For nearly three weeks last summer, boat ramps in the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area were closed and the public was urged to stay out of the water. It was the first time the National Park Service took such an action in the park’s 46-year history. High levels of E. coli bacteria threatened public health and safety in one of the most popular urban national parks in the country.
Citing unsafe conditions, the Park Service restricted all activities in the river downstream of Fulton County’s Big Creek sewage plant in Roswell. Daily, the aging facility was releasing tens of millions of gallons of partially treated sewage directly into the river system, specifically Morgan Falls Lake. Sixteen miles of the 48-mile river park—a third of its length—were ultimately declared off-limits to kayakers, fishermen, boaters, tubers, canoeists, paddle boarders, waders, and swimmers over the Fourth of July holiday and weeks following.
Staff and visitors to the Chattahoochee Nature Center still remember the “scent” of sewage in the air for weeks last summer. Nantahala Outdoor Center was forced to close its operation in Sandy Springs during a highly profitable period when the outfitter usually puts 400-450 people on the river every day: a “serious revenue hit,” according to the company. More than one million people engage in some type of on-the-water recreation within the national park every year, which contributes over $175 million to the local economy annually.
One of the more troubling aspects of this emergency was Fulton County’s initial, and quite aggressive, denial that its Big Creek plant was the culprit, despite clear evidence. The paltry fine that the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) recently ordered the county to pay for violating clean water laws and causing the park closure further minimized the serious nature of this crisis.
An old sewage plant
Built fifty years ago, the Big Creek facility has the largest service area (Roswell, Alpharetta, portions of Milton, and areas of Cobb and Forsyth Counties) and the largest total flow of any such facility in north Fulton County. Over the years, the aging and increasingly problematic plant was expanded to its current treatment capacity of 24 million gallons per day—and permitted by the state to discharge its fully treated sewage into Morgan Falls Lake.
To meet growing demands, Fulton County embarked on a $300 million plant upgrade with new, advanced treatment processes and an expansion to 32 million gallons per day; the project broke ground in 2020. Operating under a joint venture agreement with Veolia Water—the county’s long-time wastewater management partner—the new plant is expected to come online later this year.
Data tells the story
On June 28, 2023, water quality samples collected and analyzed by Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (CRK) and two federal agencies confirmed releases of partially treated sewage into the national park from the Big Creek plant. The information was immediately reported to the county and the state. Fulton County officials said they didn’t know their plant was malfunctioning.
For weeks prior to that date, high levels of E. coli were found in river samples taken for the BacteriALERT Program: a long-time collaboration between CRK, National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey. Working to pinpoint the source, CRK and the Park Service tracked the problem to Fulton’s Big Creek facility. Testing revealed bacteria levels more than 300 times the EPA-recommended limit for recreation.
After three days of vigorously denying the pollution was caused by the county and claiming that CRK’s Jason Ulseth was providing misleading information, Fulton’s Director of Public Works David Clark finally admitted the obvious. His plant was the source of the pollution. A trip on board CRK’s patrol boat to view and smell the sewage seems to have finally convinced him. Later, Clark told the media that the problem was not a “spill.” He called the emergency a “plant bypass”—terminology that kept the incident off the state’s publicly available list of spills into state waters.
Coordinating with all parties and sharing data, CRK and the Park Service collected and tested water samples daily throughout the area of concern until the Big Creek plant finally met clean water laws: a heroic task. The public was finally allowed back into the river on July 19, 2023. Ulseth called the spill “one of the most significant sewage incidents and public health threats along the Chattahoochee in the past 20 years.”
State poses meager fine
In March, the Georgia EPD finally released a draft enforcement order regarding the failures at the Big Creek facility: $90,524 for 25 permit violations and the unprecedented closing of the national park. Unconscionably, only $20,000 of that fine pertains to the shutting of the park. That’s $1,000 per day for each of the 20 days that the river was off-limits to recreation and the river ecosystem and public health were in jeopardy.
CRK and others have protested this pathetic fine, as well as the state’s failure to require additional water quality monitoring by the county at the plant and downstream. Ironically, or not, the Big Creek plant had another release of partially treated sewage lasting several hours earlier this year—while EPD was inspecting the plant.
This fall, the new and improved Big Creek treatment facility is expected to open. What infuriates me and many others is the failure of Fulton County and the Georgia EPD to fully administer their legal responsibilities to protect the public and hold polluters accountable. Fortunately, the National Park Service is taking the incident quite seriously. It is assessing damages for injuries to the park system resources that it holds in trust for the American people and will seek compensation.
