Mount Vernon Faces Fines From EPA As Sewage Flows Into Hutchinson River
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A polluted river, a leaking sewage system, and an ongoing lack of political will have left a Westchester County community in hot water.
As CBS2's Lou Young reported, the Environmental Protection Agency has threatened heavy fines against the City of Mount Vernon over the issue.
At the end of Farrell Avenue in Mount Vernon, the Hutchinson River runs alongside the parkway – and you can smell it before you see it.
In the light rain, a double torrent of gray-brown liquid gushes into the flow. What should be storm water runoff is actually raw sewage.
"The sanitary sewer is invading -- it's an invasion into the storm water," said Ralph Uzzi of the Mount Vernon Department of Public Works.
When asked where he thought the invasion was happening, Uzzi said, "We don't know."
Upstream from Mount Vernon, the Hutchinson River runs fairly clear. The bottom is even visible.
But farther south, the river is a fragrant, murky mess -- snaking its polluted way miles through the Bronx and ultimately into open water.
One Mount Vernon woman said the river smells "bad, very bad."
The open sewer runs past sports fields and shopping centers. The pollution represents decades of neglect – Mount Vernon, in fact, is under a directive from the EPA to clean it up.
First-term Mayor Richard Thomas said he is alarmed at what has not happened so far.
"This issue is not new," Thomas said. "It started in 2003. They reminded us in 2008. The city stalled in 2014, and now here we are in 2016, and the EP is very focused on this following Flint, Michigan."
Thomas wants a $2 million inspection of the sewer lines using mobile equipment that will snake through the system from the inside. The Mount Vernon City Council has refused to allocate the money, considering Thomas' approach too ambitious.
"I don't think we need to do everything at once. We need to space it out, time it out, and plan it out, because it's very expensive," said City Council President Marcus Griffith.
CBS2's Young pointed out that after 13 years, the people of Mount Vernon are literally defecating in the river.
"That's true," Griffith replied. "So what we said was that we need to concentrate on the areas that we need to work on first, and get those fixed."
Mount Vernon missed an Aug. 31 deadline that was set by the EPA eight years ago, which means the city could soon be facing millions of dollars in fines.
The EPA cited the Village of Port Chester with similar violations back in 2008. But those have been repaired, and it cost $15 million.
