Sewage allegedly entered waterway
HPD claims contractors at Kingwood plant ‘falsified’ records to appear in compliance
Contractors at a Kingwood wastewater plant doctored samples and records to suggest they adequately had treated sewage before it was released into a waterway that feeds one of the city’s major drinking water supplies, Houston police allege in newly released court records.
The sewage, which investigators said would not pass regulatory standards, entered Bens Branch, a waterway that feeds Lake Houston, according to a search warrant. Lake Houston is one of the city’s primary sources for drinking water, although all of that water is treated in separate plants before it reaches customers. Houston Public Works has emphasized the drinking water remains safe in Kingwood and throughout the city.
“(T)here is probable cause to believe that raw sewage and/or pollutants are being discharged into Bens Branch, a waterway, a direct discharge point into Lake Houston,” Houston Police Sgt. Patrick Morrissey wrote in an affidavit for the warrant. “Evidence described herein shows that lab reports and other reports have been falsified to indicate that these discharges were in compliance with State permits and the Texas Water Code, when in fact they were not.”
The document was signed by Felony Associate Judge Stacy Allen on Feb. 16, one day before environmental investigators searched the plant. Inframark is the contractor responsible for operating the plant.
The plant has been emitting an unbearable stench for the better part of the last two months, frustrating nearby residents who have flooded the city with complaints.
Miranda Sevcik, a spokesperson for Inframark, said the company did not release untreated sewage.
“We are committed to ensuring the safe operation of the Kingwood Central Wastewater
Treatment plant. We are working with the city of Houston to address the recent matter, but at no point was untreated sewage released from the plant,” Sevcik said. “We are cooperating with the city and other authorities in their investigation. We have also engaged the King & Spalding law firm along with technical experts to conduct a third-party investigation.”
Erin Jones, a spokesperson for Houston Public Works, which now is addressing the plant’s operations, said that department has concluded raw sewage did not bypass the facility entirely and make it into the waterway untouched. Substandard operations, though, did result in the release of wastewater that was not adequately treated.
“HPW has confirmed that due to Inframark’s substandard operation and maintenance of this facility, wastewater treatment at the Kingwood Central WWTP was not performing at the levels required by the facility’s permits and wastewater effluent was being discharged without meeting required levels of treatment,” Jones said.
The warrant outlines a litany of troubling findings: Someone at the plant was submitting clean samples to a laboratory at times when they could not have been genuinely testing clean samples of the wastewater, according to the warrant. And the plant’s operations director confirmed there were two leaks from the plant’s aeration tanks, on Jan. 10 and Jan. 24.
It is not clear if investigators believe the plant was dumping the sewage it claimed to have adequately treated, or if the release was limited to the two spills. Houston police
declined further comment Wednesday, citing the active criminal investigation.
“To say I’m extremely disappointed would be an understatement. To say I’m extremely ticked off would be an understatement,” said Mayor Pro Tem and District E Councilmember Dave Martin. He said he visited the site several times after residents complained about it, and he sent pictures of the “atrocious things” he saw to Public Works and police.
City workers first visited the plant on Jan. 31, when Greg Eyerly, director of wastewater operations for Public Works, found the plant to be “upset,” or not functioning properly. He said there was sludge spilled on the property grounds, and two key components of the treatment process, aerators and clarifiers, were malfunctioning.
Eyerly checked the plant’s lab results and found the facility was reporting
samples that indicated everything was fine, despite what he witnessed.
The city sent an investigator, Jeffery Farrell, to the plant the next day. He took a sample of the plant’s water after it supposedly had been treated. It had an E.coli content of more than 24,200 per 100 ml. The regulatory maximum in one day is 399, and the maximum allowed daily average is 126.
“The purported sample reported by Envirodyne the day prior had only 135 MPN/100 ml,” the search warrant said. Envirodyne is a laboratory that tests the samples at the plant. Busby Environmental is the subcontractor that takes the samples to Envirodyne.
On Feb. 2, Farrell found the plant’s auto sampler, used to take the samples that confirm the plant is following state regulations, was in complete disrepair. It was unable to take samples, and the temperature gauge was frozen.
Despite that, Morrissey’s affidavit states, the plant later reported a combined sample taken on Feb. 2, as if the sampler still worked.
“This is contrary to what was seen and photographed by Jeffrey Farrell on 2/2/23 as the sampler was frozen solid and could not have taken a sample,” the affidavit says.
Michael Reid, Inframark’s lead operator at the plant, later told police there were two spills from the plant’s aeration tanks, which clean the water using air and bacteria, on Jan. 10 and Jan. 24. The first was caused by a clogged drain, and the second by an influx of rain, he said.
“Spill reports by Inframark, LLC, were submitted to the City indicating the spills were remediated when in fact they had not been, according to Mr. Eyerly,” the affidavit says.
It is not clear who submitted the allegedly forged samples to the lab. Reid
told police the company knew there were freezing issues with the sampler and it would “be checked daily either by the sampling team (Busby Environmental) or the operator,” which is Inframark. A representative from Busby Environmental, the subcontractor in charge of the sampling, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Log sheets at the plant include entries for checking the sampler, and were among the items Houston police were authorized to seize in Friday’s search. Also included: the automatic sampler, physical copies of lab reports and documentation, any substances and samples at the plant, and copies of video surveillance and other videos.
The warrant also outlines the proper procedure for treating wastewater. First, the sewage travels through lift stations, or series of pumps, to the treatment plant. There, it it goes through bar screens that remove large materials like plastics, and then grit chambers that sake out solids, such as sand, rocks and pebbles.
From there, it moves to the aeration basins, large pools that use air blowers to create an environment in which bacteria can break down and consume the waste in the wastewater. It then moves to the clarifier, where solids can settle at the bottom and any remained floating materials are whisked from the top. At that point, the water should be clear of contaminants, save for microscopic bacteria.
That water moves through filters to remove any last solids, and the last part of the process involves treating those remaining bacteria with either chlorine or ultra-violet light. The Kingwood plant is one of two in the city that uses the ultraviolet light. After all of that is done, an auto sampler takes samples from the water that the operators submit to a lab, which reports the results to the city.
The plant’s “aeration and UV systems were not operating properly, which was evident due to the heavy discoloration of the wastewater and amount of solids and foam still in the disinfection area,” Morrissey wrote. That would be “a visibly obvious indicator to any trained wastewater plant operator that there is an issue with the aeration basin and that water is not being properly cleaned.”
The warrant cites several statutes that may have been violated. Section 7.147 of the Texas Water Code makes it illegal to discharge pollutants, and Section 1.145 makes it a felony to do so knowingly or intentionally. It also cites the Texas Penal Code, which makes it illegal to tamper with government records.