Dive Brief:
- San Jose, CA has settled a lawsuit brought by environmentalists and agreed to a $100 million cleanup effort for waste flowing into major waterways over the next 10 years.
- The conservation group Baykeeper sued the city last year over claims that it was violating the Clean Water Act by not doing enough to clean up waste and sewage in Coyote Creek and the Guadalupe River.
- Officials said they signed the consent decree to avoid a court battle and have already been working on many of these improvements. The city made no formal admission of fault.
Dive Insight:
Baykeeper highlighted a number of issues - including 780 sewage spills from 2009 to mid-2014 - and trash was near the top of the list.
As part of the settlement the city is required to reduce trash in creeks 70% by July 2017 and 80% by 2019, compared to 2009 levels. The city is also responsible for identifying 32 "trash hot spots" in the creeks and cleaning them once per year.
The city of Berkeley recently settled a lawsuit with Baykeeper over storm water runoff issues from a local transfer station. This is the latest in a series of recent waste-related Clean Water Act violations, including a St. Louis composting facility and a landfill spill in Hawaii.
