Portland fined over Salamonie fish kill

PORTLAND — Despite spending about $8.5 million on sewage treatment improvements since 2013, the city of Portland is being fined for discharging pollutants into the Salamonie River in violation of its Clean Water Act permit.

Last summer, the city discharged untreated wastewater and raw sewage into the river that resulted in a fish kill. It also failed to fax a report of the discharge to the state within 24 hours and also failed to provide the state a written report of the incident within five days.

"The dead fish smell along with the sewage in the stream made the smell overwhelming at times," conservation officer Rick Garringer, who waded in the river, said in an incident report dated Sept. 2.

In addition, from March of 2012 through November of 2014, the city's wastewater treatment plant effluent exceeded permit limitations for dissolved oxygen, ammonia, total suspended solids, chlorine, and E. coli bacteria.

While the state called it a fish kill, Portland Mayor Randy Geesaman told The Star Press on Monday that "a bunch of minnows" died.

However, an investigation by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources counted 22 dead catfish, 22 dead crayfish, 186 dead suckers, 216 dead bluegill, bass, darters and crappies, and 9,553 dead minnows/chubs/carp. The fish ranged in size from 1 inch to 12 inches.

The mayor said he didn't know any fish other than minnows died.

The city agreed to pay the Indiana Department of Environmental Management a fine of $8,250 and the DNR a fine of $2,504 for the violations. The penalties were paid out of the city's sewer operating fund.

"The final count of dead fish was very conservative, and I am sure there were more dead fish than we reported," Garringer wrote. "The (river) bottom was silted so bad i sank in the soft mud, making it impossible to walk. The water quality was further degraded by recent and ongoing digging in the stream by a large backhoe near the source of the pollution. It is my opinion that the pollution killed every fish until it reached the confluence of the Little Salamonie River. A healthy population of fish in this area would have resulted in more fish being killed."

Nearly two miles of the waterway was affected.

The fish kill was caused by a discharge from a Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) outfall. Combined sewer systems are older sewers designed to collect both rainwater runoff and sewage in the same pipe, according to IDEM. The rainwater and sewage are transported to a treatment plant where it is treated and then discharged into a waterway. During heavy storms or snow melts, the capacity of a combined sewer stem can be exceeded, causing it to overflow directly into the waterway.

However, the CSO discharge over which Portland was fined occurred during dry weather.

Since 2013, Portland has spent about $8.5 million on new sewers, including projects to separate storm sewers from sanitary sewers; on CSO gates and check valves, on treatment plant improvements, and on a storm relief sewer line.

During the past eight years, the city's sewer utility has gone from no debt to more than $7 million of bonded indebtedness, Mayor Geesaman says.

"We started out with 22 CSOs," he told The Star Press. "We still have 12 to go" after eliminating 10. "It's a very expensive undertaking. We have until 2028 to improve the treatment plant and the combined sewer problem. We have been on schedule and some of it we've done ahead of schedule. We are always talking with IDEM and trying to comply with everything. We are taking corrective measures and just last week submitted a compliance plan to them."

According to a Salamonie watershed project study, the watershed has long been impaired by E coli, an indicator of the potential presence of waterborne disease-causing bacteria, protozoa, and viruses that can lead to outbreaks of such diseases as typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, and cryptosporidiosis.

The Salamonie River originates near the Indiana-Ohio border in Jay County and flows to the northwest before discharging into the Wabash River. The name Salamonie was derived from the Native American word "O-sah-mo-nee," which means "yellow paint,” the study says. Native Americans made yellow paint from the bloodroot plant that grew abundantly along the winding banks of the river.

Portland isn't the only city causing CSO pollution. More than 100 Hoosier communities have submitted long-term control plans to address their CSO pollution, Geesaman said.

Contact Seth Slabaugh at (765) 213-5834.