How You Can Help
Please take a minute to tell your legislators to support legislation that will give Ohioans the right to know when our health is threatened from sewage pollution.

Please join our coalition of fishing groups, outdoor recreational associations, public health officials, religious leaders, and other interested entities to protect community health from sewage pollution.

Brief Summary
While more than thirty years after the Cuyahoga River was engulfed in flames and the Clean Water Act was passed to clean up America’s waterways, Ohio’s lakes, rivers, and streams continue to be plagued by pollution. In 2004, eleven studied communities dumped over 8 billion gallons of untreated sewage into our waterways, including Lake Erie. There are another 77 communities around the state of Ohio that are contributing billions more gallons of disease-ridden sewage to our waterways.

The discharge of untreated human sewage to our waterways poses severe potential threats to human health. Sewage commonly contains bacteria, parasites and viruses that can make people ill, as well as a slew of toxic chemicals. A recent government study found the Hepatitis A virus, salmonella and giardia in water samples taken from the Cuyahoga River. These pathogens can cause dangerous gastrointestinal diseases, and in some cases can even lead to death.

Ohio PIRG Associate Amy Gomberg speaks with Rep. Oelslager (R-Canton) at a press conference on sewage in our waterways.

The Clean Water Act calls for the elimination of untreated or partially treated sewage overflows into our waters. The law also requires that until sewage overflows are eliminated, sewage treatment utilities must monitor, report, and notify the public of all sewage overflows. Unfortunately, Ohio is trailing behind the other Great Lakes states, with no consistent requirements for polluters to report to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency or to the public when they dump disease-ridden sewage.

Ohio should follow the lead of states like Indiana and Michigan and pass legislation that requires consistent reporting of sewage discharges and that notifies the public about sewage discharges into local waterways. More.

Resources
Over Eight Billion Gallons of Sewage Dumped into Lake Erie & Waterways in the Lake Erie Basin in 2004 11/30/05
Sewage Overflow: Billions Of Gallons Of Sewage Contaminate Lake Erie 11/30/05
Monitoring Uncovers Dangerous Bacteria—Contamination Forces More Lake Erie Beach Closings 7/28/05
Sewage Warning!: What the Public Doesn’t Know About Sewage Dumping in the Great Lakes 5/26/05

Softball players suspect park is source of serious infections, The Columbus Dispatch 10/14/05
Study: 9 Billion Gallons Of Raw Sewage Flows Into Lake, News Channel 5 11/30/05
2 billion flushes of sewage, The Columbus Dispatch 1/1/05
Alerts urged for discharges of sewage, The Plain Dealer 12/27/05
Groups seek better reporting from Ohio, Toledoblade.com 1/1/05

Legislation in Michigan that requires sewage utilities to report to their environmental agency and the public when they dump untreated, and partially treated sewage into the waterways.

Indiana’s environmental agency enacted a rule to implement a public notification system for the state.