On April 24, 2023, Fall River officials, including the Mayor and Paul Ferlin, Administrator of Community Utilities, held a press briefing to address an "unfortunate accident" at the city's wastewater treatment plant that occurred on Saturday night, April 22, 2023. A 1600-amp main breaker, part of the 2000 CSO upgrades, tripped around 2:00 AM, leading to a combined sewer overflow (CSO) event. Approximately 10 million gallons of partially treated or untreated combined sewer and storm water were discharged into Mount Hope Bay. The discharge occurred at the headworks of the plant, prior to the bar screens, meaning minimal treatment, but was diluted by heavy rains.
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first of all I want to thank everyone for coming out today obviously we had a very unfortunate accident down at a wastewater treatment plant on Saturday night I think it went from like two in the morning till seven in the morning but for the specifics of it I'm gonna let Paul Ferlin open up this little press briefing uh Paul is our administrator of community utilities he's the one that's responsible for all
0:23of the water lines in the city of Fall River it's a heavy heavy burden but he does a great job and we'll let him answer some questions and release a little press thing excellent thank you very much uh everybody should have received the Press uh notification that I just passed out uh so about two o'clock in the morning down at a wastewater treatment plant we had an issue with the main breaker that
0:47fit into our wastewater treatment plant that's a 1600 amp breaker that feeds a portion of the plant the pre-treatment facility so that feeds our Barracks grit Chambers as well as other operational things within that portion of the plant uh so the breaker was taken out uh about two o'clock in the morning it was locked out on on a fault uh at that point our uh system started to uh back up and a
1:18CSO combined sewer overflow was created down at the wastewater treatment plan that is a permitted CSO discharge area down at our wastewater treatment plant so it was a permitted CSO discharge uh we estimate that about 10 million gallons of combined sewer and storm water was discharged into the Mount Hope Bay Area that was partially treated or untreated at this time we've spoken with uh
1:49regulatory agency dep and they do not feel that there has been any violations we did all the proper notification through our public CSO notification process to notify anybody that subscribes to our list that's all the basic information if anybody has any questions in relation to this uh so we're bringing in a private company to evaluate the breaka to make sure that there's no operational issues
2:20with the breaka uh so they'll go through that and make sure they're that there are no problems again uh you know this was an unexpected emergency that occurred with this breaka um so it's something that uh you know we deal with and prepare as uh as the time goes on no as I said uh it doesn't this is a permitted CSO outfall uh it's a zero zero one a is the wastewater treatment
2:50plant CSO outfall so it is a permitted so there was no violations do not expect any
3:04yeah so it was flowing down towards Mount Hope Bay um we notify uh with with all of our csos we notify within the first four hours of a discharge so through our uh automatic email system a uh an email was sent out to the uh to anybody that's required to be on our subscribers list that's all the Regulatory Agencies within Massachusetts uh and any surrounding communities shellfish Farm s yep so
3:42the up show there is a uh the um Dem Rhode Island DEM was notified again as you said it is Downstream from us so they were notified as part of our program are they were our shellfish beds within uh within Narragansett Baymont hope Bay I believe the Regulatory Agencies uh putting in their precautions as he fit as they would with any type of CSO discharge from a permitted CSO or a non-permitted SSO I believe that Rhode
4:15Island DEM has put a seven-day hold on a certain number of the fishing beds and I just saw a release from Mass Fisheries where they have put a 21 hold 21 day hold on certain fishing beds within their areas
4:37was able to meet yeah so our plant is Staff 24 hours a day seven days a week we had staff on site again so at about uh one o'clock or so uh 1 30 or so the breaker actually tripped out about two o'clock the uh CSO event started to occur um from that time frame we uh the breaker is a very large uh specific breaka it takes a specially trained
5:02people to be able to reset that an electrician so we had to get an electrician in a staffing electrician eventually came in and was they able to reset that breaker earlier early in the morning about 7 30 or so is when our plant went back to full normal operation say sometime after two o'clock it was pretty much identified that something how are we going to let the public know
5:29that in the next week they are unable to fish or shellfish we have signs down there and is there an order so the city is not required for any notification in relation to limiting the shell fishing or anything like that Dem I believe takes care of that in Rhode Island Mass Fisheries within uh within the Massachusetts equipment is it up to date was it up to date and what kind of expenses and who
5:58will pay those expenses yeah so the uh the main breaker in the whole entire MCC was part of the 2000 CSO upgrades down at uh wastewater treatment plant so the pre-treatment facility as well as the breaker is from the 2000 time frame 99 2000 so that is uh you know it's 20 23 years old now but it is still a good working condition it has been maintained in service throughout the years there is no
6:29permanent real permanent damage to our facility the facility again is designed if there is a Interruption like this to be able to have a overflow that does not damage our facility yeah again we've taken a precautionary measure just to have them come into uh service the breaker make sure everything is good with the breaker and then we'll be able to uh but that's a regular operational cost that we would incur anyways
6:57with DMS though any other agencies and how do you get the green light back it's time to reopen and be safe for people to use that area for recreation yeah again so uh DM we re as required we reported to Dem about the incident um they're responsible for uh managing the any of the shellfishing uh dep uh Mass dep and EPA are Regulatory Agencies and we've been working with mass dep
7:26they came down and did a tour of the plant this morning
7:36certain wind direction is anybody I have not received any complaints as of today of any odors coming from the plant today thank you being found on the waters nearby like this is just like you know some people because where I turn into the summer in time Rhode Island and you guys are in communication to making sampling being done for the water so we sample um certain areas within the whole entire
8:08city so the Totten River Mount Hope Bay some of our other CSO outfalls we sample on a regular basis there's no particular samples required or that we're planning to do in relation to this incident concern about any effects on the community from this incident or surrounding communities so again the the effects are uh you know there was a CSO discharge the standard Health uh affects you know that that
8:36could be in place the health issues that could be in place um due to contamination this type of contamination entering the water body is a sign outside the facility um is it like a state sign is it currently being repaired or they're currently being going on with the state can be renovations right now or yes so we currently have a uh we currently have an upgrade of that of the wastewater
9:02treatment plan ongoing this is contract two uh of uh of an overall seven contract plan for upgrades of the wastewater treatment facility the area that was affected is not under construction as part of this project uh we're updating right now dewatering areas in other areas of the facility but can you describe what exactly was in the water like what part of the treatment process that made it through what parts
9:33did that and like were there actual sewage solids still in it by the time yeah so it was right at the head works of the plant so the beginning of the plant where the Wastewater does enter the plant uh it was prior to the boss greens uh so there was minimal treatment uh if any to uh to the Wastewater as it discharged the Wastewater was uh extremely diluted due to the heavy rains
10:00that we were having at the time um so you know there was uh there was it was a mixture of combined sewer as well as as well as storm water
10:15uh not necessarily there was no water damage to the brake and nothing uh inside the panel or anything like that uh you know again we're going through to evaluate to make sure that there is no uh no issue with that breaker what will lead to that breaker just what will lead to that happening is there's something like you know a heavy amount of water coming into the system where the computer is just doesn't know
10:39what to do like what leads to that breaker clicking and causing the yep so there was one uh pump that we have a grip pump that was uh that tripped out earlier they reset the breaker we believe it may be related to the uh ground fault within that uh within that one pump it wasn't a mission critical pump but it took out a mission critical breaker well there's been a
11:03talk or not in the last few years Manpower ones who are does that have anything to do no so we were fully staffed at the plant at the time for a off hours storm and off hours storm like this we uh we have multiple operators on duty uh a maintenance staff on duty as well as other collection staff to be able to deal with issues within the system as well as other CSO facilities throughout the system
11:36this just so happened again with the size of this breaker you know safety is of the most concern for the staff if there was some type of issue behind this breaker when it was reset it could have been a knock flash or or you know damage inside the breaka so somebody properly suited properly trained to reset that break it needed to be to do that not not in this incident no
12:09no the weather plays a role but in general so the city we have uh the city had a total of 19 csos uh throughout the entire city uh we currently have 17 that are still active uh csos there are 15 that are untreated um during moderate to heavy rainstorms those csos are activated throughout the city mass dep has put in place a uh requirement for us to send out notification whenever that does occur so
12:43we do have that notification sent out it's sent out to a number of Medias as well as anybody who subscribes to our service gets an email within four hours of any of those discharges occurring yeah sure that could be any moderate to heavy rainstorm could go out one of the other 17 csos within the city yeah so so the the other csos uh did discharge uh throughout the rainstorm that occurred uh Saturday night into Sunday
13:26CSO stands for Combined sewer overflow the water means if you had a little to keep it on level that way it doesn't break anything is that what it's doing so yeah it's a relief during wet weather that discharges out into the bay um you know older communities like Fall River as well as a lot of other communities across the Commonwealth uh in in the United States have csos that are active
14:00essentially prior to uh the Clean Water Act water used to discharge right down into the rivers and Bays Clean Water Act was enacted in wastewater treatment plants were built and Wastewater was conveyed to those treatment plants during wet weather still our systems are not large enough to take the sewer in the uh stormwater storm water so there are still active CSO discharges in a lot
14:28of older communities Across the Nation
14:37correct so this was the circuit breaker that that tripped and caused the CSO at the wastewater treatment plant regardless of the weather I guess the region yeah uh if the breaker did not trip we would not have had a CSO at the wastewater treatment plant but we did have other active CS csos uh within the city those other active csos nope that was combined to sewer and stormwater is this signal that all the millions of
15:15dollars spent no this doesn't signal that at all you know the city has spent a large amount of money uh over the past 30 years on mitigating csos um you know you go back to uh the 80s and the 90s and look at the uh frequency of CSO discharges and the volumes and that has greatly reduced over the years and we're going to work with our uh with our federal Partners to continue to
15:45reduce those it's going to take many many years to do it in hundreds of millions of dollars yeah right now I think we are 300 million for our CSO projects we spend about 11 million dollars a year on CSL with about eight million dollars in operating costs just to run the CSO program so it's a very very expensive program and as Paul pointed out you have to understand that up the Taunton River all the way to
16:10Brockton they're fighting the exact same fight and that flows up and down at the same time so the river is much cleaner than it was a few years back and we don't want to have any part of it but this was just an unfortunate accident
16:31have come back rather than when you know I was younger and you couldn't even show this at all yeah you know 100 you know I think you take a look uh out in the bay in the river and uh the it's the water quality has greatly impaired uh excuse me improved um you know and that's because of work we've done in a lot of surrounding communities as well work that they've done
16:56thank you everybody thank you thank you