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The Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation (“TDEC”) and Town of Oakland, Tennessee (“Oakland”) entered into an April 13th Consent Order and Assessment (“COA”) addressing alleged violations of a Clean Water Act National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) permit. See Case No. WPC20-0015.

The COA provides that Oakland operates a publicly-owned wastewater treatment facility (“POTW”) located in Fayette County, Tennessee.

The Tennessee Division of Water Resources (“Division”) is stated to have issued the POTW an NPDES permit. The NPDES permit is stated to have authorized the discharge of municipal wastewater from Outfall 001 to the Loosahatchie River in accordance with all effluent limitations and monitoring requirements set forth in that document.

Oakland is stated to have self-reported certain violations on its Discharge Monitoring Reports for the period February 1, 2018, to January 31, 2020. The alleged violations include:

Parameter Effluent Exceedances from February 1, 2018 – January 31, 2020

E. coli 7

IC25 Biomonitoring 1

Nitrogen, ammonia total [as N] 14

Oxygen, dissolved 1

Total 23

The COA assesses a civil penalty of $37,000. Further, the COA requires that a Corrective Action Plan be submitted within a certain date outlining what steps will be taken to eliminate the violations described in the document. schedule must contain specific dates to complete each step with final completion not to exceed 24 months.

A copy of the COA can be downloaded here.