Atlanta Faces Lawsuit Over Sewage Discharges into Chattahoochee River
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**ATLANTA** - A lawsuit against the city of Atlanta over sewage dumped into the Chattahoochee River is moving forward. On Friday, the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper - an environmental nonprofit working to preserve the health of the river - filed a lawsuit in federal court against the city for reported violations of the Clean Water Act. The group has been warning the city since July of their plans to sue unless city officials fix the R. M. Clayton Water Reclamation Center, Atlanta's largest treatment facility.
According to the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, R. M. Clayton is permitted to release up to 100 million gallons of treated wastewater every day into the Chattahoochee River but says that the facility has been "illegally discharging pollutants" for months. "We’re talking 80,000,000 gallons per day going into the Chattahoochee River that is only partially treated," Jason Ulseth, the executive director of the group, told FOX 5's Rob DiRienzo in July. The group says since March, they have detected high levels of E.
coli and other hazardous bacteria. "Daily testing conducted by CRK at the outfall found E. coli levels were on average 340 times higher than the amount recommended by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency for safe water recreation," the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper said in a statement.