PWSA enters plea for pumping sludge into Allegheny River

Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority isn’t allowed to raise its rates to cover $500,000 it will invest into a compliance program as punishment for seven years of illegal sludge dumping into the Allegheny River from its Aspinwall plant, according to an agreement with federal prosecutors.

U.S. Attorney Scott W. Brady announced the agreement in November, and on Tuesday the plea was entered in federal court Downtown before Judge William S. Stickman IV.

PWSA pleaded guilty to one count of violating its pollutant discharge permit and one count of making false statements in written reports about the sludge discharge, according to Brady’s office.

The illegal discharge sent rust-colored chemicals into the river from 2010 through 2017.

In a related indictment, former Aspinwall Drinking Water Treatment Plant supervisor Glenn Lijewski was charged with conspiracy to violate the Clean Water Act and two counts of violating PWSA’s pollutant discharge permit.

The case against Lijewski is pending.

PWSA is set to be sentenced on May 18, according to Brady’s office.

In the plea agreement, PWSA agreed to pay $500,000 into a self-funded compliance program, which will be monitored by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Brady said. The authority also will spend three years on probation, during which time annual reports and audits must be submitted to the Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency.

The agreement bars PWSA from raising rates to pay for the fine.

The sludge that went into the river is a product of PWSA’s treatment process that uses chemicals to allow small debris to clump together. The sludge is supposed to be pumped to Allegheny County Sanitary Authority’s waste treatment plant. Instead of doing this, PWSA employees would pump the sludge directly into the river, prosecutors said.

When the plea was announced in November, Brady said PWSA’s equipment to measure the amount of sludge had been broken for years and employees lied on federal reports to cover up for the equipment.

PWSA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

When the agreement was announced in November, PWSA Executive Director William Pickering said the violations were an “unfortunate product of decades of disinvestment” in the water system and its employees.

The federal case is separate from violations of Pennsylvania’s Safe Drinking Water Act that PWSA settled with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro last year.

In that case, PWSA agreed to hire an independent monitor and make $500,000 in donations to organizations that promote safety for those exposed to lead in old water pipes to resolve 161 criminal counts. Prosecutors found PWSA was negligent when it failed to tell customers about the impact of a pipe replacement program in 2016 and 2017.

Last week, PWSA donated $250,000 to the nonprofit group Women for a Healthy Environment as part of that settlement.