online in 2014.

Village of Bloomingburg Mayor Russell Wood (R) during a tour of the sewer plant with government officials and concerned citizens in Bloomingburg, N.Y., on June 27, 2024. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)

According to an area manager with H2O, large solids—mostly wipes—passed through the broken bar screen and rendered the butterfly valves ineffective in the following treatment stages, allowing partially treated sewage to leak into the stream.

Initially installed in 2014, the bar screen system has had challenges keeping up with the growing trend of wipes in wastewater—most of which will not dissolve in time—that multiplied further during the COVID-19 pandemic as more people stayed home, according to the H2O manager.

By February, the village had the bar screen fixed, and it “has been on and running ever since with no issues,” Mr. Wood said during the tour.

Meanwhile, the village has bumped up seasonal hires during after-work hours to remove filtered solids in a timely manner to ensure the smooth operation of the bar screen system.

The village also plans to power wash second- and third-stage treatment equipment and implement new measures to prevent future disturbances to the butterfly valves.

DEC told The Epoch Times in a July 2 statement that its staff observed that certain repairs were made to the treatment plant in a recent inspection and expected that the village would continue making further improvements to bring the facility into full compliance.

Although the temporary fix worked, the village realized that the long-term solution was a modern bar screen that meets the treatment demand under the current climate, according to Mr. Wood.

Such a bar screen costs about $1.6 million, he said. The village has been seeking governmental grants for the project, and if nothing comes through, Mr. Wood said he will consider a loan to get it done.

Baskets of large solids filtered from the wastewater at the municipal sewer plant in Bloomingburg, N.Y., on June 27, 2024. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)

Town of Crawford Supervisor Charles Carnes told The Epoch Times that the village had made progress on the sewer plant issues but that more remained to be done, such as reviewing sewer rates in light of potential capital project needs and conducting a public education campaign about what cannot be flushed down the toilets.

H2O Innovation professionals suggested flushing only toilet paper, in accordance with a federal Environmental Protection Agency recommendation during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Town of Wallkill Supervisor George Serrano said during the tour that over the past years, the town had taken several measures to protect the Shawangunk Kill, including establishing an environmental overlay district and putting a moratorium on developments around the stream.

Eric Johnson, a water expert on the town council who will soon embark on a four-season study of the stream, told Mr. Wood that he looks forward to working with the village on the research.

Frank Coviello, the Basha Kill Area Association’s water testing coordinator, told The Epoch Times that he appreciates Bloomingburg’s corrective actions so far and that he will continue monitoring water samples collected from the stream and informing the public about them.

“I can assure you that I’m still going to be watching carefully,” he said.