ATLANTA – The environmental advocacy group Chattahoochee Riverkeeper filed a federal lawsuit Friday charging the city of Atlanta with polluting the river.
The suit follows a letter Chattahoochee Riverkeeper sent in July notifying city officials that they would
have 60 days to stop discharging illegal levels of pollution from the R.M. Clayton Water Reclamation Center or face legal action.
R.M. Clayton is Atlanta’s largest wastewater treatment facility, receiving millions of gallons of the city’s wastewater every day. The facility has been illegally discharging pollutants – including chemicals and harmful levels of bacteria – into the river in violation of both its wastewater discharge permit and the federal Clean Water Act, the suit alleges.
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper notified the city and the state Environmental Protection Division (EPD) last March that R.M. Clayton was discharging large amounts of E. coli and other pollutants into the river, threatening public health, wildlife, and the river’s ecosystem.
City officials initially attributed the facility’s failure to both heavy rainfall and multiple discharges of illicit substances. However, an inspection by the EPD revealed a state of disrepair at the facility, with problems at all stages of wastewater treatment as well as numerous safety hazards.
“The city of Atlanta knows that the R.M. Clayton facility is failing and poses a serious threat to
the health of the Chattahoochee River and all the people and wildlife who depend on it,” said
Jason Ulseth, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper’s executive director. “Yet the city has allowed operational
and maintenance failures at the facility to compound over time, failing to follow through on
even the most basic equipment repairs.”
“For months, the city has failed to alleviate very real public health and environmental concerns
at the R.M. Clayton facility,” added Hutton Brown, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which represents Chattahoochee Riverkeeper in the lawsuit. “Because Atlanta’s leadership did not step up and show they’re serious about fixing this problem, we had no choice but to step in and ask the court to hold them accountable.”
The suit seeks an injunction to prohibit ongoing violations of the city’s wastewater permit, as well as civil penalties, attorney’s fees and costs.