Rehoboth resident blasts treatment plant operations

Early in March, Rehoboth area resident Jeff Clayton began raising alarms when he saw new streams running from a field Sussex County uses for wastewater land application.

Clayton said he is concerned the Wolfe Neck Regional Wastewater Facility in Rehoboth Beach is overwhelmed by the amount of wastewater coming in. He said the plant's land-application sprayers are spraying so much water that it can't soak into the fields. Instead, it runs off, streaming into the nearby Holland Glade marsh and adjacent Lewes-Rehoboth Canal. The streams are dry when the sprayers aren't on, he said.

“The percolation has completely stopped out there,” he said. “It really looks bad. It looks bad from the very beginning.”

County officials adamantly denied failure of the treatment plant, but on March 18, a violation notice from state environmental officials documents runoff, caused, in part, by land application on a corner of one field. The treatment of the water at the plant complies with state permits, but pooling of water and runoff is prohibited by the facility's permit to discharge.

This is the fourth official violation notice issued to the plant since it began operating in 1996, said Sussex County Administrator Todd Lawson.

“All four were related to the same kind of issues: Extreme weather conditions in the winter time,” said Sussex County Engineer Hans Medlarz. “Every time we have one inch of rainfall, that is roughly the equivalent to the influent of the treatment plant in the winter time.”

The notice of violation states runoff into a marsh near the Wolfe Neck plant was observed March 3; after spraying was halted, the runoff ceased within three days. The notice says runoff was caused by a combination of factors, including a high water table, stormwater, partially saturated soils, topography, ruts and channels in the buffer around the field and the spray irrigation itself.

“[The operator] felt the ground had thawed enough to spray. I really can't tell you any more than that,” Medlarz said.

The 20-year-old plant, which serves unincorporated areas around Lewes and Rehoboth Beach, is permitted to spray treated wastewater on more than 300 acres of farm fields on leased state property.

Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control officials have ordered county staff to avoid spray irrigation in the area where runoff was noted, repair buffer areas with ruts and erosion spots and submit an erosion and runoff control plan to address long-term management of the fields and buffers by June 1.

Medlarz said staff was working to address the problem prior to the formal violation notice. He said erosion control measures are expected to be complete by the second week of April. No more spraying will take place in the area where runoff was found, he said.

“The violation is an erosion-control issue,” he said. Medlarz said he has instructed staff to inspect for similar problems at all five land-application fields used by the county's Wolfe Neck plant.

“This particular field is probably the most challenging field of them all,” Medlarz said. In addition to erosion control, Sussex County engineering staff are planning to improve buffers and install grass in concentrated flow areas, with the help of state employees and the farmer who tends the irrigation fields.

But it wasn't just the amount of runoff that concerned Clayton when he found the pooling and streams about a month ago, he said. He purchased nutrient test kits for the streams, and he said he has detected high levels of nitrates in those nearby streams.

Professional tests also detected nitrogen in the runoff, but in amounts that are well below drinking water standards, Medlarz said. The treatment plant is permitted to spray treated wastewater that contains up to 396 pounds of nitrogen per acre, per year.

Nitrates cause eutrophication in waterways, a process that can produce algal blooms and pollute ecosystems.

A Delaware Geological Survey report published in summer 2015 shows fertilizer and manure applications in eastern Sussex County historically increased nitrates in the groundwater. Improved management practices have decreased total nitrogen in the groundwater, but other sources – including private septic systems and land-application treatment systems – are adding nitrates.

Medlarz said it is impossible to measure the amount of runoff that occurred at the beginning of March or what percent of the runoff was directly from treated wastewater application.

Sussex County spokesman Chip Guy said county officials estimate there has been no environmental damage as a result of the runoff.

“At no time was the public at risk or the environment harmed, in our opinion,” he said.

Prior to the public release of the notice of violation, Lawson said county engineering staff and DNREC experts heard Clayton's concerns and checked out the plant's condition on multiple days at the beginning of March.

“There are no problems at the Wolfe Neck facility,” he said in early March. “There are no issues. We haven't broken the law.”

Lawson and Guy said March 28 that they stand by those statements because the treatment facility itself has had no failures; the recent violation regards only the runoff of treated wastewater mixed with stormwater.

“We strive to be in compliance, and the notice of violation even notes this is a facility that performs within design standards,” Guy said. “We are not going to stand by and allow for someone to make comments that are absolutely inflated and to the point of exaggerated to scare the public. The county takes wastewater very seriously.”

Clayton said he still questions the efficiency of the plant, as well as agency oversight of operations.

“For more than a month, every day I observed the plant, every sprayer was set up to get the water as quickly as possible to the Inland Bays,” he said. “I feel like the violation should have been for multiple days and should have tested the water on the day it was running. The worst thing for me was being called a liar by the county when I'm trying to do something good.”