The city of Florence has violated state and federal clean water laws more than 175 times since 1994, environmentalists said Monday.
The Oregon Shored Conservation Coalition says it will file a federal lawsuit against the city if it doesn't take immediate steps to keep raw or partially treated sewage from flowing into the Siuslaw River during heavy rainstorms.
The city's sewage-treatment plant can't handle the increased volume of sewage because of growth in the Florence area, group members said Monday at a news conference in Eugene.
"The city of Florence cannot continue to blatantly pollute our coastal waters," said Steve Shipsey, a spokesman for the environmental group.
Monday, the Western Environmental Law Center filed a formal 60-day notice of its intent to sue in federal court on behalf of the coastal conservation group. The lawsuit would accuse the city of repeated violations of the federal Clean Water Act.
Charlie Tebbutt, an attorney for WELC said the city continues to approve about 100 new residential and commercial sewer hookups a year, even though the sewage treatment plant has reached its capacity.
During rainstorms, too much sewage and stormwater runoff flows into the plant, forcing the city to discharge raw or partially treated sewage into the Siuslaw River just downstream from the Highway 101 bridge.
The city has an agreement with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to improve and expand its treatment plant within five years, but "that's simply not good enough, Tebbutt said.
Florence City Manager Ken Hobson acknowledged the problem of releasing raw sewage into the river during heavy rainstorms, but he said the city was moving ahead with expansion of its treatment plant. The city has hired an engineering firm to do cost estimates and design work, with expansion of the treatment plant scheduled to begin sometime in 1999.
"It takes a long time to get through the process," Hobson said. "We're probably at least two years away from seeing the facility up and running."
Preliminary estimates put the price tag at between $12 million and $17 million.
Tebbutt said the city should take steps now to reduce the amount of sewage flowing into the treatment plant, especially during heavy rainstorms.
If certain steps aren't taken, Tebbutt and Shipsey said, then they will ask for a moratorium on all new residential and commercial sewer hookups until the treatment plant is expanded or improved.
Hobson, however, said he didn't think the problem was so severe that it warranted such action.
"The DEQ knows what our growth pattern is. If they thought it was a real issue to be dealt with, then that would have been one of the conditions" imposed in the agreement signed last year, he said.