53 Herald - Lantern - Dispatch^ 3 |ulv '85

Consider Alternate Route for Effluent

By E. J. DUFFY VILLAS — What's the best way to treat and discharge sanitary sewage from county and township MUA plants on Lower's bayfront? Lower's plant off Bayshore Road here now discharges into the headwaters of Cox Hall Creek which flows into the bay at Town Bank. The county MUA plant discharges directly into the bay at Sunset Beach. By July 1988, however, both authorities are obliged by the state to connect with the county's Wildwoods-Lower sewerage system and its ocean outfall at Wildwood Crest. With miles of sewer lines, that's — i: 4_ J mn nnmillim, nntiivl o n Iroalmenl nf QPU/nPP With land dlSCharEC. of with land discharge,

estimated as a million — an expensive proposition for customers of the township MUA and the municipalities that use the county MUA's Sunset Beach facility (Cape May. West Cape May and Cape May»Point). Last month, township MUA members introduced a resolution (No. 85-A-42), to finance a joint study with the county MUA of alternatives to the state-mandated project. FINAL ACTION ON the resolution is slated after a 7:30 p.m. public hearing July 10 at the township MUA administration building, 2900 Bayshore Rd., Villas. If adopted as expected, the resolution commits the local authority to 35 percent, and the county MUA to 65 percent, of the cost for a "feasibility study of effluent disposal alternatives for the CMCMUA's Cape May service region and the LTMUA treatment facility." Metcalf & Eddy Inc. has been designated in the resolution to perform the four-month ' 548,599 study. It will be looking at tertiat^

and long-term discharge into the bay. George Marinakis, county MUA executive director, has said there's a good chance one of those alternatives will be less expensive than the ocean outfall. But Lower Manager James R. Stump, township MUA executive director, was skeptical last week. Questioning estimates for connecting to the ocean outfall, he said, "really, I think going to the ocean was the cheapest (solution) ..." WHY THE STUDY THEN? Because, he replied, "if you want to (discharge sewage into) the bay, you have to prove to the state that you're not going to affect the shellfish beds (nearby)." The primary purpose of the study isn't to find a cheaper alternative to the ocean outfall, he said, but to determine the environmental impact of land-based sewage I treatment and discharge, and of improved i methods for discharging into the bay. ' .That's where the township MUA propos-

ed to discharge treated sewage before its plant was built more than a decade ago. But the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) told the authority to use Cox Hall Creek instead. Since then, the DEP has banned discharges into the bay to protect local oyster beds; in 1958, 25,000 acres of them were closed to harvesting statewide because of pollution. Seventy-five percent of the local oyster beds were destroyed by a shellfish virus in the late '50s and the million bushel oyster industry that employed 2.000 people a generation ago was reduced to 20,000 bushels by 1960. and to 200 workers by 1977. EVEN SINCE THE township MUA began discharging into Cox Hall Creek, it's been plagued by odor complaints. Last year, they led to a DEP inspection of the plant, reports of high fecal coliform bacteria levels near the creek's bayfront discharge pipe and a county Health Department study that called the MUA's plant "the major source of the contamination eventually reaching the Delaware Bay." Warning signs against bathing were posted near the discharge pipe and the DEP told the local authority to improve its plant and lagoon treatment equipment. New signs replaced the old ones in May. but improvements to the treatment lagoons were not made. The township MUA is tentatively scheduled to upgrade and expand the Villas treatment plant this

fall. Meanwhile. Stump s chlorinating the creek. He and his predecessor as MUA executive director, former Lower Mayor Joseph Roop, have insisted that the fecal coliform contamination off Cox Hall Creek comes from other sources than the local MUA plant. High bacteria levels were recorded in the vicinity even before the plant was built, said Stump, who asked the county Health Department last month to try again at tracking down other sources of contamination. He also asked the department to perform a Fecal Coliform-Fecal Strep Ration test to determine the amount of human and animal waste bacteria in local bay waters. Preliminary reports indicate a higher concentration of animal than human waste, he said, expecting the final report to confirm that finding. That report's due from the Health Department tomorrow. ' See Coupon On I I Classified . | r >1 50* ! I ^ OFF J

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