Seneca 35,000 gal spill

[ERABBIT]

35,000 gal spill

UPDATE: Yates County, Village of Penn Yan, Sewage Discharge, Keuka Lake Outlet East of Fox's Mill Rd, Entered Seneca Lake

Issued August 24 2017 3:04 PM by Penn Yan (V) STP

How Soon

 

Responsive action SHOULD be taken immediately

How Severe

 

Significant threat to life or property

How Likely

 

Determined to have occurred or to be ongoing

Affects: New York - Yates - Dresden, New York - Yates - Milo, New York - Yates - Penn Yan, New York - Yates - Torrey

Summary

Expires: 8/31/2017 1:31 PM ...

Location of Discharge: Keuka Lake Outlet Trail, Penn Yan, NY 14527, USA

Additional Address Info: Storm drain adjacent to Reed bed

Name of Waterbody Affected: Keuka Lake Outlet, Seneca Lake

Description of Discharge: Treated Sludge from Secondary Digester

Potential public area(s) impacted:

The following public areas were potentially impacted:
Fishing Area:	Keuka Lake Outlet

Facility name: Penn Yan (V) STP, Facility ID: NY0029726

Date and Time of Discharge: Aug 23 2017 4:00PM

Duration of Discharge: 14.5 hours ended.

Reason for Discharge:

Other:

Valve left open after transfer

Volume or Rate of Discharge: 35000 Gallons  (Estimated)

Treated State of Discharge: Partially Treated Without Disinfection

Steps Taken to Contain Discharge: Closed valve, constructed earthen berm on paved surface to contain standing water. Installed earthen coffer dam in receiving ditch and Vacuumed remaining material from ditch with Vacuum Truck

For more information on this and other discharges, visit SPRTK

[bandrus1]

Sounds ****ty

[Sk8man]

That is a real shame Ed. I hope they fire the a hole that left the valve open.

[Frogger]

Yea something doesn't smell right in Denmark, you would think that line would either be capped requiring escalation to someone needing to open or an alarm that flow is happening. For it to run that long??? Minkia


Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

[ERABBIT]

If you have a drain valve and a fill valve for the tank seems like only ONE should be open. If they are automatic easy system to set-up. If they are hand operated then Les nailed it unless he/she was following orders. Then fire the boss....

[rolmops]

41 minutes ago, ERABBIT said:

.

 

41 minutes ago, ERABBIT said:

 unless he/she was following orders.         Then fire the boss....

It is very hard to fire political appointees,so even if the orders came from above,the grunt still gets screwed

Edited August 26, 2017 by rolmops

[Hopkinz]

Relax, although unfortunate, an accidental spill of 35,000 gallons of secondary digester sludge isn't going to ruin the finger lakes. That stuff is pretty much inert and probably trickled into the receiving stream over a period of time. It's highly unlikely a supervisor would order an operator to intentionally dump sludge into a receiving stream. Stuff happens at work. Unless the facility is a repeat offender I would be surprised anyone would get fired.

 

Hop

[Hillside]

Unfortunately when Penn Yan (I am sure other places too) gets heavy rains, sewage is released into the waterways, they do not have the capacity to handle all the water at once. 

[Frogger]

It's funny, in the private sector, violation of a storm water permit can result in 1000s of dollar fines including criminal penalties if intent or knowingly was determined a cause. I get it, the danger to health and environment is limited but a violation was a result, not from Mother Nature, but from ones actions. I could only visualize the DEC response teams response to "easy now boys" it's just accidental... I hope the downstream tenants are not impacted to much.


Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

[Hopkinz]

3 hours ago, Frogger said:

It's funny, in the private sector, violation of a storm water permit can result in 1000s of dollar fines including criminal penalties if intent or knowingly was determined a cause. 


Publicly owned utilities are subject to fines and criminal penalties for permit violations.

 

[ERABBIT]

1 hour ago, Hopkinz said:

 

You work for them ?

[Hopkinz]

1 hour ago, ERABBIT said:

You work for them ?

 

 

Negative